12 Questions with Jane Brody, Casting Director

Rachael: Who were your role models when you were starting out?

Jane: As a teacher, Michael Shurtleff was the biggest influence on me, of course. Also, though I only studied with him for about two minutes, Carl Malden had a big influence on me in terms of moving from one beat to another. Stanislavsky, too, though I didn't meet him. As an actress, Bette Davis. But when I was fourteen I saw Hamlet and that was pretty influential to me. Very influential-- it turned my life around. It made me want to be an actor. Mary Virginia Rodigan was an inspirational teacher who studied at the Royal Academy and was absolutely inspirational, especially technically. And I really responded to that, how technically you could get the job done. I learned how to work technically long before I learned to work viscerally and I still think that is a good way to learn.

At The University of Minnesota, I had this far out "method" teacher who tried to get us to feel, and feeling was not a problem for me. I wanted her to show me how to do. I feel more than any 80 people I have met. That's why I liked, at first, the technical response to things. Another thing we are lacking now that becomes more apparent to me is voice. There has never been an actor that has ever made anything of themselves without an interesting voice. And there is not emphasis on that because everyone is training for film and television. But if you watch film and television, most of those people have interesting voices. And that is gone and I'm sad about that.

When did you know you wanted to be an actor, director or teacher?

I knew I wanted to be an actress when I was about fourteen. I always wanted to be a singer, because my family was musical. My father had a band, my aunt was a singer, and my grandfather was a dancer and a singer. His ancestors had been musicians. I never had any confidence in my singing, but going from that to acting was an easy step. And then when I saw Hamlet and The Miracle Worker as a girl, I was pretty well sold on acting. As far as being a director, I realized one day while I was acting that I would make a much better director because I was unwilling to give my intellect over to one. I couldn't take it. I would see them making bad mistakes and hate them for it. I finally realized that most of the other actors didn't care what the director was doing. They went along with it, they didn't care or they thought, "it's fine" and didn't have big opinions about it. I had humongous opinions about it.

Then I started directing and realized this is really where I belong. And as a teacher, Michael Shurtleff asked to me to teach and I realized that was my gift, and if I have a gift in any of those things it's as a teacher. I'm a gifted teacher. And I mean humbly gifted. It's a surprise to me. I never would have thought it.

What do you love most about the directing process?

The magic of leading an actor somewhere and having them take you somewhere else. Having an image of a scene and realizing as the actors work that their ideas are better. It's the collaboration and the beauty of seeing the play emerge.

If you died and came back as a person or a thing, what would it be?

I would be a six foot four slender man with long legs that you could stick out in front of you and wear cowboy boots. I would probably be like Sam Shepard. Yes, I would like to come back as Sam Shepard--tall and skinny with a metabolism that won't quit.

Do you have a favorite play, and what is it?

I love Romeo and Juliet, Journey of the Fifth Horse and Glass Menagerie, but I don't have an all time favorite play. I mean, my favorite play is whatever I'm working on at the time. I'm not a literary person. I wish I was. I'm academic, but not literary. I even have difficulty distinguishing a good play from a bad one until I've worked on it. However, I do have favorite playwrights.

And who would those be?

Well, Mamet I think is brilliant. I think Pinter and John Guare are astonishing. Also, John Patrick Shanley, and Horton Foote. And of course, Shakespeare and Chekhov. But then, that's like saying the sky is blue. Of course, they are the best that ever were. I'm not that fond of Ibsen, although I'm studying him this term and I might change my mind.

What are your three all-time favorite productions?

The first is Peter Brooke's Midsummer Night's Dream; the second is the Revenger's Tragedy by the Royal Shakespeare Company in London. I have many thirds, one of which was a small Chicago production of The Three Sisters that Calvin MacLean directed and staged in an attic somewhere. It was astonishing. Also, Home on Broadway with Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud was just pretty near perfect. There are a lot of other plays. My God, I have been so lucky as a Midwesterner to see as much as I have. I was in the right place in the right time. And also The Dragon Trilogy, because it was non-linear and non-verbal. It was completely imagistic, physical and cross-cultural. There was great strength in how the metaphor turned into physicalized image. It was amazing. You couldn't think about it on an intellectual level. I heard people in the audience saying, "What does this mean?" as opposed to simply experiencing it. That's all you can say about it. It was an experience.

When you see a production that you love, what is it that you most respond to?

Physicalized metaphor. Metaphor made into something visual. In one production of Moliere's Misanthrope, the Misanthrope came on stage and ripped a curtain down off the wall--a huge curtain that must have been thirty feet high and it was bright red and it looked like a bunch of blood flowing. It was silk fabric and it came down into a rather small pile in the middle of the floor. That is physicalized metaphor. The play had been updated and was about the French Revolution. It was about the rip in society and about people ripping up society. I love it when an actor works with archetypal physicality, so that someone who spoke another language would understand what the show was about on a deep level without language being necessary. That is true in Shakespeare, Moliere and kitchen sink drama.

What I object to is television onstage, where you see yuppies angsting over issues of no relevance to anyone. There is no physicality. It's a bunch of talking heads saying nothing particularly profound. All the profundities take place in physicalities. The depth of things takes place in the relationships of actors geographically on the stage and geographically in the set. European theatre is going extremely physical with all the stress on commedia, so hopefully we will have more theatre that is theatre and not television. As far as an actor is concerned, I think the thing that I most respond to is a total commitment to anything. It could be a total commitment to quietness. It's exciting to see a total commitment to something because people are unused to that kind of passion. I see more and more actors working with a lack of passion. Imagination, and unusual things, you see an actor do. Not ordinary, realistic everyday behavior.

What phrase or expression to you most dislike to hear?

"It needs more energy," because it's so bogus. It's such a result term and you hear it all the time. All these result terms that actors hear. Or, "Have fun with it," is a close second. It's a silly thing to say to anybody and it doesn't have any meaning. All it does is get people all hyped up and then they start shouting and jumping. If you want something very badly, you will have energy for it. I've never known anyone who didn't have energy to go and get what they wanted. The problem is not in the energy, the problem is in the dedication to getting what you want. A passionate feeling about something and a personal feeling about something is what you need. "Have fun with it" really means let go of your inhibition, and the only thing that makes you let go of inhibition is passion. A passionate desire for something that will make you do extraordinary things

What's the best quote about acting or directing that you have heard?

Stanislavsky wins. Actually Stanislavsky quotes the teacher Schepkin to the student Schumsky, "It is not that you play well, or badly, but that you play truly." Also the old A. A. Quote, "Acceptance is the key to all of our problems." This is also good idea to keep in mind when acting. If you accept the facts of the scene and accept what your partner is doing, you will be fine.

What makes you happy?

My husband. Walter Brody is without a doubt the most important person in my life and a constant source of joy for me, even when he is being a crank. Also, friendships, good movies, antiquing and my absolute obsession, genealogy. Even when I'm in school I do an hour a day. The most interesting person I'm related to is Henry Percy ("Hotspur") and the whole Montague family. Also my great-great-grandfather William Bennett Drake was a Civil War veteran on both sides.

What are the three words that best describe you?

Smart, curious and bossy.