John Connolly is a veteran actor of the stage, television, and film as well as an active trade union executive. Not only does John describe the process of being a working actor, he breaks down the subtleties and skills needed between acting on stage and acting for the camera. Find out how to become and actor and, most importantly, learn how to live within the “gig economy”.
Transcript
My name is John Connolly, John Patrick Connolly. And I have been a working actor since 1971. And I'm also a Trade Union Executive, and in residential real estate. I did 10 years in the Regional Theater, 10 years on Broadway and Off Broadway, about 500 commercials; mostly television commercials. A lot of radio as well. And for the last 25 years I've been working primarily in Primetime Television drama and motion pictures, although I still do theater. On Broadway I did Big River which was the Huckleberry Finn Musical by Roger Miller and I played the awful Pat Finn, Huck's father. And I played the Lion in the Wizard of Oz. I've played Hamlet. I've played Winston Churchill. I have played a crow. I've played several women. I have done a lot of odd things in my life which I never expected to do. But working on stage is ultimately I think most satisfying for most actors because once a play is rehearsed, which is the quite exciting and really wonderful part of acting in terms of using your own personal tools to discover the truth in a play. Once the play opens the relationship is between you as a performer and the audience live every night eight times a week. And the theater actually happens in the weird space between the front row and foot lights. Where the audience's energy meets yours. And it's really palpable. You can really feel it. It's an extraordinary art form and I love the theater. So sometimes the transition from stage work to doing television or film is pretty rocky and difficult for people who are primarily stage actors. They've got great chops and bring a lot to the party, but the, the subtleties that are captured by film and digital recording, they're just, it's astounding. So the struggle is to in some sense do as little as possible with an amazing amount of intent and focus. So the skills are ultimately quite similar but it is a really different performance experience.
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