Aspiring actors get help from pros
Free acting course draws microcosm of city’s next generation of creative talent
Sterling Welty, a community college student from Albuquerque, did not expect his head to be in the hands of veteran actor, producer and director Vincent D’Onofrio.
But such was the case Saturday evening at the Institute of American Indian Arts, where D’Onofrio was schooling a few dozen young people in method acting 101.
While performing a monologue in front of the class, 17-year-old Welty was “going up” — actor lingo for forgetting his lines. D’Onofrio paused for a moment, and then handed the eager student what might have been the biggest compliment of his young career.
“There’s a really good actor in you. I can see it,” D’Onofrio said. “It’s very obvious. I think it’s obvious to most people here.” But he had some advice for Welty: “You need to learn how to relax. Method acting is about relaxation. The first thing I can teach you is to relax.”
D’Onofrio walked behind Welty and asked the teen to rest his head in the actor’s hands.
“Trust me — I’m not going to drop your head,” D’Onofrio said, bobbing Welty’s head up and down in his hands. “Yes, this is called relaxation, Sterling. This is the state that you should be in before you perform. Always. Always!”
Added D’Onofrio: “The minute you loosen all this up, it also loosens your tummy and your heart. And you can access things easier.”
It was a tender moment for an actor best known for his intense performance as the clumsy Pvt. Leonard “Gomer Pyle” Lawrence in Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 Full Metal Jacket.
D’Onofrio, who is directing and acting in The Kid, a feature film loosely based on the story of Billy the Kid that’s being shot in New Mexico, offered the free acting class Saturday to a couple of dozen aspiring child and young adult
actors through a workshop series sponsored by the Stagecoach Foundation. The new nonprofit, formed by local author and producer George R.R. Martin, is working to advance economic development in the city by supporting its film industry, offering space for film productions and technology firms and hosting training programs.
The free acting course drew a microcosm of what many local leaders hope will be a new generation of creative minds, ambitious youth who can help spur private-sector growth in a state that often attracts flashes of stardom from Hollywood productions passing through but has been struggling to keep young talent.
La’Charles Trask, a 21-yearold from Chicago who already has an IMDb page showing television roles, confessed to D’Onofrio during a questionand-answer session that he was thinking about moving from New Mexico to Los Angeles, where opportunities seemed more abundant. D’Onofrio’s manager told La’Charles that before he makes a move to the West Coast, he needs to make sure he will be financially stable there and have housing lined up, so he can focus on his acting.
Stable and affordable housing is also a challenge in Santa Fe, which continues to have one of the highest occupancy rates of rental apartments in the nation — a factor that often forces talented young people to find opportunities elsewhere.
Still, a growing film industry here, the efforts of Stagecoach and other film-focused organizations, and rare brushes with a star like D’Onofrio are promising signs for those hoping to launch a film career closer to home.
D’Onofrio told his students to treat every one of his words like gold.
Among his students were two 8-year-old girls who performed a monologue from the Pixar production Inside Out. They were nervous at first but relaxed after Shayne Hartigan, a casting director, told them to perform it at the same time, and to interact with the audience the same way in which they would interact with stuffed animals.
The students had been practicing the monologues before D’Onofrio arrived, many heavy on inflections to emphasize dramatic emotion.
But D’Onofrio guided them through a series of method acting practices that brought out real emotions. His advice: Summon up emotions from real experiences.
He told one young woman to think about a time a boy had treated her poorly and to make a sound representing how that made her feel. She let out a guttural scream.
Then he told her to scream in her head while reading her monologue.
“Scream loud!” D’Onofrio commanded. “And speak!”
She teared up, making for a powerful performance.
“There’s no way around it,” D’Onofrio said. “There’s no faking it. If you want to be a film actor, you have to come up with the goods. And the goods are your real emotion that comes from your life.”
As for Welty, who said he is studying acting at Central New Mexico Community College in Albuquerque, D’Onofrio pulled him aside and told him to think about something secret. (Disclosing the secret, D’Onofrio said, would spoil the power of the actor’s emotions.)
In the middle of his monologue, Welty broke down in tears, sobbing almost uncontrollably.
“That’s film acting, Sterling, that’s film acting,” D’Onofrio said, as the teen continued crying in front of the class. “The camera sees everything — the camera sees everything. And if you try to fake it, people are going to fall asleep. Did everyone just see what I saw? That’s the real deal, dude.”
Standing outside, Welty was inspired.
“Didn’t see that one coming,” he said.