An actor’s training is a pivotal point in creating a star. How an actress or actor embodies a role and expresses their character is usually directly linked to their carefully curated star persona and the roles they are cast in. Historically, the idea of acting training surfaced when the shift from silent film to sound occurred, causing a new emphasis on acting coaches for a more refined focus on drama, dialog, and vocal modulation (S. Rigoletto, 2022). Because of this shift, many film productions provided new work for stage actors, with theatre becoming a common sourcing ground for Hollywood; however, the decline of theatre at the end of the ’30s caused an increase in difficulty in sourcing talent, leading studios to create their own in-house actor training programs and inspiring the creation of schools such as the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (S. Rigoletto, 2022). The theatre additionally created in the same vein the John Murray Anderson and Robert Milton Scool of theatre and dance, where actresses such as Lucille Ball and Bette Davis studied. 

Bette Davis is a particularly successful example of a star who was incredibly eminent in her own right in theatre and yet was still able to transcend the stage and fully succeed on the silver screen. Bette Davis’s acting training curated her characterization of roles in the way that she could express her emotions and sentiments so effectively and charismatically through the physicality of her gestures and body articulation. This form of acting was incredibly successful in the theatre, where large gestures are critical for the audiences in the back of the theatres to understand the performances at hand; however, these same movements, in general, performed on the same scale would look considerably more ridiculous when translated to film (S. Rigoletto, 2022). Movies screenings differ here from theatre performances in that they are projected onto screens that are around thirty-four inches and create the effect of magnifying everything upon it (S. Rigoletto, 2022). This then calls for a different variety of acting than that of the stage performer. In the shift into cinema, much more subtle gestures and expressions are needed, and the weight of the expression falls to more subtle movements with looks of the face and eyes employed to convey in a softer way the emotions the actress or actor wants the audience to share in feeling (S. Rigoletto, 2022). Even though the cinema requires a more deconstructed version of theatre acting, this kind of physical expression can still be incredibly successful in film. Bette Davis became one of the first women in cinema who was explicitly known for her acting rather than a star aesthetic and, due to her skill, was able to move and work with different production companies in a time where talent was usually kept under strict contract (S. Rigoletto, 2022). During her career, she was nominated for nine Oscars as best actress in a leading role and won twice (S. Rigoletto, 2022). This success put a new emphasis on promotional strategies of production companies in New York and Hollywood, moving them away from the push of the platinum blonde bombshell persona used to sell out showings and into the popularization of acting itself as the promotional force focusing on the nominations and wins of Davis and others rather than her specific star image in terms of aesthetics (S. Rigoletto, 2022). 

In the end, key components that skyrocketed Davis’s career and those like her that have previously and currently transitioned between theatre to film and back are the ability to be intentional and have a fine-tuned awareness of their mannerisms, gestures, body language, and vocal modulation. Additionally, the ability to move between the use of the body to convey emotion to the subtle nuances of the face is critical. These elements are integral to the success of an actor or actress in general and were crucial for the past trailblazers, such as Bette Davis, to make this shift of performance medium not only possible but a successful way to carve out a new facet of a star’s career. A few current examples of actresses and actors who have made this transition seamlessly include: Daniel Radcliffe, Taye Diggs, Tom Holland, Idina Menzel, Sidney Poitier, Neil Patrick Harris, Viola Davis, Julie Andrews, and Cynthia Erivo. 

References:

Rigoletto, S. (Presenter). (2022, July 25). week 2 (F). Lecture presented at University of Oregon.