Episode 3 · Dec 11, 2012 · 10:14
Uta Hagen and Hamburgers
Dan broadcasts from Hawaiian Gardens with guest Bruce Dickstern on Uta Hagen, hamburgers, and coaching acting when you haven't actually done a lot of acting.
- Show
- Teaching Actors How to Act
- Host
- Dan Rodandan
- Published
- December 11, 2012
- Length
- 10:14
- With
- Bruce Dickstern
Transcript
Full transcript of Teaching Actors How to Act episode 3, hosted by acting coach Dan Rodandan.
Hello everybody, this is Dan Rodandan on Rodandan on Acting, the only radio show about acting by an actor who hasn't actually done a lot of acting. I mean outside of the acting that I have done, which has been a lot of reality show, auditioning, and a few talent show hosting activities where I, you know, displayed some of my own talents. Needless to say, as a singer, a dancer, a triple threat, you know, with a little bit of acting and hosting. Well, that's four threats. I have threatened you four times with my talent, Dan Rodandan here.
Again, I would like to note that I am broadcasting from the beautiful Hawaiian Gardens area of Los Angeles where I'm living now by myself, without a job, without friends. Anyway, we have a wonderful guest here, a young man named Bruce Dickstern, who's going to, he's an up-and-coming actor, somebody who's just starting out. I remember what that was like. Just wide-eyed and full of hope. Before you know your heart and your soul and your dreams and your soul again, I cannot talk about how much my soul has sort of been flattened into a kind of pancake, you know, sort of a, picture a Quarter Pounder that's been run over by a tractor trailer. But here he is. Say hello.
Hey, thanks for having me.
You're welcome. So, tell me about what it's like to be an actor starting out in Los Angeles.
Well, it's interesting that you just mentioned the Quarter Pounder because I was just actually cast, I'm happy to announce for the first time, in one of the new McDonald's commercials.
I'm lovin' it.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's fantastic. I'm lovin' it.
I don't actually have any speaking lines, but I'm the guy that takes a big bite of a Big Mac. You get, actually, a Whopper is a Burger King product. You know, it might have been a Burger King commercial, actually.
You don't know which, uh...
It was one of those, it was one of those, uh, it was one of those chains, yeah.
Needless to say, he is in a hamburger commercial, which is a German word, hamburger, uh, which is a word, I think, dates back at least pre-World War II, which was a, which was a big war. They make a lot of, make a lot of movies about that war, probably because of Hitler and the Jews, who tend to run Hollywood, or so they say. So I've got to stay on their good side. What are you, what are you doing as a young actor to stay on the good side of the Jews?
Uh, uh, the good side of the Jews? I actually, uh, I am Jewish myself. I...
It's funny, all of a sudden your voice seems to have changed a little bit there.
You know, that's probably just the actor in me. You gotta, you gotta do a lot of voice. Hey, I'm from New York.
Wait, are you really from New York?
Actually, I grew up in, uh, Salt Lake City, Utah. Uh, went to school at Brigham Young, and, uh, majored in theater.
Uh-huh.
Uh, it's sort of a broad term for acting, is theater.
Is that so?
Yeah.
Okay, well, so, uh, so, so, so, uh, you, you grew up in Utah, uh, but somehow you're from New York. It's a little confusing to me.
No, no, no, it's just, I was, I was, I was acting there.
Oh, you were doing a dialect?
Yeah, no, you know, as an actor, you have to, you know, you gotta have a lot of accents and dialects and stuff, you know, you gotta be able to, uh, you know.
Honestly, right now, it feels like you're shouting at my face. Are you trying to be aggressive? I mean, do we have a problem here, or is everything cool?
I was just demonstrating some of my actors.
Oh, you want to demonstrate something?
I was, I, I, sorry you might have misinterpreted, I was just trying.
Oh, it's, it's my problem. I'm the one who misinterpreted it. It's not that you don't know how to behave in an interview setting, it's that I misinterpreted something. Is that right?
I'm sorry, I, I thought that I was the radio veteran, not the, uh, not the asshole.
Which one of us is. Is this, uh, should I, should I come back?
I could—
Oh, you want to come back! My time is not valuable to you. You feel like you should just leave and come back whenever you like? We can do the interview on your schedule. Is that, is that what's going on here?
You know, maybe, maybe I should, I should probably, I should probably.
I have a few more questions for you before you go. I mean, we have you here.
Uh, okay.
Do you eat a lot of hamburgers?
You know, I like to think of myself as a method actor. Um, and, and what that means for, for the audience out there that might not know what method acting means. That means you kind of, uh, you know, if I was in a hamburger commercial, which I was, it was, uh, either McDonald's or Burger King or McBurger King. Uh, you know, I really, I, like I said, I didn't have a speaking line. So to prepare for the role, I wanted to just practice eating as many hamburgers as I could. But it's a lot harder than you think because...
It's harder than I would think to eat hamburgers.
Well, it's something that we so, you know, we do it every day. We eat hamburgers, but we unconsciously do it because nobody's watching us. Suddenly when you think of somebody watching you, then it becomes totally different. And you become a lot more self-aware of having that burger in your hands. And what does that mean to have that burger in your hands? What does that taste like when you bite into it?
You know, honestly, I'm, I'm, I'm going to, I'm going to talk to you right now. And I believe the thing that I owe you more than anything is an apology. Because, uh, uh, I feel like you came in here, you had a lot of bravado. You were, uh, you were sort of talking out of turn, acting like a tough guy. And, uh, from what I'm hearing now, it turns out maybe you got the goods. Maybe, maybe there's something that I can learn from you. Maybe the old dog needs to learn some new tricks about eating a hamburger.
I want to ask you a question real quick. I'm going to bring a term with you. And I want to say, what does this term mean to you? And that term is fourth wall.
Fourth wall. Wow. Fourth wall is a very important wall because, you know, fourth wall makes a house, you know?
So without that, well, some say a foundation, but go on.
Right. Uh, well, the fourth wall, you know, of course, to the people out there who don't know what the fourth wall is, they are the fourth wall. They are the people that we're talking to right now. We are talking to the fourth wall, but they're not here. We're not supposed to be consciously aware of that fourth wall, right?
Right.
So, but they're the people watching us, that wall.
You're talking about that ocean of blackness emoting at us.
Right.
With the energy of the cosmos.
That's correct.
Those other three walls, they're not there. They're not watching us. Those aren't people. But let me ask you this. It's the fourth wall that's important. Are you there?
You know, that's a really great question. I mean, as an actor. I am myself, I am physically there, but mentally, I am somebody else, perhaps somewhere else.
Let me ask you this. Are you me? Think about that. Look into my eyes. Am I, am I you? Think about that. Look at me. In my eyes. Make strong eye contact. Swim in the pools of the shiny blue eyelids. Well, really underneath, more the eyes themselves, less the lids. But go ahead and take a swim in my tranquil pools. Hold your breath. Come out. Shake your hair off. Get the water out of your ears. And then, be me. Am I there?
I'm afraid I don't understand the question.
All right. Let me ask a different question then. Who is your favorite musketeer?
Definitely the third one.
Is it Porthos?
The third one.
All right. This has been... I'm sorry. Do you have anything you'd like to plug besides your Burger King McDonald's?
Just actually, the Burger King McDonald's commercial is releasing this winter. So, go out there, eat some McDonald's, and think of old Bruce here. And also, I actually teach acting classes every Wednesday night at 10 p.m. It's sort of like a Meisner kind of thing. You could sign up. It's real cheap, but it's real great. We do scenes, and, you know, maybe you'll learn something.
All right. Well, thank you. Actually, before you go, I have one last question.
Yes, sir.
Have you ever seen anything like this on the tip of a penis before? Is this normal? Is this something I should worry about? Or is this maybe something a doctor should look at? Or are these pretty common? What do you think?
And he probably had something important to do, so he has left. And maybe I'll post a picture. I'll post a picture online at the website. Dan Rodandan. Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan. Four Dans. Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan. At Tumblr. Dot Blogspot. iOS 6. Google Maps. So, go ahead there. Take a look at the tip of my penis, which has an interesting... I don't know if it's fair to call it a boil, but it's something in that family.
Uh, thank you for listening to the Dan Rodandan podcast. Thank you for being a part of the dance that we call humanity, which is our lives and our loves and our art. Uh, global warming is a hoax. Dan Rodandan. I love you.