I'm going to see him speak on the 5th and am buying a few of his books-- I'm really into Adler and Hagen and this seems to differ greatly.

Anyone have an opinion about his work/methods/etc?

i heard good things about no acting please, but cant said ive read it

hey I haven't been on these board for a some time, but I occasionally browse around - I have read both No Acting Please! and Irreverent Acting. I study with Jason Bennett in NYC, and we use of Morris's techniques to help get rid of "blocks" and better prepare ourselves for our emotional availability. Personally, I think it helps - I've been in class and have seen some pretty neat improvements on scene works once the scenes were stopped and the actors were asked to commit to one of Morris's techniques.

Give it a read, hope it'll help like it did for me. I also gotta say that you'll probably get more out of it if guided by a teacher with experience than doing it on your own for the first time - but still, give it a try - see for yourself.

thanks for your help! I went to a workshop with one of his proteges tonight and I do believe I'll be taking a class with him.

I've actually had the experience of doing about five to six months with one of his facilitators (initials are AB)..who was "taught" "coached" "trained" by Eric Morris...anyway he was entrusted to teach this method...
I found it to be disconcerting..It was borderline therapy session /acting tool techniques. It seemed inviting at the beginning because the fundamental idea is to rid yoursellf of personal blocks that can hinder you as an actor..but what I saw evolving in the workshop class was actors first revealing very personal "private" info in class and the facilitator using a variety of tools of EM to focus on...which then you would work afterwards on a monologue...it was addictive to do this psuedo therapy but what I saw were cans of worms opened up , nut these deep personal isues were not meant to be fixed(because it's an acting class) ...I believe Stella Adler was against this sort of picking the scabs of actors psychosis..EM used influences of Lee Strasberg and his own mixture.

I've taken classes with Eric Morris and with one of his former students, also an authorized teacher of his process.

I'd like to say that I think lot of the observations that Eric made early in his own artistic career which he includes in his books are very, very solid. But as is often the case with human beings who make person discoveries about something that already exists in the universe, he has become convinced that he created it. He didn't create human behavior, acting, mental health. He simply wrote a book about them. That one made money. So he wrote a few more. That's what I believe.

Eric repeatedly maintains in person that his approach to human psychology is the only way to become a truly good actor, and in fact has stated that it's the only way to mental health. What I have witnessed in his class and the acting of his students, is an apparent erosion of their personal mental stability, a seemingly strong dependence upon Eric personally, an isolationistic social tendency from people outside the classes, and ultimately a self-indulgent kind of acting. This is truly my opinion.

I want to say at this point that there is nothing I wouldn't do short of selling my soul for my acting. This isn't a job for me, it's my life. I believe we're very, very special people meant to speak for the world, to say things that they cannot say for themselves. In the same way that I can't make a car but some guy in Michigan can so I can have something to drive, a way to get around so I can live, he can't express the deepest things in his heart, but I can, and so he has something to watch when he goes home and needs to feel connected with humanity, so he can live.

But see, the thing is, there are things that I can do as a human that can damage me as an actor. As Eric says, you must work hard to be willing to literally "show the world your asshole", because if you're so willing, feeling scared or lonely or vulnerable or giddy or wonderment in front of anyone is easy. They've seen your most intimate, most self-conscious thing. What can letting them see you cry or be a fool do after that? But if you become addicted to showing people your most intimate dark things, you become a one-note person. Stuck. Most of human nature is in what we try to conceal, not in what we reveal. Our STRUGGLE to conceal what everyone knows good and well we are feeling is what we can all identify with. It's what makes us want to know what the character is thinking. It makes us want to wish for them, to invest in them. And when in the resolution our character expresses or acts or stands for her beliefs or dies for love, THEY feel resolved. They have "expurgated", as Eric would say. It's them that we do this for, not just us.

There is a very long list of things that I believe are very unhealthy aspects of this not-at-all-unique approach to acting, derivations and/or different versions of which are perpetrated all of over the country in unsuccessful one-time-LA-actor's acting classes. Taking advantage of young impressionable people is at the top of that list. Sexually inappropriate suggestion is a close second. I have personally seen him talk to a young girl about her vagina on-stage. It's heart-breaking to watch. It's damaging and humiliating for them.

This is an art. A profession. Even a calling. We are, in my view, special and exceptional people. I believe we are the most powerful group of people in the world, actors. We shape and we speak for the world. There are dangerous men out there, jealous of what we are, who want to ruin, steal, or confuse what they resent because they do not have it. I believe that Eric Morris is one of those men.

Around God, you will find priests, televangelists and pedophiles who want to prey on the eager and earnest. Around diamonds and gold you will find opportunists and capitalists and gougers who love what money these beautiful resources of nature can bring. Around actors, you will find sophisticated charlatans and exceptionally manipulative profiteers who would drain you to a dried-up husk. You ARE what you need to be. You already HAVE what acting will reveal in you. I've been acting for 12 years now, and I'm proud of my resume. I'm convinced that you are who trains you best. No one can give this to you, you must find it. (Ironic. I wasn't thinking about this directly when I chose my name) Take many acting classes with many different people. There is no one road. You get to find yours. You are in control, and you get to choose. In accepting this delightful responsibility/gift, I am convinced you will find personal peace, joy, and acting that simply cannot be explained, yet which our audiences positively crave because it feeds them so.

What a privileged people we are.

No Acting please is a great book. However, Mr. Morris thinks he's a shrink and a god and don't think he is very good for an actor's self-esteem. I spoke to him on the phone and he tried to get me to sign up for a summer class two years ago. I broke out in a sweat speaking to him he made me so nervous. I didn't care for his vibe. I googled his name and nothing but bad things came up on him. Find out who he has taught, who are his greatest students? No one.

Well gee, there's more than one acting teacher who thinks she's a shrink out there!

Hello,

Eric was one of the many well known acting teachers I studied with when I was young.

It is difficult for me to criticize someone who has contributed more specific techniques that actors can use, on the job, than Stanislavski. Eric has written five books about acting -- with more specific tools than in Strasberg, Meisner, Hagen and Adler's books combined. That is simply objectively true. You can't question that if you read all his books.

But on the other hand, he leaves a lot of what actors need out of his books, I think. We had some big arguments about this when I was a rebellious 18 year old in his classes.

HOWEVER, this is a completely separate issue from his personality as a teacher. They are separate issues. Period. One can have personality flaws and still be brilliant. I was able to learn from him, despite his imperfections as a human being.

Hagen, Adler, Meisner, Strasberg -- ALL these teachers SCREAMED AT AND ABUSED STUDENTS. Eric was trained by them, it was modeled for him. I had newer training. The training I have teaches me that respecting actors gets the deepest work! The more I build up my actors, the deeper they go. The more independent I make them of me, the more self-sufficient they are, and the more likely they are to get work.

As for him training celebrities, I saw plenty of them in his classes.

I do not approach the training of actors in the manner Eric does. We have profoundly differing views on the vocabulary of actor training, and we have profoundly differing views on teaching styles.

I never psychologize my actors, label them, get into duels with them, scream at them, etc. I am not a therapist. I do not do therapy. And the boundaries are extremely clear and safe in my classes. I think this is why the work is so good in my classes. I also think actors should generally be in therapy, because the more you know yourself the better an actor you will be. But I also think there are many horrible therapists out there.

And there are still bigots out there who think learning about psychology has nothing to do with being a good actor -- which is frankly a completely idiotic and stupid view. And NO serious actor or great teacher would say such a thing. Psychology is the study of human behavior. Acting is the study and COMMUNICATION of human behavior, in entertaining ways. All great actors are great psychologists. Though many psychologists would suck at acting.

We had a school show last week and there was some great work. It was a real thrill to see the work working for so many actors who came to me from so many other schools.

I am profoundly grateful for the contribution Eric has made to our field -- it is simply unquestionable. And yet I have a very different teaching style and teach the work of all the great teachers, not just his.

I have our actors read two of his books, then they move on to other books that approach acting in a completely different way than Eric. And they make THEIR OWN process. And it works. Stealing what works from ALL these great teachers is the wave of the future. We honor all the Gods of the past as we create a new future.

- Jason Bennett

To blindly ignore a person's character and consider only their intelligence makes the case that Hitler was sure, an asshole, but geeze, just look at his accomplishments.

Eric Morris is the tiniest, most perverse possible choice out of literally thousands of good, decent-hearted, honest, scrupulous teachers one could choose from out there. The fact that you describe yourself as a rebellious 18 year old indicates a certain ringing in your ears of Eric's manipulation. Hard to shake, I know. But 18 year olds aren't idiots, they're just eager and want to make their place. I know, I have one.

I wouldn't trust Eric Morris alone with him for 15 minutes.

Except that my son would probably beat the living piss out of him.

I've been an actor for nearly 15 years now. Started late, in my thirties. I've read every one of Morris' books, and though there are some great ways of expressing some of the ideas, there's nothing in there that isn't basically common sense that any actor learns by working.

There is a HUGE amount of money in the acting business, and it's NOT mostly made by actors, but acting teachers.

Think about it, guys.

Everybody who hasn't made a professionally career as an actor, teaches. Hell, I've been tempted myself. It gets pretty harsh out there when the mortgage comes due, and when there are thousands of kids coming to town every year looking for skills, well, there's a quick paycheck.

Try this experiment:

Go to Craigslist, open an add that reads "Acting Classes For The Dedicated Actor", link your resume or cut and paste it, and if you've so much as been on A-Team in the 80s as an extra, you'll have $500 worth of "students" whom you can talk to for hours about your political views while never so much as teaching them how to learn their lines before the end of a week.

Want to get on network television? Want to be a WORKING actor? (And you are NOT an actor unless you are WORKING as an actor, you are an aspiring or failed actor otherwise. Let's face the healthy truth, here.) Read David Mamet's book True and False, Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor.

Then read Eric Morris' books.

You won't get three pages in without realizing where the TINY bit of useful stuff ands and the relentless masturbatory self-adoration (the hallmark of MOST acting "teachers.") begins.

OMG, I just read the "All great actors are great psychologists" line. Are you SERIOUS??????? Great gods, man!!!

WE'RE ACTORS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Don't insult the profession by claiming some thing so preposterous!!!!! We ACT and intention, an objective, and we have talent that comes out of our heart and enters the heart of the audience, just like the talents of the painter, the musician, or any good artist.

AIIGGHH!!

It's that kind of pisswater that makes other, trained, talented artists look at us and go "Huh?" because we can claim all that kind of crap, and yet STILL NOT BOOK THE PART BECAUSE WE SUCKED, and blame something so amorphous as not having chosen the right psychological element that the casting people were looking for, WHEN THE ACTOR WAS SO *#&$^% CONFUSED by trying to do the IMPOSSIBLE BULL#&$^ that some OTHER LOSER with an acting school polluted their brain with, THAT THEY NEVER HAD A SIMPLE OBJECTIVE.

A VERB!!

If there is a Hell, there will be a special place there for most "acting teachers". And other telemarketers.

Psychologists? PSYCHOLOGISTS?!?!?!?

Oh my achin' ass.

Finding,

It sounds like you've really had a terrible time and are really upset. I'm sorry about that and I wish you the best. - Jason

Now that's interesting.

An acting teacher telling me how I'm feeling. What a concept.

"Had a terrible time and are really upset" has a negative connotation, and colors what I've stated here as coming from a place of hurt or damage, therefore representing my comments as coming from a "hurt" or "upset" place, reducing my credibility. Or at least attempting to.

But I understand. Gotta protect that bottom line.

Fact is, I'm not upset at all.

CLEAR?

Bet your ass.

Impossible to bullshit?

Absolutely.

Passionate about our art?

Damn right.

Capable of clearly defining and defending every single assertion I have made here with literally hundreds of examples of students who have walked out of acting classes with more confusion and a stifling of their talents than when they went in?

Superbly.

I'm not hurt. I'm not upset. I'm a professional, and I genuinely give a rip about the multitude of people who have devoted their lives to developing their art. Earnest, sometimes overly trusting people whom are so obsessed by this beautiful obsession called their talent, that they will literally listen to anyone who tells them that have the answers to gain access to it.

We are actors.

We have something the THOUSANDS of "teachers" do not have.

Or have sold.

Talent.

This dirty word that the pontificates tell us doesn't exist.

Wayne Gretzky is talented. I could train exactly the same way he did for a decade and still only be another hockey player. I could train like or even be taught by Andrea Bocelli himself and never in a million years sound like that. Actors are talented to varying degrees in the same way. Understanding talent is CRUCIAL for actors, but is NEVER taught by the charlatans, for obvious reasons.

It is impossible to profit from the talented.

“There are unknown forces in nature; when we give ourselves wholly to her, without reserve, she lends them to us; she shows us these forms, which our watching eyes do not see, which our intelligence does not understand or suspect.”

Auguste Rodin quotes (French sculptor of bronze and marble figures, 1840-1917)

To quote David Mamet:

(You may have heard of him. Writes plays, television, etc.)

"Invent nothing, deny nothing, speak up, stand up, stay out of school."

And I wish I had had the cojones to say it first,:

"Years of acting training consistently ruins otherwise good actors and makes them completely nonviable." (That's paraphrasing from memory, but I think my point is made, and the essence of the quote is indeed accurate.)

I am neither upset nor have I had a terrible time, as you characterize. I have had several such very valuable learning experiences, and am currently a consistently working actor as a result.

To the talented out there who desire to release the Venus deep within your marble, I AM NOT saying that we don't need to work, or train. Just the opposite. Olympians work their ASSES off to get to do their thing for their version of the golden statue. Beethoven and Michelangelo and Tiger Woods (oh yes I did) all had or have to work endlessly to earn the PRIVILEGE of accessing this beautiful golden obsession.

But they were and are EXTREMELY POSSESSIVE about protecting their art from the jackasses that want to "get a piece" of that.

The teachers cannot pay their bills without taking from our talent.

Think about it.

Find a few friends that you respect and trust, and simply work. Put it in front of audiences. Film it, pay to put it up in some cheap black box, or do it in a freakin park until a crowd gathers. If they walk away, you're sucking, so fix it. Be less personally indulgent and actually force yourself to let go and connect.

If you learn to connect to audiences, you won't have to worry about getting in front of casting directors.

They will find you.

Hi, It sounds like we agree about many things, in fact.

You may know David Mamet founded an acting school, by the way.

- Jason

Man, JB. Everyone wants to fight ya!

Well of course I know you're kidding. But seriously, I am not fighting with Finding. As I said, I absolutely agree with a lot of what this person said. Some of it is crazy, but a lot of it is right on, and I could have said it myself.

- Jason

Finding, do you have a problem with ALL acting teachers? I mean, not every acting teacher uses the cookie-cutter method of acting where the "do what I do" mentality reigns. Im a teacher, and Im still an actor as well. You say those who can't do, teach. But, uh, I still do, and I teach...and I still take classes myself. So, Im a student, a professional, and an educator. I think having solid guidance by a coach is extremely useful. Yes, there are teachers out there who patent a style and sell it to the masses, but not everyone works that way. Just a thought.