We all know you don’t just wake up one day and know how to perform surgery, understand the intricate workings of the law, or how to best deliver education to a student who refuses to learn. You go to school, study and have on-the-job training.

It’s the same with acting.

“But what if you can already act?” Do you think LeBron James, Patrick Mahomes and Usain Bolt don’t practice or hone their talents? They do.

Now that we have established that an actor needs to train, where and how does an actor train? They can go to college or find an acting coach. The next question and in my opinion, the most important, is which technique is being taught and if said method of training actors is right for every actor.

This is not a guide on the most popular acting technique or which acting class you should take, but a lesson about where these acting methods come from. I will also add my experience teaching one of the techniques at the end.

Acting techniques mainly break down into two categories: memory and imagination. Both methods come from Konstantin Stanislavski. These acting styles can help you deliver your most authentic performances.

Let’s dive into these influential acting techniques.

The Lee Strasberg Technique

Acting from memory is a technique from Lee Strasberg or as he called it, “affective memory, summoning emotions from the actors’ own life to illuminate their stage roles.”

In other words, Lee Strasberg’s teachings instruct the actors to use emotional memory recall. This is where an actor remembers the details surrounding an emotional experience in their life that could correspond to the emotion of a character in a scene.

The Strasberg technique is the common choice of method actors. Famous actors such as Daniel Day Lewis, Christian Bale and Al Pacino use this technique to deliver compelling performances.

That said, the method acting technique isn’t for everyone. You don’t need to draw from real life experiences to create believable performances and deliver raw emotion. Plus, everyday life is hard enough as is. A personal memory should not always be revisited.

For me, as an actor and coach, this method does not work. I was not too fond of having to think of my dog dying every time I wanted to cry on stage.

The idea of having to relive, in a way, that real emotion and experience, I believe, keeps the actor stuck in the terror of that emotion and reality unable to move on. Besides, there are ways to deliver powerful performances without relying on emotional recall.

The Meisner Technique

Named for its founder, Sanford Meisner, the Meisner technique delves into imagination.

Unlike Strasberg, Meisner acting does not use the actor’s own memory and personal experiences. Instead, the method asks to relate and apply the actor’s self in an imaginary circumstance. Lived experience can help, but it’s not required.

Meisner’s acting technique serves performers when it comes to honing their active listening skills and reacting to the other actors in scenes. The foundation work begins with exercises like repetition, individual activities, and emotional preparation. At the beginning of the Meisner training, an actor is taught to work from the self.

To create realistic performances, the actors must answer these questions: What are they doing, and how do I feel about it?” From the actor’s perspective, they can’t know how other characters would react if they don’t know how the character would react first.

Stella Adler, another legendary acting teacher, visited Stanislavski eight weeks before he died. He said that Strasberg misunderstood. Although Constantin Stanislavski did use emotional memory, it did not work for him and was abandoned under the premise and philosophy that “the sane mind must heal.”

The Stella Adler Technique

The Stella Adler technique is a series of exercises that start with the actors’ reality and ends entirely with their imagination, completely removed from their own experiences and feelings. This technique is about acting wholly from imagination.

The first exercise of the Stella Adler technique is the only exercise that exists in the actor’s daily life. The actor must go out and see something in nature, come back to class and describe it.

The objective of this exercise is to translate an image and be able to describe it in such length that I can see what the actor sees. That actor can then work out of their imagination.

In this technique, the actor’s imagination must be equal to the reality. This is not easy, and it takes much rehearsal to deliver believable characters, strong emotions and truthful performances.

My Experience Teaching the Stella Adler Technique

How do I know all of this? I studied with Stella Adler and taught for her at her acting Conservatory in Los Angeles.

When Stella first asked me to teach for her, I agreed on one condition: she showed me the records of her conversation with Stanislavski when he taught her his updated method. She refused, so I declined her offer.

She called me again, this time saying I could see the papers. I flew out to New York, where I read the truth, learned and worked with Stella Adler becoming her friend and colleague.

I worked at the Stella Adler Conservatory West for many years teaching the acting technique. I have since started my own theatre, Actor Circle Theatre, where I teach acting class and implement the same Stella Adler and Stanislavski technique today.

Famous Actors Who Use the Stella Adler Technique

One of my students, Benicio Del Toro, took technique class over and over, and I had to force him into scene study. He understood the time and patience it takes to study and learn how to use the imagination, and because of that, he is one of the great actor’s of our times.

Jason Momoa used an exercise from the technique in his audition in Game of Thrones. He delivered such a natural performance that they gave him the part on the spot.

Mark Ruffalo plays the Incredible Hulk, which is entirely made up of motion capture green screens and cgi…there is no reality for him to act in…only his imagination can bring this character to life.

Look at the body of work these famous actors have and watch it. That is the Stella Adler technique at play. The success of their collective experience and dynamic performances should tell you everything.

The acting schools Stella Adler founded still operate today in New York City and Los Angeles. Her method, based on use of the actor’s imagination, has been studied by famous actors such as Robert De Niro, Elaine Stritch, Martin Sheen, Diana Muldaur, Dolores del Rio, Bob Crane, Roy Scheider, Vincent D’Onofrio, Mark Ruffalo, Warren Beatty, Michael Imperioli, Salma Hayek, Sean Astin, Barbara Stuart, Joyce Meadows, Stephen Bauer, Judd Nelson, Christoph Waltz, Benicio del Toro and Marlon Brando.

Arthur Mendoza is the founder, artistic director, and principal acting instructor at the Actors Circle Theatre in Los Angeles, California and  has taught in Los Angeles for more than twenty years.

Currently, Mendoza coaches at the Santa Monica Playhouse, continuing his and Stella Adler’s legacy of the Stanislavsky Method, finding an indirect pathway to emotional expression via physical action. With this technique, Arthur believes anyone can act, “All it takes is determination and a willingness to be wrong, regularly.”

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