ACTORS ARE A CLASS ACT

Brad Pitt and Sean Penn star in a film directed by Terrence Malick about a young boy’s quest for the meaning of life.

It doesn’t take a masters degree to teach from the heart about the passion of acting which is what students from downtown New York’s New Design High School discovered in special Working Playground master class lectures given by actors Mariska Hargitay, Matthew Lillard and Michael Ealy.

Michael who began his association with Master Class teaching film acting with Rosie Perez last year talks about the rewards of sharing his wealth of experience and offering inside knowledge into the real world of acting.

“My passion for acting is completely reignited every time I come to work with these kids. rnA girl asked me how do you remember your lines and I use the analogy that truthfully I do use in my career. I said, ‘do you know all the words to the latest Beyonce song?’ And I said, ‘yeah.’ I said, ‘why?’ She said, ‘that’s my jam.’ I said when I get a script and I read my character, that’s my jam. And so it’s the repetitiveness and listening to it and reading it that really helps my lines sink in and I felt like I was really able to connect with her on that moment because she was like, ‘ahhh.’ So that to me was the jam of the day.”

Matthew Lillard who teamed up with Mariska to teach a monologue class to the New Design students remembers his own awkward school experience and how acting saved him.

“Puberty was not my forte, let’s just say that. I had several disabilities. I was overweight with braces and glasses with a learning disability so for me puberty was kind of bad all the way around but the one thing I did have was I had acting. I found something in life that I was good at, something in life I cared about and in that I found a career. You know you definitely remember like several teachers in my life in acting and out of acting that were catalysts for me finding success in life. So when you get in front of kids and you get in front of kids that want to be there and are excited about being there you realize you have an impact in a way that hopefully can inspire them in great ways.”