Los Angeles Magazine

February 1, 2004

BY: Amy Wallace

Los Angeles is an actor’s town. Some 40,000 actors call L.A. home. But more than their numbers, it is their hunger, their flair, and most of all their ability to face rejection daily and yet still reinvent themselves that fuel this city and make it unlike any other. Whether character actors or A-listers, newcomers or old-timers, the finest performers — like Patricia Clarkson and Benicio Del Toro — help us see ourselves in ways we never imagined.

Inside: How to survive a terrible audition, how to get Del Toro drunk, and how to turn Clarkson on. Click to continue »

March 1, 2003

BY: Amy Wallace

THE OTHER DAY, KATHY BATES WAS STANDING with a friend on a street corner in Beverly Hills when a stranger offered an appraisal of her hot body.

“This guy said, ‘I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but you have really great nipples!’” Bates says, delighted. “I’m over 50. I’m overweight. I was never the Twiggy type. I just laughed hysterically before I could think to say, ‘Gee, would you like to take us out for a drink?’”

At this, Bates throws back her head and lets out one hell of a laugh — warm and rolling. Ever since she stepped naked into a hot tub with Jack Nicholson in About Schmidt, Bates has gained something she’s never had before as a film actress: sex appeal. Click to continue »

Los Angeles Magazine / March 1, 2001

BY: Amy Wallace

ALEC GUINNESS USED to say that he built his characters from the shoes up. Laurence Olivier began with the nose often reshaping it with putty. Al Pacino insisted on the elegant camel-hair coat he wore in The Godfather, Part II. Externals matter, he explained.

BUT WHAT OF THE INTERNALS — the invisible tools an actor uses to make the made-up real? Compared with the surface details, the inner workings are hard to parse. Some actors fear that to deconstruct their talent is to risk its loss. Many clam up when asked how they do it. Or worse, they talk in gauzy platitudes.

WE DECIDED TO SPEAK TO actors about not their own work but the work of others. We asked Joan Allen and Ed Harris — who just turned in what many believe are their finest film performances — to name a few movie scenes that have affected them. Then we popped the scenes into a VCR and let them talk.

Click to continue »