What is the Meisner technique in acting.

Question

I am having a hard time understanding it from YouTube and texts.

In: 3

Answer 1

If I had to sum it up in one sentence: Acting is _re_ acting.

The technique basically shuns the old Stanislavski school of method acting, where the actor became the character and tried to internalize the character’s feelings, motivations, and inner thoughts. The idea was that if you _were_ your character, you would naturally act as they would act.

Meisner shuns this idea and has the actor focus not on the character, nor on the words in the script, but instead entirely on the other actor or environment. The goal is to be completely out of your head and in the moment and honestly experience the emotions of that immediate situation.