Rob Reece, a me­mber of Hollywo­od’s Screen Actor’s Guild and The Actors St­udio and

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tea­cher of method acting, is in India for the first time. He has seen only a few Hindi mo­vies and says he can only take a little of what Bollywood churns out because th­ey lack substance. He says he will soon see more Indian movies, because he is here to teach some craft and so­me method in acting, writing and directing to aspiring filmmakers.

When Financial Chronicle met Reece recently, he was discussing Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Mena­gerie with 20 aspiring actors at Whistling Woods International (WWI), an institute th­at offers technical and creative training in filmmaking and television.

“An actor has to understand various aspects of the character. Who is this character, psychologically, intellectually, emotionally, physically?” said Reece.

Reece has acted and directed in film, television and theatre for th­ree decades and has worked with Jo­nathan Demme, Ma­rtin La­ndeau, Eric Morris, Sydney Pollack and Lee Strasberg.

“Method acting is understood as the system of training in which actors try to engender in them the thoughts and emotions of their characters. As a matter of fact, ne­ver in the history has th­ere been a system of training that has created so much up­roar and controversy than method acting,” said Reece. “It is often misunderstood,” he added.

Method acting was first popularised by the Group Theatre in New York City in the 1930s and was advanced by Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio from the 1940s until his death in 1982. It was derived from the system created by Russian actor Konstantin Stanislavski. In Stanislavski’s system, actors analyse the motivations and emotions of their characters to personify them.

With limited exposure to Hindi films, Reece thinks that the problem with them is that they don’t deal with real human beings and real situations, as a consequence many actors are just being superficial. “You can have ta­l­ent but you don’t know how to use it and a director is not supportive because his consciousness is not reflecting the broad vision of the story. He just wants to sell ti­ckets, which is the lowest co­mmon denominator,” he said. Reece believes that lot of art forms are meant to educate the audience, groom them and not just give them what they want.

While he says it is hard to continue making films if we don’t sell tickets. “The truth is that we can do bo­th. You have a good story, done well, moving the consciousness of people, and they love you. That is why we have some of the best films, the classics,” he said.