Original subtitles

Leanne, what exactly do you do for a

living?

Let them see what they've done.

I was just trying to be perfect like

you.

Just take my picture.

Good morning.

He's open the door.

Hello, stranger.

I've been working for 25 years luckily

and I've gotten to see um some great

people and how they work and pick things

up from them. I've gotten to learn from

a lot of wonderful directors. I've kind

of pieced everything I've learned

together, things that work for me,

things that I've seen other people do,

things that I've made up to help myself.

It's sort of like having a like a bag of

tricks that I've assembled or bag of

helpful tools that I've assembled and

not necessarily something that's like

this is the procedure, this is the

process that I have to do every single

time. We'll talk about the ways you can

do preparation for your character. The

way you can map out your character's

journey, the way you can think about

your character's relationships to other

roles in the film, the way you relate to

your director, the way you audition, the

way you do green screen, the way you can

use your physicality to affect a

character, and also just mainly how you

can create your own set of tools and

your own influences so that you can

uniquely do your job.

I'm Natalie Portman and this is my

master class.

Because I started so young, I first of

all understood that no one expected me

to have a lot of knowledge or have a lot

of uh technique. Um, which allowed me to

always feel like I was learning and

continue. Now, I still feel like it's

okay for me to be taking in something

new, a new technique, a new process, a

new idea of how to work. I think that

everyone around you is a potential

teacher and you can get so much from

when you see someone doing something you

like of meshing it into what you do.

Also, starting really young, I think I

learned that making mistakes is not just

okay, it's the best thing. And the

biggest thing is just not to be afraid.

You can't be afraid. You can't be

self-conscious. You can't be

embarrassed. The whole point is to try

things and just make it all about

exploring, exploring yourself, exploring

the inner lives of other people and um

finding the joy in that.

Your role as an actor is to try and

understand your character and what your

character goes through and what your

character is within the film as a whole.

I like to take my script sometimes,

choose the just the scenes that I'm in

and make a chronological sort of list of

when the scenes happen in time. So I

have a sort of timeline of my character.

And of course, a lot of movies don't

happen in sequence. A lot of scripts

don't happen in sequence. Um, so putting

them in chronological order so you can

kind of understand when things happen.

And then you can kind of choose moments

and name moments specifically when there

is a shift, when there's a change in the

character. And you can try and find one

large shift over the movie. Like if you

had to say what change this character

undergoes from the beginning to the end

of the movie or multiple changes, what

are the overarching changes and then

what are the steps in those changes that

you can name like this is the scene

where she finds her voice for the first

time. This is the scene where she

rejects her uh parents for the first

time and then you see this overall shift

from girl to woman. Also, it's important

to only talk about the scenes that

you're in because your character doesn't

know what's happening when they're not

there. So, if two other characters are

plotting about your character and your

character doesn't know, you shouldn't be

including that in your in your arc.

Again, not every story is conducive to

this kind of work. Sometimes

there isn't a change in a character.

Sometimes it's like a character piece

and you're just kind of presenting who

this person is and they're not changing.

They're the same throughout and this is

irrelevant in terms of,

you know, them changing as a person. But

it can help give you a kind of map of

what happens to the character, what the

character is doing, how you can show

different sides, and how you can have

variations so you're not just watching

the same thing for 2 hours.

You need to look at your character

in the way they see themselves,

in the way

other people see them, in the way they

know other people see them, in the way

they want other people to see them, how

they are with different people. Because

we're all different in different

situations with different people. We

play different roles in our own lives.

You're different with your boyfriend

than you are with your mom than you are

with your kid than you are with your

friend than you are with a stranger. If

there are three or four main

relationships that my character has in

the movie,

I will sort of create different pages

for for them in my in my notebook that

will be this is my relationship with

this character, this is my relationship

with that, this is my relationship with

this person. and think of all of the

different elements that go into a

relationship and the feelings towards

each other and and the specific dynamics

of that relationship because I think

that's a really um important way to to

find nuance in in a character.

The more details about a character's

psyche, the better, and the more

specific and the more unusual, because a

lot of the things that go through our

minds are not just like the big category

classifications that we would normally

put on a person. like that. They're

upbeat or they're, you know, pessimistic

or you they're they're they're really um

focused and and serious or they're very

like freewilling and loosey goosey. It's

more specific. What is the thing that

really upsets them or what's their like

pet peeve? What's their what's the thing

that scares them the most? um what are

the kinds of people that they're

attracted to? What is their desire?

Desire is kind of like at the root of

everything.

What do what do they desire? What gives

them pleasure? Um and and and finding

details like that give you very specific

insights that I think give you a key

into a personality.

um versus, oh, she's a very stuckup

character or she's a very rigid person

or she's an alcoholic. Those kind of

general categories aren't as helpful as

finding the very specific there's only

one person like this kind of um details.

You need to be able to step into any

character's shoes and and not judge

them. You need to be able to really

think the way they do. And I think most

people don't define themselves as bad

people. So even if they're doing bad

things, to them it feels justified. You

need to find reasons for for all the

things that you do in the story, even if

the things in the story are not things

that you would do in real life. And if

you really can't get to that, you

shouldn't be doing the part. I feel like

it's it's not something you should do if

you really can't get into the

justification of the character.

Terrence Malik said to me this like Van

Go thing of paint paint from life that

you don't want to be like doing a

version of a character you saw in a

movie. You want to be you want you're

not making a movie influenced by other

movies. You're making a movie influenced

by life. If you're making a character

influenced by a human and you want to

think about particular people you know

and make it as as human as possible, you

can be playing a a medieval character

that reminds you of your mom's best

friend and you can take elements of her

behavior and bring it into that that

character. I find that very helpful if

you can identify a person you know that

shares some sort of characteristics with

the character you're playing and you

kind of think of them and channel them

while you're doing it.

Sometimes you can actually use specific

um

you know documentaries to inform a

character. For example, I just did a

film called Vox Lux where I play a pop

star, a contemporary pop star. So I

watched luckily there's lots of

documentaries out there about

contemporary pop stars. I watched the

one about Katy Perry. I watched the one

about Lady Gaga. I watched the one um

the older one about Madonna and I found

things like I found details in there

that that I used. For example, the the

fact that there's always this kind of

group around them that they're almost

never alone. There's always people

around you. There's always people kind

of taking care of you. um emotionally

what that does to a person details like

Madonna is almost always sucking a

lozenge in um in truth or dare and that

was something I brought into Vox like

the kind of paranoia about your voice

you know taking naps in the makeup chair

that Katy Perry does there there are

little details you can steal like that

for for a character

YouTube is a delightful resource for

actors because you can find anything and

everything you need. Um, from accents to

behaviors to how to learn a skill, you

can really find everything you want. So,

I'm about to play an astronaut, and the

movie takes place largely after she

returns from space. And I think that a

lot of the characters

psyche has to do with how she's how

she's adjusting to being back. And of

course, I can't go to space. So Chris

Hadfield does all these great videos of

the kind of magic things in space that

are actually kind of part of the daily

routine. And so that's really really

helpful. Brushing your teeth or

preparing food to imagine that you're

doing that many times a day and then

coming back and everything you do during

the day has less magic. sort of building

up the life before and the life now is

completely something that I'm working on

based on YouTube.

When you're approaching a real life

historical character, you're so lucky

because you have very obvious research

to do. It's it's there's usually quite a

bit of reading you can do about the

character. There's often if it's a more

recent character, you can get audio or

video footage of of these characters.

So, there's a lot to draw on. You know,

when you're in a moment, it's very

different than looking back on it.

Things are just happening. And so, you

have to remember that when you're in the

moment, it's different than the way we

might look back on a historical moment.

Just as in our lives right now, it

seemed like daily life, but might be

written about as these kind of huge

events um that are happening once

they're able to be framed in a

particular way. reading accounts,

first-person accounts of what people

feel or what their daily routine is like

can inform a lot in Jane Got a Gun when

I was looking at the Western Women's

Diaries or um

Anne Bolin when I was reading historical

accounts of what that life was like and

the courtship with the king and and how

you'd have made servants doing

particular tasks for you. Those kinds of

details can give you clues as to what

what that character in that particular

time would be like and what their

physicality would be because um it's

it's not just their emotional life. And

it's it's also, you know, playing women

in different periods and the

restrictions on women in different

periods, whether you would cover your

body or be really free and open and and

all of those little details have to do

with a larger cultural expectation, too.

So figuring that that piece out, the

historical moment, the cultural

expectation on your character, um, is is

is also a piece of it.

When you're playing a historical

character, you obviously want to be

faithful to the things you know. And the

things that you don't know are where you

can be inventive. So you see where you

have latitude and

you you are faithful.

In my interpretation, that's that's what

you do. That you're faithful to facts

that are established and then find these

sort of in between moments of what they

were like when they were alone maybe is

not well documented for a public figure.

Did they have a a problem with their

their sibling or did they have some

interesting thing going on in their

relationship that is maybe suggested but

not confirmed in the in the research?

And so so so you can get a lot of great

details from the research that you find

and then you can also find a lot of sort

of uh substance for your imagination and

what you can't find when what you don't

have details for.

When you do all of that research and all

of that work ahead of time, then it's

just in your bones so that when you're

creating, you can really feel like it's

almost just coming out of you, that it's

it it naturally kind of flows. So, I

think the big

the big message really for for you is

that you just do as much research and

thinking about it as you can ahead of

time. And then once you start, you just

let go and you feel free and it's it's

in you.