Back Stage West/Drama-Logue: Did
you always want to teach?
Margie Haber: I started out as an actress but I was always
teaching at the same time. I love both. I taught speech at the Strasberg Institute and I
am a degreed speech pathologist and audiologist. Essentially, thats speech
therapist.
BSW/D-L: What made you decide to
give up acting?
Haber: I was up for the part of the
daughter on Maude. It was between myself and Adrenne Barbeau, and I was very excited about
it. I went on this major diet because the casting director thought I need to lose weight.
It was my first really big audition. I was so green. I was freaking out. I told myself I
wasnt good enough I. I completely believed that I was not right and not ready for
this. And I didnt have any skills to keep me form psyching myself out. No one taught
audition technique then. I had gone to some wonderful acting teachers, including Milton
Katselas and Lee Strasberg, and I love studying, but no one taught auditioning. I could
work on scenes and be great. But in audition, you sometime have to be good with three
seconds of preparation. That was not something I ever learned.
Consequently, I had zero confidence and zero audition
technique. I just had chutzpah. I was very available. Ive always allowed people to
see who I am and I am very connected to my emotions. I think I had an availability that
[Maude producer] Norman Lear liked. And I had comedic timing, and thats not
something that can be taught. If you have timing, it can get you someplace. You may not
always book the job, but it will get you on the running.
What I teach now is basically an audition cold reading
workshop for people to learn the skills I didnt have. Its good for theatre, TV
film, and commercials. I teach people how to break down a script in 10 steps. You see,
everybody knows that when you audition, you have to work on a scene, but many actors
dont know where to begin and where to end. I cannot tell you how many of my students
have been at auditions where the producer says, "you know, I really like what you
did. You try this other scene?" So there you are having to do another scene right
away. Obviously you want to have more time if you can, but I teach how to work on it
quickly and thoroughly if you dont.
BSW/D-L: Who have some of your
students been?
Haber: Ive taught Brad Pitt, Halle Berry, Stephen
Collins, Tea Leoni, Laura Innes. Heather Locklear used to sit on the corner panicking
because she hated auditions so much. Some of these people are wonderful actors but they
freak out at auditions. To me, auditioning is an animal of its own nature- its own
creation, its own beast.
BSW/D-L: Are you saying that
there are wonderful actors who are not good readers?
Haber: Thats right. They can be brilliant once
theyve had the material for a while but they freak out at cold readings or
auditions. And I teach auditioning, as well, not just cold reading. Its a whole
process, from coming in the door, taking the material and owning it. Its about being
able to marry the heart and the brain. The heart is the passion of auditioning, while the
brain is the structure. Most people have tremendous passion, but they have no structure.
I used to have a guy in class whom was severely dyslexic. He
scared everybody because he was so emotionally connected, yet he has no ability to read at
all. Then when I taught him structure, he loved auditioning. By the way thats one of
the most important things I teach to enjoy the process. If youre not going to
enjoy it, then find another profession. You may get three jobs a year, but you re going to
have 20 or 30 auditions. Why would you wait just, to enjoy the job when you can enjoy the
audition? And to me. The only way to enjoy auditioning is through confidence. The only way
you can be confident is by knowing how to prepare, and thats what I teach how
to prepare correctly and to be specific.
BSW/D-L: You use a camera in you
classes, dont you?
Haber: I always use a camera. I find that
actors have no thermometer. They think that theyre doing one thing and theyre
actually doing another. They will go on an audition and theyll say to their agent,
"I was fabulous," and they were probably awful. Or they think they did terribly
and they get a callback.
So my job is to help them realize what it is thats
coming across. Are their intentions clear? Are they physically free. I find it really
interesting that when people audition, they have no idea how free they need to be
physically. They stand erect, holding their sides like a foreign object or a tray they hold
by their belly button. They always keep the paper really low and they are afraid to be
physical, so their heads just go up and down from the camera to the page.
The opening beats of a scene should come from a previous
moment of some physical life, some connection to you body. You dont have to move
your body all around, just be physically aware. If, for example, you were doing a scene
and you are playing a doctor in an ER, if you are able to take a chair and put pressure on
it as if it were a gurney you were pushing into the emergency room, that feeds you and
makes you feel that youre there, instead of just doing a reading. Dont get me
wrong, I go not believe in props at auditions and I dont believe on doing any kind
of pantomiming unless it is necessary,
An actor named Michael Easton was up for a series called
Two. Michael came to me before the audition to try to figure out how difference between the
two. So we decided that the bead twin smoked. Before the scene, he took an imaginary
cigarette from physical work was enough to made him feel different from when he was
playing the good twin. Physical life is so important in auditions and people forget that.
BSW/D-L: Can you talk about your
10 steps technique?
Haber: First, let me say that to use the 10 steps, it
doesnt make a difference how long you have to prepare. If you have 25 minutes, you
can do these 10 steps. Of course, if you have two days, youll have more time to be
deeper in the work. I dont believe in winging it. I think you need to have a very
specific structure and then throw it away. If you think about the structure during
the audition, then youre not going to be present. You have to trust the work and
then leave it alone. And to really trust imagery and sensory work. People give that up
when auditioning. I cant tell you how many people walk into my office and say,
"You should see me when I do film or a play, Im so much better." Of
course, but they should do the same work for auditions, it just has to be quicker, and it
has to be thorough.
So the steps are as follows. When you break down a scene,
you have a system and structure. You always start with "Relationship." Who you
are to me? Are you my friend? Are you someone who makes me happy of sad? Am I scared of
you? When I am with you do I feel passionate? Its the basis of all. I believe that
actors should be detectives. If they can be detectives then they can dissect the scene
will. The first thing is relationship. And that changes. The relationship in page 10 us
going to be different from the one on page 40 or page 90. The relationships will change
and you have to track that. Acting is an imitation of life we change our relationships all
of the time. So start with that.
Then comes the "Intention." Know what you want
from that other person. That also changes and the ways to get what you want change. Some
actors walk in and they have very strong intentions. The whole scene becomes the
intention. I lose the personality, the relationship, the history, because theyre
hitting me so hard with the intention. Acting is like cooking soup; intention is just one
of the ingredients.
Then come "History." The history of the
relationship, the history of myself. Then, "personalization," which is, if this
happened to me, how would I fell? You use sensory work to make that clear for you. If you
havent studied sensory work, then you have to be very aware of your senses in life
and how they make you react. Then actors fears are replaced by characters
thoughts. If youre having characters thoughts. Theres no room for actor fears.
Next there are the "Character Analyses," which
are values, intellect, physical being, social, etc. then theres "opening
Beat" and "Transitions." And something I call "Core and Masking."
Actors are always going on about their feelings: "If Im not in pain, Im
not acting. I have to feel." Enough already with the feeling. Im so sick of it.
We dont walk around showing all of our feelings all of the time. If we did,
wed be put in a mental hospital. Youre got to cover it. Only once in a while
am I interested in seeing the pain and sadness.
"Humor" is number nine. It is so important. I
dont know why people think that they can leave that out. Everything on life has some
type of irony of humor. Even when people are dying, theres something humorous. There
are light moments in life, even if they are ironic.
The last step is staying "Moment to Moment." Just
throw it all away and be present, because thats where it counts. If youre not
going to be present, then a scenes not going to work.
BSW/D-L: Do you believe that
people should memorize for auditions?
Haber: There are a lot of teachers I know that teach
differently, but if you speak to casting directors, they agree that you do not have to
memorize every single word. I reach people how to use the paper. They use it by making it
a part of themselves rather than as if it shouldnt be seen. Its not a foreign
object. Its an extension of yourself. I give actors permission to stay on the paper
longer than they think thy can.
Thy do this through what I call a "phrase
technique." Thy stay on the paper for groups of words and come up for other groups.
Its very instinctual and very rhythmic. You chose moments to connect to you partner.
You feel when to do that. Theres natural rhythm. As long as you keep your
characters life and intention when you go down on the paper, youre fine. A lit
of people will have a strong life going on and then as soon as they put their eyes on the
paper, they lost it.
BSW/D-L: Do you find that
theres difference in teaching film technique to theatre actors?
Haber: Ive had theatre actors who,
in trying to adjust to film, say, "Oh, I have to be so small, so little, I cant
do anything." Thats not true, doing nothing doesnt do it for you. Doing
nothing means that youre not giving yourself permission to use your personality, you
just have to know the difference between film and theatre. Film is small, intimate medium,
so your voce is going to be smaller. But its more like x-ray because they can see
every truth or falseness that you project. When you look at them so closely that you can
even see their intimate thoughts. All you need to do is to trust your thoughts, trust the
intimacy of that medium and make containment an important part of it. Its not about
being smaller.
BSW/D-L: Lets talk about
your forthcoming book.
Haber: Im so excited about it! The
titles How to Get the Part
Without Falling Apart. Its coming out
in the spring, it has wonderful audition stories.
BSW/D-L: Can you share one?
Haber: Well, Gabriel Byrne, whos a
brilliant actor, gave me a wonderful audition story which Ill share. He said
"When I went to London to become an actor, I was out of work for a year and it was
very difficult that time for an Irish actor working in London to try and convince myself
that the situation would ever change. After six months I began to despair. And I began to
think that I would never, ever get that work. After nine months I was convinced that I
should never be an actor. And coming up on a year, I was thinking about all kinds of
employment.
"Then one day, I walk through a door and I got two
jobs, tow movies on the same day, because I had changed my attitude, I no longer was in
awe of the audition process or in fear of it, because I really didnt care at that
anymore. And I had learned a very valuable thing: to separate myself from my work. So that
if my work was attacked, it didnt necessarily mean I was a good person. I also
stopped depending on my work to make me happy or sad. I tried to work on myself outside my
work to try and make myself a rounded and interesting kind of human being. And that was
very important. Because actors are taught that the only thing thats important is
acting and getting jobs and so forth. And life also goes on, you know?"
You may contact Margie Haber at:
971 N. La Cienega, Suite 206
LA, CA 90069
(310) 854-0870