Excerpt from An Interview with Mark Westbrook

This is an interview I did a while ago (but didn’t end up getting published)… It’s just an excerpt. Hope you enjoy it.

When I met Mark Westbrook to interview him, he was not how I imagined him to be. Some of the pictures on his website show a rotund bearded man, in his 30s, jolly, well dressed, full of laughter and enthusiasm. The man sitting waiting for me, drinking a cup of tea and reading a book about Feminism, was wearing jeans and a martial arts hoodie. He spoke enthusiastically about his passion for acting and actors.

RM: Mark, how did you become an acting coach?

MW: Some of my friends were actors, I was a director and had taught acting for several years, but didn’t consider myself an acting coach. Many of my actor friends seemed really at sea when it came to the very basics of their craft, no matter how much they had worked, or where they had trained.

RM: What do you mean by “all at sea”?

MW: They didn’t seem to have a way of working that would help them consistently, there was no ABC of acting for them, and that worried me, because I thought Drama Schools should be providing that type of educating.

RM: And you believe that they’re not?

MW: I don’t just believe it, it’s borne out by experience, the craft of the actor seems to be missing from the modern actor’s toolbox, they don’t even have a toolbox. They face a script almost completely clueless, or the methods and techniques they’ve learned are so contrived or impractical, they just don’t work.

RM: What’s a toolbox?

MW: A set of tools that they use in their job. Just like a plumber.

RM: So an actor should have certain tools they use for…

MW: For certain tasks.

RM: So you started coaching actors because you felt they were missing some important tools for doing their job?

MW: Yes, and not only that they were missing tools, but that the tools they had didn’t work, or served only to create very stiff or fake acting.

RM: You’re saying that what they teach in drama schools, doesn’t work?

MW: For the most part.

RM: That’s a pretty arrogant thing to say, isn’t it?

MW: It’s only arrogant if it isn’t true.

RM: But you yourself, you went to drama school?

MW: Yes, college, university, drama school and an acting conservatory in New York.

RM: So some of it must have worked.

MW: I think I was able to pick and choose what worked and what didn’t and forge it into an approach that can help actors to work better for and by themselves.

RM: Right, so you’re not anti-drama school?

MW: No, not really, I think actors need to learn their craft somewhere.

RM: Some might say that you don’t have a background as an actor, how can you know this stuff, aren’t you just being provocative?

MW: I’m not just being provocative, I am being provocative because I believe that what I’m doing helps actors, and my experience is that if most actors could swop three years of training for a year with me, they’d be a lot better off.

RM: Well, you would say that.

MW: That’s true, I would. Again, experience in the studio shows that actors that work using the tools that ACS provides, they can work with greater confidence.

RM: Do you teach complete beginners?

MW: Sure, everyone has to start somewhere.

RM: What about middle aged people?

MW: Yes.

RM: Surely, they’re never going to have a successful career, they’re competing against people that have been in the business for years.

MW: That’s true. But no one really cares about that, if the person can do it, they can do it. If a casting director sees that person and they fit the bill, and they’re professional, and they’re gifted, and they’re not a dick, then, that’s all that matters.

RM: But aren’t you just giving people false hope?

MW: There’s nothing certain about being in the acting industry, from the top to the bottom. I’m helping people have a full on, two hundred percent stab at something that they want to do. I’m really sensitive to people’s aspirations, because there’s a lot of charlatans out there that will milk aspirational people for all their worth, I’m not into that. I can help actors at all levels, but they’re not just cash machines for me, their careers and potential careers are important to me, and essentially my success rests on their own.