From Flower Vase to Film Emperor in Hollywood

Acting is an art with deep roots, tracing back hundreds, even thousands, of years, developing into what it is today after a long period of accumulation.

Generally speaking, people's understanding of acting involves using actions, expressions, and language to present a state and a character. This has been the common understanding of acting for a long time, leading to the traditional academic approach to acting—

Also known as the representational school.

The representational school is actually very straightforward. "Representation" refers to physical language, facial expressions, line delivery, and so on. Actors need to accurately understand emotions, understand characters, and understand the plot, and then present the state through precise control and accurate methods.

There are no shortcuts in this type of performance. It completely tests solid basic skills. This is the true embodiment of "one minute on stage takes ten years of practice off stage." Every actor must undergo systematic learning, long-term training, and professional guidance, from physical posture to appearance, all of which must be meticulously crafted.

Each actor has a different level of understanding of the field of acting and a different degree of practice in basic skills, resulting in completely different performances and the lingering charm they leave behind. Genuine talent is obvious at a glance.

Because of this, for classic plays in London's West End and on Broadway, audiences need to know the cast in advance before going to appreciate the work. Different casts can produce vastly different viewing experiences, and truly seasoned professional audiences often choose specific casts to enjoy.

Even with the same cast, the effect presented on different dates may vary depending on the performance state.

So, some people may wonder why those professional audiences continuously watch the same play, having seen it countless times, yet still going to the theater again and again. This is the reason.

In addition to the representational school, another acting method has risen strongly in the past half-century, even gradually becoming the mainstream in the industry. This is method acting.

In short, method acting means that the actor completely immerses themselves in the character's situation, lives in the character's state, incorporates their own understanding based on the character's circumstances, and then expresses the character's emotional state.

There are many reasons for the rise of this acting method, one of which is the full popularization of the film and television industry. More and more grassroots actors from non-traditional academic backgrounds are emerging. They have not received professional training and have not honed their basic skills, making it difficult for them to display emotions and states through techniques or methods, thus giving rise to method acting.

The most famous example in film history is Robert De Niro's performance in "Taxi Driver." In order to experience the real life of a taxi driver and to feel the historical background of the script's creation, he actually worked as a taxi driver in New York for three months, truly feeling the protagonist's confusion and madness.

This is a typical example of method acting.

The highest realm of this acting method is "no madness, no life," completely ignoring the boundary between reality and illusion, and reaching a state of selflessness.

Under method acting, a brand new branch has emerged: the substitution method.

Globally speaking, method acting and the substitution method are essentially the same, requiring actors to immerse themselves in the character and use the experience and emotions of the character to complete the performance; but the difference lies in the fact that method acting requires actors to follow the character's emotions one hundred percent, while the substitution method allows actors to replace the emotional object.

For example, a male actor playing a character who is required to fall in love with a man in a movie.

In method acting, the actor would be required to truly find a shining point in the character and then fall in love with him.

In the substitution method, the actor is allowed to use substitution, imagining the character as a woman and falling in love with him.

For the audience, they may not see the difference, but for the actor and the co-star, the temperature of genuine emotion is different.

Gradually, the substitution method of acting has become more and more popular worldwide, to the point where method acting has been relegated to the second tier.

The reason is simple and direct.

Method acting requires truly cutting into reality. If an actor is playing a serial killer, he can't actually commit murder, right?

Naturally, the substitution method of acting, which allows for the replacement of emotional objects, stands out, especially in Hollywood, where it is becoming more and more widely promoted.

Overall, for proponents of method acting/the substitution method, they firmly believe that the lives of characters are strange and varied, and no one can truly feel their emotions unless they have experienced them themselves. Otherwise, all armchair speculation is floating in the air and carries their own imagination.

Of course, the most important thing is the overall accessibility and popularization of the entire entertainment industry.

With the full rise of social networking platforms, there are more and more grassroots artists, and after the strong rise of short videos, the pace of traffic is getting faster and faster. Artists no longer have time to go to academies to calm down and slowly hone their basic skills. Traffic artists with no acting skills at all fully occupy the screen. In this context, actors willing to study method acting/the substitution method are already considered rare and valuable.

In the contemporary film industry, Europe promotes the representational school, firmly believing that actors need a threshold, even after twenty years. The United States promotes the substitution method. The film industry represented by Hollywood has fulfilled countless grassroots' dreams of becoming stars. Non-professional backgrounds, no historical heritage, opportunities are open to everyone.

Anson belongs to the latter.

In fact, Anson has been hovering at the door of the substitution method of acting so far.

"Friends," "The Princess Diaries," "Spider-Man," the three roles are different, but the same thing is that Anson extracts some traits from himself, and magnifies, concretizes, and visualizes them, and finally evolves into three roles; from styling to knowledge, cutting into the role, truly feeling the role.

However, it's just small-scale stuff, after all, the three works themselves are not that serious.

"Catch Me If You Can" is the same.

Although it's not that serious, still mainly lighthearted, the role of Little Frank Abagnale gave Anson a platform to explore.

To some extent, Little Frank's experience overlaps with Anson's. Anson can understand Little Frank's feelings, so he now needs to mobilize his memory, project his emotions and image onto Little Frank, and finally create a brand new image.

Whether it's method acting or the substitution method, for Anson, it seems like he's truly touching the door of the acting world for the first time—

It is precisely because of this that after entering the "Catch Me If You Can" crew, the first truly difficult scene is not facing Tom Hanks, but facing Christopher Walken—

The actor playing Old Frank Abagnale.