There is a world of difference between the actor who is caused authentically to do what his character must do and the actor who only indicates of self-generates his actions.

Meisner didn’t invent this concept but it is the principle upon which his technique is based.

The technique is often mistakenly identified exclusively by his signature repetition exercise. Repetition encompasses the basic principles of his technique, however it is only the beginning. In the first year of training with Meisner, the actor addresses the basic issues of acting and mainly does different exercises. And in the second year, the skills acquired in the first year are applied to the process of crafting a role.

Basically, In the first year the actor begins working with HIMSELF. How HE responds and evolves in an imaginary circumstances, but now he must begin with the play and to actually CREATE a character using his knowledge. According to Wikipedia:

Components

Meisner Training is an interdependent series of exercises that build upon one another. The more complex work supports a command of dramatic text.

Meisner students work on a series of progressively complex exercises to develop an ability to improvise, to access an emotional life, and finally to bring the spontaneity of improvisation and the richness of personal response to text. The technique develops the behavioural strand of Stanislavski’s ‘system’, via its articulation in an American idiom as Method acting. The technique asserts that by emphasizing “moment-to-moment” spontaneity through communion with other actors, behaviour that is truthful under imaginary circumstances may be generated.

To see the full Article…Click Here.

After reading Stanislavsky’s dictum about the necessity of the actors being private in public, Strasberg created the private moment exercise. He viewed the exercise as a corrective for actors who were inhibited by the presence of an audience. By enacting a moment of true privacy in front of people, Strasberg hoped to get them to confront the issue and conquer it. He realized we do private things when we are alone, and we know they are really private when we cant continue doing them if someone walks in the room. Thus, in the private moment, the actor is asked to do something “that they do in real life, but which even in life is so private, when anyone comes in, they have to stop doing it”.

Consequently actors sang, danced and even performed acts of private grooming. BUT Strasbergs’ new exercise was vilified from many quarters as word of it spread through the theatrical community. The exercise quickly became a symbol of all that was wrong with the Method, and was called “a sinister indulgence in sexual and scatological display”.

In untrained hands, the exercise became a voyeuristic enterprise, a peep show for the classroom audience…

This is the problem with the exercise: it has lost the value that Stanislavsky gave it: SECRECY more than privacy. It went from doing something in “public solitude” to a “sinister private moment”. Many teachers (Ive had one of them..argh) have turned it into a barrier-pushing exercise to rejoice in their own perverted ideas. If doing something that embarrasses in front of people is the point, then shouldn’t YOU choose what that is? I mean, the common practice is to take off all your clothes, and some take it even further and perform private acts but let each one be their own person. If your private moment consists of taking your clothes off in front of people, so be it. If not he other hand your moment consists of biting your toenails or farting, or singing, then should any teacher tell you you aren’t as committed? NO. HELL TO THE NO! Only you can choose the barriers you wish to cross. And for some they may be even more traumatic than the standard physical exposure. Its not about showing something intimate, as it is feeling as if you were alone with an audience. That means free of inhibitions and mainly concentrated and focused.

In film, you sometimes encounter actors who think they’re going to steal the scene by being big, and bombastic. Proving their value. Those actors are using their bodies and voices instead of their brain! They don’t realize in terms of voice and action, less is more.

Sometimes you encounter the great theater actor who (like all of us) needs to pay bills so is forced to “stoop down” and participate in a film production gig between productions of his Titus Andronicus. Now you put a camera on him. And everyone goes into hysterics. Watch. Now the voice is too loud, and the gestures that once left an entire auditorium audience gasping are over-exaggerated and seem fake. If I’m playing opposite somebody like this, I often think the best thing to do is to come under him. To stick to naturalism, and usually he is left feeling and looking pretty stupid.

In theater, you expect to see great actors acting. On stage, you have to project your voice or the words will sink without a trace into the third row of seats. On stage, the basic premise is ACTION, you have to sell your attitudes to the audience. In movies, the microphone can always hear you no matter how softly you speak, no matter where the scene is taking place. In movies it is REACTION that gives a moment its potency. That’s why listening in films is so important, as well as the use of the eyes in the close-up. You don’t have to shout and scream. You never need to do it big.

Remember that the camera will love you and catch even the smallest detail of your performance. You don’t need to over do it.