This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Patrick Oliver Jones: When it comes to theater, there is the artistic craft of acting and the creative endeavor of portraying a character and telling a story.

[0:09] Patrick Oliver Jones: There is also the commercial aspect of getting headshots, representation, and especially auditioning.

[0:16] Patrick Oliver Jones: Terry Knickerbocker is an experienced director and acting teacher who is well acquainted with both aspects of an actor's life, as well as the euphoric highs and devastating lows we all face.

[0:33] Patrick Oliver Jones: Hopefully, the excitement and the adrenaline and the love of this art form and craft is what carries the day.

[0:38] Patrick Oliver Jones: It's okay to be scared. You just take that fear by the hand and take a step.

[0:41] Patrick Oliver Jones: Bravery isn't the absence of fear, it's just acknowledging the fear and taking a step anyway.

[0:51] Patrick Oliver Jones: Hello, I'm Patrick Oliver Jones, actor, singer, and host of Why I'll Never Make It, or Win Me for Short, which is one of FeedSpot's top 25 theater podcasts.

[1:03] Patrick Oliver Jones: Here I talk with fellow creatives about the realities of a career in the performing arts.

[1:09] Patrick Oliver Jones: The website is Why I'll Never Make It.com.

[1:13] Patrick Oliver Jones: There you can sign up for the monthly WINMI Newsletter.

[1:16] Patrick Oliver Jones: You can find out how to support this podcast and get members-only episodes.

[1:21] Patrick Oliver Jones: And you'll also find special offers and resources to help you and your artistic career.

[1:27] Patrick Oliver Jones: All that and more at Why I'll Never Make It.com.

[1:36] Patrick Oliver Jones: Ever since I became the sole host and producer of this podcast, I have wanted to have an acting teacher as a guest.

[1:44] Patrick Oliver Jones: Well, it certainly took me long enough, but that episode is finally here.

[1:50] Patrick Oliver Jones: Terry Knickerbocker has been guiding students for almost 30 years, having trained and taught with William Esper, who is one of the most respected protégés of Sanford Meisner.

[2:01] Patrick Oliver Jones: So Terry is part of a direct lineage of Meisner and his brilliant approach to actor training.

[2:08] Patrick Oliver Jones: Each month I present and highlight a specific artist resource here on the podcast.

[2:13] Patrick Oliver Jones: You can find a full list of them at resources.whyillnevermakeit.com.

[2:19] Patrick Oliver Jones: And the Terry Knickerbocker Studio is this month's featured resource.

[2:24] Patrick Oliver Jones: Now, I will be perfectly honest with you that until the studio reached out to me about collaborating together, I had never actually heard of Terry.

[2:34] Patrick Oliver Jones: But by the time our conversation was over, I knew that this is a man I wanted to study with.

[2:41] Patrick Oliver Jones: And my feeling is that after today's episode, you may feel the same way.

[2:47] Patrick Oliver Jones: His studio has four primary objectives when it comes to their actor training, and Terry and I will be touching on these topics throughout today's episode.

[2:56] Patrick Oliver Jones: Number one, to provide students with tools and a process for creating authentic imaginative acting.

[3:04] Patrick Oliver Jones: Number two, to cultivate uncompromising standards of craftsmanship and artistry.

[3:11] Patrick Oliver Jones: Number three, to empower students to embrace the full range of their unique humanity.

[3:17] Patrick Oliver Jones: And finally, number four, to support students with the entrepreneurial skills needed to be a successful working actor.

[3:26] Patrick Oliver Jones: That's right, because it's as I mentioned, it's not just the artistic side, it's that commercial marketing business side that is just as important.

[3:35] Patrick Oliver Jones: However, in our conversation, we do find some disagreement, especially when it comes to the rule of many schools and studios that acting students stop auditioning while training.

[3:48] Patrick Oliver Jones: Now you can decide for yourself which side of the argument you agree with.

[3:53] Patrick Oliver Jones: But our wide-ranging discussion starts with a fundamental shift that has happened across the country, and that is the growth and necessity of online teaching and training.

[4:04] Patrick Oliver Jones: But acting is such a physical and expressive exercise. So what can be gained from staring at a computer screen and being alone in your own room?

[4:14] Patrick Oliver Jones: Well, at first Terry had his doubts as well about it, but he shares some important lessons he learned during this past year.

[4:29] Patrick Oliver Jones: All right. Well, Terry, thank you so much for joining the podcast. It's a pleasure to have you here.

[4:29] Terry Knickerbocker: Thank you so much, Patrick, and it's nice to be here with you.

[4:37] Terry Knickerbocker: Having an acting teacher is very interesting, especially now over the past year, because a lot of actors, well, we haven't been acting very much, at least professionally. It's mostly been either classes over Zoom or just our own self-study.

[4:51] Terry Knickerbocker: And so for you as an acting teacher, what has this year meant to you and your students?

[4:58] Terry Knickerbocker: You know, our last in-person class was that last Friday, March 12th or March 13th. And then that was the week that Broadway shut down. That was the week that sports shut down.

[5:12] Terry Knickerbocker: Um, a week or two later, New York City public schools shut down, restaurants, et cetera. And I was petrified, frankly, because I was a disbeliever that this could go online.

[5:25] Terry Knickerbocker: I had taught at NYU for decades, and I had heard that they had sort of come down from on high and said, Well, we're gonna be online for a week.

[5:37] Terry Knickerbocker: That was the time frame they were.

[5:42] Terry Knickerbocker: Yeah, and I was so mad, and because I was frightened, because I was there like you cannot teach acting online. You can teach history online, you can do an English lecture, but anything that is embodied like what we do, a voice class, a movement class, a ballet class, uh a class that has to do with two bodies in the same space and the possibility of touch.

[6:10] Terry Knickerbocker: And I was just terrified. I was there, like, okay, well, you know, we're gonna close, the studio's gonna go out of business, and um my family and I are gonna be out on the street. I mean, I was really in that mindset.

[6:23] Terry Knickerbocker: And uh I wandered over to NYU's experimental theater wing where I went and and where I taught for so many years and and found my former boss who's a wonderful teacher named Rosemary Quinn, and she was the only one there.

[6:37] Terry Knickerbocker: I mean, the place was like a ghost town. Um, and she was so jolly, and and I found that early because I was mad and scared, and uh, and uh we bumped elbows and and she said, Um, well, basically, NYU said, Um, either do it or you're fired.

[6:56] Terry Knickerbocker: Like there wasn't a choice.

[7:00] Patrick Oliver Jones: Well, that's motivation.

[7:01] Terry Knickerbocker: Yeah, and so I passed that on to the faculty, and one teacher quit, who was sort of an old timer, and she said, But you know, who better to figure this out than us? Because improvisation is at the soul of what we do, and this is literally calling for us to figure it out in the moment.

[7:19] Terry Knickerbocker: And I kind of left going, okay, I don't know how we're gonna do that, but I like that attitude.

[7:25] Terry Knickerbocker: And I had recently been invited to join a wonderful organization, used to be called the Actors Center. Now it's called the National Alliance of Acting Teacher.

[7:36] Terry Knickerbocker: Um, and it's an elite group of acting teachers from across the country. And we had a Zoom call that Saturday with like 70 acting teachers from Utah, California, Texas, Washington, and all over.

[7:50] Terry Knickerbocker: And we were all scared and trying to figure it out. And what it came down to, first of all, was that this is going to build resilience and resilience is a very important.

[8:02] Terry Knickerbocker: I mean, the name of your podcast, Why I'll Never Make It, I mean, that's a kind of an ironic title, but we face failure all the time.

[8:11] Terry Knickerbocker: And if you don't have as an actor, I think you need um the soul of a butterfly, but the height of an armadillo.

[8:21] Terry Knickerbocker: You know, you need to be completely able to fall apart, and then when you, you know, there's that a lot of people do this now when they have an audition, they just rip up the sides and move on because they don't.

[8:33] Terry Knickerbocker: Whatever happens is gonna happen. I did it, and we'll see what happens. And because the odds are you're not gonna get it.

[8:39] Terry Knickerbocker: So, you know, this is going this if we can get people engaged in training in this time, it's a great time to train. Because what are you gonna do? Sit around watching Netflix for the next however long?

[8:50] Terry Knickerbocker: I mean, but we were still doubtful, and and a wonderful teacher uh from Columbia Grad named Peter J. Fernandez, um, was a spe was sharing my thoughts, which was this will never work.

[9:02] Terry Knickerbocker: Maybe we can do table work with this on some scenes, but the actual blocking of a scene and the living out of it in the fullest possible sense, no way.

[9:12] Terry Knickerbocker: And he was having an argument with a wonderful teacher from Ithaca College who was saying, Yeah, but Peter, um, you know, I dated my husband in Cameroon on Skype for two years.

[9:24] Terry Knickerbocker: And when I would say sweetheart, and I reached through to my camera and said, I'm gonna hold your face right now before I say goodnight. That transmitted.

[9:33] Terry Knickerbocker: It wasn't just this digital thing that was happening. There was a feeling that happened and a connection and an intimacy.

[9:40] Terry Knickerbocker: And he was saying, no, no, no, and she was saying, yes, yes, yes. And 68 of us are watching this scene.

[9:47] Terry Knickerbocker: And all of a sudden it kind of went, Oh, light bulb is working, it's happening right now among us. Um, it's actually working, it's working from moment to moment, and that gave me hope.

[9:59] Terry Knickerbocker: Um, and then I called a friend of mine, because my students were starting to get in touch. We were on spring break and they were saying, we don't think this is gonna work.

[10:10] Terry Knickerbocker: Many of them had gotten together and written me emails saying, can we pause? Can we take a month off? Can we take however long this will be? Can we just stay at the table and not do the in you know the blocking stuff?

[10:23] Terry Knickerbocker: Because we don't like there was so much fear um and anger. Um, and a lot of them had left town because they pay for classes out of their bartending money, restaurant money, babysitting money, and there was no restaurant bartending or babysitting, and they've gone home to California or wherever, given up their apartments, gone home to Minneapolis.

[10:46] Terry Knickerbocker: And so this friend said, I think you can do this because of two things. One, it will be meaningful for people to do what has meaning for them, and acting has meaning for them, and training has meaning for them.

[11:00] Terry Knickerbocker: And two, it will be meaningful for them to be in community because we're in this isolated thing where everyone's in their apartment and they're afraid to go out.

[11:09] Terry Knickerbocker: I mean, I was afraid to go to the supermarket at that point. It was a very terrifying time.

[11:16] Terry Knickerbocker: And this person said, call everybody. Don't send them an email. Call every one of your students and listen to them and tell them that you're going to give this a try.

[11:26] Terry Knickerbocker: And that proved to be the thing that worked. And this person was absolutely right that the need to be doing something meaningful and the need to be in community at a time when we were so isolated and so frightened.

[11:40] Terry Knickerbocker: Um, and hearing from me personally, um, and making space for them to share all their concerns and worries and whatever.

[11:49] Terry Knickerbocker: And we lost one student. And that one student was a mom with three kids, uh, one of whom had special needs, and she couldn't go to the bathroom by herself. So there was no way she could do acting class.

[12:04] Terry Knickerbocker: That first class back, you know, on Zoom, that was not a uh a fun fest. That was making space for people to just share and see where that we didn't do a lot of acting.

[12:16] Terry Knickerbocker: We just got into it a little bit at the end of class, and it things started to happen.

[12:21] Terry Knickerbocker: And um, you know, the tagline of my studio is training the passionate actor committed to excellence. So I said, look, that's that's my brand.

[12:33] Terry Knickerbocker: So if this won't be excellent, if what if this Zoom thing sucks, we'll pull the plug. Let's try it for a week.

[12:43] Terry Knickerbocker: And now it's been a year and a couple weeks. And um, we had a Zoom graduation, and uh, you know, which was weird, but fun and nice, and we've had a lot of events like readings and actor talks, and and we've really because one of the things that makes my studio very special to me and to the students and alumni is a true sense of community that that we emphasize and that we have, and somehow we've managed to continue.

[13:13] Terry Knickerbocker: It's not the same, it's not like you run into people on the subway in the coffee shop, walking down the hall, eating a sandwich while you're between classes.

[13:23] Terry Knickerbocker: We don't have those accidental social meetings, but there's still some sense of community, so it's been very useful.

[13:31] Terry Knickerbocker: Some things aren't so satisfying, you know, kissing, dancing, shoving, uh, embracing don't happen quite as uh richly on Zoom as they would in person for sure, but a lot of it happens, and I don't know why I didn't know that it would, because I've been coaching.

[13:52] Terry Knickerbocker: The other thing I do besides teaching Meisner is I coach a lot of professional actors, and I've been coaching actors online for like 15 years.

[14:00] Terry Knickerbocker: I mean, I do it in person when I can, but like, you know, I did every episode that Emmy Rossum did on Shameless from California because that's where she was filming.

[14:09] Terry Knickerbocker: So every Sunday we'd have a Skype call and and do the script, and so that worked.

[14:15] Terry Knickerbocker: So there was a strong possibility that this could work.

[14:18] Terry Knickerbocker: Yeah, I imagine with it just being Zoom and there being that distance, then you really get to focus on the dialogue.

[14:25] Terry Knickerbocker: You were able to kind of mime the physicalness of it, but I guess you really get to focus on the words, the dialogue, the vocal expression.

[14:32] Patrick Oliver Jones: Do you still try to embody all of the physical movement with it?

[14:37] Terry Knickerbocker: 100.

[14:38] Terry Knickerbocker: It has to be embodied, actually.

[14:40] Terry Knickerbocker: And then that's something I have to push against sometimes because the typical Zoom—I mean, I'm sitting at my desk, right?

[14:46] Terry Knickerbocker: So most people are going to be sitting for Zoom, but like when we knock on the door, we have to adjust the camera so that they can be standing sometimes for a long time.

[14:56] Terry Knickerbocker: And like the if you know the Meisner work, there are all these activities. So one of the things Meisner actors that drives them crazy and makes them better actors is they have to come up with all these so-called independent activities, like I'm fixing a plate because I can sell it to this pawn shop and then I can go get tickets to Hamilton or whatever. And like so we got to have the camera that's catching you in your desk, fixing the plate, and then the other person and what we do is everyone else turns their cameras off, so we're just seeing the two, you know, people who are working and everyone's watching that. But no, it's all about the body as well. And sometimes I have to, you know, they'll come in and they'll say, no, no, stand, let's get that going. And certainly from movement and voice, you know, they're doing that as an embodied practice and lying on the floor or standing. So it's trickier.

[15:48] Terry Knickerbocker: Yeah, that's actually one thing that I wanted to get into is that self-tapes and these Zoom interviews, these Zoom auditions are really the norm now. And they probably will be going forward even after the pandemic. So how does a theater actor who's used to those in-person auditions and that face to face, how what is that adjustment that theater actors need to make to now audition in front of a camera?

[16:13] Patrick Oliver Jones: Well have you done any, Terry? Have you had the opportunity to do any?

[16:15] Terry Knickerbocker: I've done plenty of those but as far as the actual Zoom audition I've done a couple of those. Well if it's a Zoom thing and it's happening live I mean I always you know auditions are so nerve wracking for actors but if you can switch your mindset to know as someone who was a professional director before I started teaching all I want if I'm directing a show or if I'm a casting director is for you to be the right one. I'm there praying like be the one I'm not there like okay let's see what you got. I'm there like please be the one and make my job easy.

[16:53] Patrick Oliver Jones: Right.

[16:53] Terry Knickerbocker: So first of all yeah they might be cynical but basically they're hoping that you're going to do a great job. So that energy's in the room like let's see what you got and plus it's hard times so thank you for acting and thank you for showing up with your songs and what you got and they know what they're looking for and if you're prepared they're gonna see something you know and they'll tell you how to frame it. If they'll say you know you can say do you want me like just from you know a medium shot do you want a close up you know um do you want me standing so you can see what I'm you know and if there's a reader there, you know, they're there for you too. Sometimes readers can be a little bit stiff. But if you're really ready and you're off book, especially because the thing that's so interesting, like I keep looking at you, but that's not the way to do Zoom. The actual way to do Zoom, if you're an actor, is to look at the green light.

[17:47] Patrick Oliver Jones: Right.

[17:47] Terry Knickerbocker: And listen to you. Because it I they want to see your eyes. And so I should actually move this down a little bit and not look at you and look at this, and then they're gonna see more of me. So there are a couple of tricks, but um I think it's the same. It's just what's happening. And you know, and I think self-tapes give you an enormous amount of control. You know, you don't like what you did, do it again. Believe me, the number of things. Do it 30 times.

[18:13] Patrick Oliver Jones: Right, right.

[18:14] Terry Knickerbocker: But that's really cool. Instead of going into, you know, someone's office and waiting a long time and then they're running late and then you don't do it right, and then on your way home, you're going, uh, woulda, coulda, should I wish you know, like you actually have some control to put out what you like. And if you get it there early enough, sometimes you get feedback and you can do it again. Like if you're working with an agent and you get it, you know, if you if you turn it around relatively quickly, some places, depending on how significant the role is, have definitely said to people I work with, um, can you make them a little, you know, uh nicer? This was a little too edgy, or um, do it fast, you know, like some an actual adjustment that's not happening in real time the way it would in a casting office, um, but sort of okay, send in another self-tape.

[19:03] Patrick Oliver Jones: So I think it's all good.

[19:05] Terry Knickerbocker: And I think those casting agents are gonna love it because they don't need to rent space.

[19:11] Patrick Oliver Jones: Right.

[19:11] Terry Knickerbocker: Yeah. From their end, it's certainly been somewhat easier because they can do it from home. They can probably do more auditions in a day, you know, and do it quicker. Even with regional theater, like if it was Dallas Theater Center and they weren't gonna send someone to New York, you'd also send in a tape sometimes or have a Zoom audition for like regional theater. So it doesn't feel like the biggest adjustment. It just feels sort of like the direction things were going. It just got speeded up by the virus.

[19:41] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah, because I I've certainly been on one job on location there, you know, in another city, and then recording a self-tape for hopefully the next job, you know. So I I've definitely been doing that for a few years now.

[19:54] Terry Knickerbocker: But I guess for me, the biggest adjustment has been a distraction. It provides a distraction from the acting because there's and is the lighting right, is the sound right, am I framed up correctly? Am I this? And I'm looking at myself and I'm trying to, and then the you know, the reader has to be so far away from the camera so that I'm more hurt. You know, there's all these technical things that then become so far removed from the actual acting.

[20:20] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah, you have to be your own director, producer, and editor, and you have to invest some money in like a backdrop and a ring light and I don't know what a Yeti mic or whatever.

[20:30] Terry Knickerbocker: And um, that's true. You're right about that. And I I'm just I just I haven't thought of this before, but you're making me think that I wonder if these people are distracted by production values. Like if they sa it somehow unconsciously makes them like your work more or less if you're if your background's cleaner, or if your mic is like they're not even looking at the acting as much as also, oh, that's a very clean take, you know, and and that yeah, that's distracting.

[20:31] Patrick Oliver Jones: You're right about that.

[20:58] Terry Knickerbocker: Yeah, no, I've I I saw a I think this this video went viral. It was either on Instagram or Twitter, but of an actor who was doing an audition, and the casting director, who I think didn't realize he was he was off of mute, was talking about why is there so much in the background? And and the thing is it wasn't a crazy thing, it was basically someone's living room. There was a fireplace, you know, some mirror, but it was just a regular room. But he was like, Oh, why why don't these actors get a white wall? Is the white wall so hard to find? It was he was basically just going off, and the actor went, Well, I'm at my parents' house, so this is the best I can, you know.

[21:31] Terry Knickerbocker: So that actor turned that into a public relations coup because it went viral. The director had to out himself. Um I know that actor, I coached him on. He's in uh this series that Emmy Rossum's doing, Evangeline, that got halted in LA due to the virus, but it's gonna come back. And um he was very strategic with that. That was a that was a little gift to him, I would say.

[21:59] Patrick Oliver Jones: But embarrassing for the director.

[22:01] Terry Knickerbocker: Yes, yes, because ultimately, like the crazy thing was is that it was a fine background. It just wasn't a blank wall. But yeah, so hopefully, especially especially theater casting directors who are you know aren't so much you know caring about what it looks like on film per se, that they're looking more at the actual actor rather than the surroundings.

[22:25] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah, I hope so.

[22:27] Terry Knickerbocker: Now, I was uh listening to a podcast that has Terry Teachout, who is a uh a theater critic here in New York, and he was talking about these these Zoom performances, which has obviously obviously become much more prevalent, and he was talking specifically about comedy and how he noticed that comedic plays, comedic presentations are very hard to do over Zoom because there's not the audience interaction, there's not the laughter, you're also not there with the person doing the slapstick or whatever the comedy may be, and that the comedy gets lost in it. Would you tend to agree with that? Or kind of what's your thought about how to overcome that?

[23:04] Terry Knickerbocker: You know, I think about that all the time because when you do scene work in class, you know, I tell my students, look, we're it's not church, so you don't have to be absolutely silent like you do for like a Keith Jarrett piano concert where if you cough, he gets up and leaves the stage, you know. But you're also not civilian, so you you have to kind of at least tone it down a little bit so that your reactions aren't disruptive to the people who are working, because you're not an audience. You're your fellow technicians watching some other artists work on their craft. But nonetheless, when moments are great, you feel that gasp, you hear that laugh when when like you're doing a farce, you know, and and it's fantastic, you know. And I'm often wishing that my students who are watching other actors work and their cameras are off would have their mics on so that we could hear the laughter and stuff.

[24:10] Patrick Oliver Jones: And I haven't tried doing that, but uh, I think Terry Teachout's 100% correct. It's very hard, you know, because as you know, you you can't just plow through and you you time applause if it's a song, or you know, and um so that you're kind of riding that wave, and if you don't know that, I mean I can't imagine stand up right now.

[24:30] Terry Knickerbocker: Right now, right? You have no idea if the if the jokes are landing. So that's tricky. I I I agree. But the acting, the quality of the acting, and the choices you make as actors to do the work in a comedy would be the same. It's just you're not getting that wonderful feedback that each night's different audience gives you. And that's the thing that actors would go backstage and say, uh, the audience tonight isn't uh quite with us, or last night's audience, they loved it. I don't know. My jokes are falling flat. You you have no idea. So all you can do is just commit to the truth of what you're doing and hopefully be in contact with the other actor, and and that'll still make something happen.

[25:21] Patrick Oliver Jones: Now we've been talking about a very specific hurdle that's you know kind of uh specific to Zoom and you know what we're going through in the pandemic, but overall in your your teaching as as well as uh directing, what have you found to be actors' biggest hurdle? What what do you normally have to kind of either strip away, get out of an actor or build them up in some way?

[25:44] Terry Knickerbocker: That's these are great questions, Patrick. Um, you know, Uda Hagen, who is a great teacher and and founded co-founded HB studios over in the West Village with her husband Herbert Burgoff and wrote a great book that if your listeners don't know, they should go get fast called Respect for Acting. Um and watch her teach on YouTube because she was she was a marvel and she was also a great actress. Um she said she could teach acting in six months, but it took her two to three years because actors get in their own way.

[26:21] Patrick Oliver Jones: That is very true, yeah.

[26:23] Terry Knickerbocker: You know, I mean, look, it uh I've thought a lot about this. Um, there's two things that happen in an acting class. You you acquire skills, um, through whatever method could be Strasburg, Stella Adler, Meisner, Groutowski, all those approaches, Uda Hagen hopefully lead to the same mountaintop, which is really good acting. Consistently reliable, believable, authentic, imaginative, truthful acting. I mean, that's the goal to really tell the story and tell it well in a believable way and in an artistic way. So you're giving them skills for how to do that, whatever the approach is. They have their own set of tools and a way of working, a process. How one, what what do I do when I get a script? What's my way in, and what are the questions that I ask myself to start to.

I mean, basically, actors are makers, they make behavior, right? So dancers make dances, actors make behavior. And and how am I going to turn this script that's over here into something that feels like it was like mine from the start, like a custom suit. Like I was born to play this part, like it was written for me.

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[28:07] Terry Knickerbocker: So skills, but there's also a bunch of unlearning, because it's the child in you, the free child in you, I believe, that makes the work, right? That child that didn't care, that child that laughed and cried and got mad spontaneously without a sense of, oh, that's not right to do. And of course, as we all grow up, everyone, no matter what kind of parents and upbringing you had, everyone develops defenses because we need defenses to be on the subway, to be on the street, to be in the neighborhood, to be in schools where kids can be so cruel, right? Um, to be with our parents who have inherited something from you know, there's a lineage there. So, you know, if my you know, if your parent said to you, there's no crying, don't cry, then now that kid has a profound choice.

Do I keep myself and lose my parent, or keep my parent and lose myself? Everybody keeps the parent, even if it's a bad parent. I mean, the same happens in relationship. I d I was married previously, and I know that in order to placate her, I would say yes, yes. I I would say no, no, no, no. You do what you you know, I was constantly trying to just keep the relationship going, keep her happy. And so I I did. We we lose ourselves sometimes in relationships. And of avoiding the truth of the conflict, which actually is not a bad thing if it's handled with love and and um some sense of mutuality and empathy, right?

[29:43] Terry Knickerbocker: You can't love someone if you can't also hate them. That's not a real relationship. Yeah. So, but a lot of people don't learn that. And so there's a big unlearning process, and everybody has blind spots. If you think of your actor's instrument as a keyboard, you want all the keys to sound. Just like if you're you can't say you're a musician and you play the trumpet, but you don't play F sharp. So you can't put on your resume, I don't get angry, I don't cry, I don't beg. You can't have you can't bring the work's possibilities down to the way you've arranged to live your life and live it safely. And human beings, just from an evolutionary point of view, we don't want to change because that's what makes danger.

If I, you know, if caveman always takes the right fork of the road to go down to get water, he does that because he knows there are no saber-toothed tigers. I don't know what's on the left side. That would be a change. And yet, paradoxically, life is all about change because we're all headed to the grave. And so an educational process of any kind implies change. I don't go to a school to come out the same as I came in. I go into a school to come out different. And part of coming out different when it comes to acting, not just learning how to take a script, is to have a bigger set of possibilities, hopefully the fullest set of possibilities in my instrument. That meets with resistance, right?

And so that's every actor. Every actor has some blind spot, and you can see them come up to the edge, right? It's like weightlifting, right? Like, okay, today I can lift bench press 30 pounds. Okay, that's my edge. But if I am consistent with that and the little micro tears in the muscles happen, then maybe the next day I can do more reps or add weight and keep growing and expanding and doing things. And I assume, as easy as actors are trying to make it seem like they're giving, you're recognizing those invisible walls that take them up to a certain part and they just aren't going any further.

[31:53] Patrick Oliver Jones: 100%. And everybody knows in an acting class, the ghost in the room, the elephant in the room is what if I don't make it? Right. Because that's the odds. You look at, you know, what if you take SAG's membership and you look at what percentage made less than $40,000 last year? It's a high percentage. Right. And that's why when kids go to NYU nowadays, much more than 20 years ago, because NYU is 75 grand or more. Parents are there like, um, can you get us a double major? Can you do a pre-med, a pre-business, right? Because what's implied in that is um this isn't gonna work out. And actors are the artists, I would say, not just actors, are the only people who, as grown-ups, friends who run into them after many years say, Oh, hi, are you still acting?

Do you say that to dentists? Do you say, are you still a dentist? Right. But there's this kind of insulting idea that comes with the idea of fear that's like, that didn't work out, did it? I well, you tried. Right. Or that's because I'm not seeing you do it, then obviously you're not making it, you're not doing well. Right, right, right. Yes, that's right. Yeah. My my my girlfriend's father when I was going to acting school, like, so when am I gonna see you in a show? You know, and like the sense that you have to like validate yourself for others because they're anxious and they're frightened. So it takes such courage to be an artist and to have the dignity of that and not to really be controlled by the fears of your families and the fears of your friends and the judgments of people in general because we don't value art in this culture.

We value sports and business and stuff like that, you know. Um it's really hard. And people, some actors, you gotta want to do this. You gotta really want to do it so bad that you're willing to come up to those edges. And some actors really tackle them with bravery and heart. And I'm moved so much by seeing them have those breakthroughs, and then it's heartbreaking when you see an actor who just kind of refuses, and they let the anxiety and the fear and the resistance win.

[34:14] Terry Knickerbocker: Because you're going to be scared. I mean, it's it's you know, opening night on Broadway, it's scary. If you're the lead, it's scary. First, first shot in a major feature film, and you're opposite Frances McDormand. I'd be scared. What if I blow it, right? But hopefully, the excitement and the adrenaline and the love of this art form and craft is what carries the day. It's okay to be scared, you just take that fear by the hand and take a step. Bravery isn't the absence of fear, it's just acknowledging the fear and taking a step anyway. And I that's what I really, really, really try to invite students to do. But as they say, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. Um, but you know, peer pressure works too.

If you're in a class, someone else doing it, yeah. Like if they go through the door and most people are going through the door, I want to do what most people are doing. Okay, I'll take a chance. And and you just pray that you have a majority of people that you've really curated a class of uh go-getters so that the stragglers come along. You pray for that. And and speaking of stragglers, now you had mentioned that you've taught uh you know big names, uh Emmy Rossum, Sam Rockwell, Yul Vasquez, and most of your students though aren't going to be that. They they aren't going to achieve those kind of accolades. So in what ways do you I'm sure your teaching is the same, but the results are going to be vastly different for each and every student.

Do you address that as you're teaching acting as they go out into the world and realize that that small percentage are even going to achieve such fame in the rest while I don't like to think that way, first of all.

[35:53] Patrick Oliver Jones: I think that's a limiting way to think. I think first of all, fame is not a gauge of quality. Very true, very true. You know, um, there are all these like we're always reading about, oh, here's a movie from the 70s that no one ever knew about, but it was a gem, or you know, the fact that Van Gogh sold two paintings in his lifetime. That that's the marketplace speaking, but that's not talking about his art. And of course, you know, when I meet an actor, I always say, um, what are your goals? Like a potential student. And the goal that interests me is not fame. Uh, if you're if your goal is to be famous and make money, go into tech. You know, that's that's a you know, you know, that that's a way, you know, you don't if you want to market yourself, I mean, they're now casting people based on how many Instagram followers they have.

So if that's your goal, go pay for that and don't come because you won't be happy in my class. My class, and what I'm interested in is quality. I want to work with people who want to be the best actors they can be. And the hidden part of that equation is that quality leads to success. I mean, there's no way that look all these all these everybody who's a a back, unless you're going to be making your own work in your own loft, you know, and you're not getting into the system, you're going to be part of a system, which is, and you have to do film and television if you're an actor for the most part, even though theater is where it's at. For me, theater is where the true the best actors come from the theater and spend time in the theater.

And that's why Sam Rockwell will come back and do a Broadway show. He was just about to open in American Buffalo when the pandemic hit with Lawrence Fishburne and Darren Criss. And that's going to come back hopefully next year. And you know, uh Meryl Streep doing uh, you know, Shakespeare in the Park, and like, you know, the bet Denzel doing you know, Iceman Cometh on Broadway or Fences, like the best actors, the best film and TV actors, Frances McDormand doing the Scottish play, like the best film and TV actors come from the theater, but the theater pays you in hugs, right? You you know and and applause. I mean, it's nice to get that feels good, but like you know, if you'd like to, you know, maybe I don't know what, like uh live in a better part of town, or I don't know, send your kid to private school or whatever, you know.

Uh you know, maybe buy a nice rug. It's tough because Broadway is where the biggest salaries are, and most shows on Broadway are musicals. So if you're a serious stage actor and you don't sing and dance, your chances of making a decent living as an actor in 2021 only in theater are rare, right? I mean, years ago, when you went to drama school, the goal was to join a regional theater, to go to arena stage, to go to the alley theater, to go to Seattle rep, and you'd be part of a company, be paid a year-round salary, do six shows a year that were built around the company, and that would be a life. That would be great. And then maybe you do film and TV on your off time, you know. But nowadays that's not how it works.

And so you have to do film and television. Now, who's paying for film with even Broadway who's paying? I mean, the Schuberts and the Needlanders, they're just there to make money, and they're gonna open and close a show based on what the New York Times says and who's buying tickets, right? And Netflix and HBO and Showtime and Hulu and all those people, they're looking at bottom line, right? So it makes sense for them because they you know, Manck has 10 Academy Award nominations for Netflix. Like that's that's them saying, okay, guys, Netflix is here, and we're competing with the studios, which they've already been doing the last couple of years, they're in the conversation. So what does Netflix need?

They need the very best people. So if you focus on quality, you're gonna win. I you know, whether you become a movie star and have everyone following around asking for autographs, that's a lot about taste and the marketplace. But you can have a very excellent career if you focus on your own excellence.

[40:09] Terry Knickerbocker: Sam and Emmy are great examples. They have a sparkle, they're great. It took Sam 30 years to get where he is right now, and he's been, you know, building it steadily. It didn't happen overnight. Um, but like Timothy Chalamet, it happened overnight, kind of, you know, and like he's huge, right? Well, there are plenty of actors with all due respect to Timothy Chalamet who are just as good as him, if not better, and don't make a tenth of what he makes, right? But they will work because you want them in your movies. I find the industry not to be particularly imaginative. So, like when James Gandolfini finished seven years on the Sopranos, of course, every script he got after that was for gangsters.

Because that's all Hollywood could think about. And so to his credit, he said no, and that's the biggest, I think, power you have as an actor is to say no. Um, and not to come from this place of fear of like, oh, I better take the job, because if I don't, there might not be another one, which is a typical actor mindset, and say, No, that job's not right for me. There's a better one coming. And believe in yourself and cultivate relationships, and it will happen.

[41:16] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah, I think that was that was definitely for me one of the hardest decisions or points in my career that I came to is realizing that sometimes I need to say no, that it's like I to I I I want this particular type of role, or I'm I'm shooting for this particular type of career, and this would be a diversion, and I need to say no to this because I want to keep my focus here. And it's it's tough because you you don't want to close off any doors of possible employment. But do I want to enjoy this career or do I just want to have a career? That's right. So I don't think about who's gonna make it, who's not gonna make it. I think if you need to do this, if this is what you need to do, you know, they always said if there's anything you can do besides acting, then go do it because it it will break your heart otherwise.

But if you need to do this and nothing else makes you happy, then focus on being the best you can be. That's a lot of different things. That's voice classes, that's movement classes, that's dialect classes, that's acting classes, that's therapy, that's going to museums, that's people watching, that's seeing stuff, right? It's a full-time job to live the life of an artist, but most really good actors are obsessed. And those people, they're gonna have a great life.

[42:27] Terry Knickerbocker: And yet, even though there needs to be that focus, that drive on acting and and have be passionate about it regardless of the no's that come your way, there still needs to be an outside life. There needs to be other personal experiences. How important or how do you incorporate the those personal experiences into these make-believe worlds and of acting?

[42:48] Patrick Oliver Jones: Well, I mean, you can only act what you understand. So the more life experience you have, the more you have to bring to the table, right? So travel's important, falling in love is important, getting your heart if you're a person who likes to fall in love, getting your heart broken is important, you know, like having a hobby is cool, definitely using your body some way every day is really important. Um, having friends that you connect to, it's really important to have a have a full life.

[43:21] Terry Knickerbocker: Yeah, friends outside the business, especially.

[43:24] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yes, definitely, if they can tolerate you.

[43:28] Terry Knickerbocker: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We actors can be a lot to put up with. And and you as an acting teacher, I'm sure you you've met your fair share in your studio, and your teaching has been around for decades.

[43:38] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah.

[43:39] Terry Knickerbocker: The studio started in 2015. I was uh teaching at the Esper Studio for many years and also at NYU.

[43:53] Patrick Oliver Jones: So, what made you decide, or what made you think with all the acting studios there are in New York, Terry needs another one.

[43:59] Terry Knickerbocker: Oh, if I knew now, yeah, you know, you know, it's not like New York was going, you know what we need more than anything else? We need another acting studio. You know, I mean, if I'd done any market research whatsoever, I would have run for the hills, you know, because I had a great deal. Um, the Esper Studio is a world-class studio.

[44:21] Terry Knickerbocker: I had a great deal there. I was a happy member of the faculty there for decades. But I, you know, I'm uh it was Bill's studio. It wasn't my studio. And A, I don't think I work very well for other people. I like to do things on my own, and I like to, it's like I I bought a house uh in 2006 in Brooklyn, and um I love owning a house more than like owning like a condo or a co-op. And some people would say, oh my god, no, like if you get a leaky roof, they take care of it. I'm there like I kind of want to decide, you know, all that stuff. I want, you know, I want you and so I wanted to decide curriculum. I wanted, you know, there were classes that I believe were really valuable for actor training or that interested me.

But it was Bill's studio, so if it didn't interest him, it wasn't gonna happen. And and that's as it should be, right? And and so I needed to go from being a soldier to being a general, and I like building things, I like making things. That's why I switched from being an actor to being a director, because I wanted to control everything. When I was an actor, if you and me were in a scene, I'd be there like, I, you know, I I think I want to change his costume. And that that moment of block, and you know, that's a total no-no. You never tell an actor what to wear, what to do, how to say it. You know, you know, that's just horrible. So when I became a director, it was like, ooh, I'm in charge now.

And and not really because you're collaborating, but you get to influence it. And so I really for years was kind of chomping at the bit to see could I make something? And it's a totally scary thing. It was the scariest thing I ever did in my life, because everything was riding on it. I mean, I I I had a house, that means I had a mortgage. Uh NYU was not a very big part of my overall pay. Most of my pay came from teaching at the Esper Studio. So when I left, it was like, you know, free fall. And if it didn't work, it wasn't gonna work. And so I just really thought very intentionally about it, but I really wanted to try, and I had luckily the support of uh a very loving wife and um some former students who believed in what I was doing, and it's working out. Because I think there's room, there's room for all of us. It's not a competition.

[46:53] Patrick Oliver Jones: Is there a bit of pride that comes with that? It's like, you know what? I want to do it my way because I think that this is a better approach or this is another way to go about it, or is it more just that as you were talking about? You just wanted more of the control of the studio.

[47:09] Terry Knickerbocker: It's like when you play a part. When you play a part someone else has played. You know, when Philip Seymour Hoffman uh decided to do Willie Lohman in Death of a Salesman. I mean, what a bold thing to do. But the artist in him said, I have something to say about that role that of course is going to honor Arthur Miller. I'm not gonna make him, you know, Truman Capote. It's gonna be Willie Lohman. But I also have an idea that is my own idea about, you know, why does a pianist play the Goldberg variations? You know, Glenn Gould did it. But it's because you feel like you have something to say. So it wasn't just I wanted to be in control, you know, it was that I I felt like there was a kind of acting studio that I wanted to create.

And I I don't think I even knew quite what it would be, but it I think it had to do with I don't know, the word um curated and the word boutique kind of come to mind. Like I didn't want to make it the biggest studio in town. Like, if you want to make money as an acting school, the main market to do that is beginners' workshops. So that people, you know, who work in on Madison Avenue who have a bucket list, they want to be an actor. Come take a four-week workshop, get your feet wet, we'll do a little acting. That didn't interest me at all, right? So it was I didn't, I mean, I didn't do it for the money, I did it so that I could really cultivate a small group uh of really dialed-in actors who are all in, like Navy SEALs training, and um do it joyously. You know, people who are really absolutely committed.

[48:56] Patrick Oliver Jones: So we make it hard to come here. Like you most some acting studios you can just sort of sign up online. Like you have to apply, you have to write an essay, you have to have an interview with the person who is my manager, and you have to read a book, and then after you've done that, you have to come and meet me. And like I'm basically saying, okay, I'm gonna try and talk you out of coming here.

[49:21] Terry Knickerbocker: Right. Well, I'm sure that weeds out a lot of potential students, yeah.

[49:25] Patrick Oliver Jones: Absolutely.

[49:26] Terry Knickerbocker: It weeds out a lot of potential students, but then they're not going to be your scene partner if you're someone who really cares because nothing feels worse in an acting class than having another person work because it's collaborative. And if I've got a scene partner who's late for rehearsals, who doesn't know their lines, who doesn't care as much as I do, I'm disappointed. You know, LeBron James wants to play against great players. That's what brings out his best game. And if you're an actor, you know, I'm I'm starting to work with a very famous A-list actor, uh, who I can't talk about it yet, so I'll just leave it tantalizing like that. But they did a movie, and there were about six other A-list actors in the movie.

That's the point. And so now they're doing a sequel to that movie, and it's going to be a whole new crop of A-list actors. See, that's what I want. I want to be in the room with all those great people. That's what gets my juices flowing. So I wanted to curate a school that would attract that kind of passion and desire and real commitment to excellence. That that's what interests me is how to be the very best. You can be, not better than someone else, just your DNA, you. What's the best expression of that? How do we get that to happen?

[50:42] Patrick Oliver Jones: And what does that feel like for you when you have students that either have a big break or maybe it's just a scene, a breakthrough in a scene? What do you go through as actors start to rise up in their own skills and careers?

[50:57] Terry Knickerbocker: You know, pride is one of the seven deadly sins. So it's an interesting It's an interesting thing because it suggests taking credit. Um I I I feel like a midwife a little bit. Um and I'm so pleased and excited for them. I mean, it I you know, as you were asking the question, I was sort of melting a little bit because when those breakthroughs happen, and I think it's more about the work than like I just got an amazing part. I mean, yes, that's great, but some of that's luck and marketing and all that. But um, and and when that happens, oh God, that's exciting. But I'm less excited about the commercial breakthroughs than I am about the artistic breakthroughs. You know, whether it's in class or whether it's seeing them in a show or on a you know, in a movie and going, My God, that work was great. That feels so rich.

[51:50] Patrick Oliver Jones: And I was reading that you left acting to pursue directing, and as you were pursuing directing, there was uh a venture into soap operas that you wanted to give try that out. Uh how did that go?

[52:06] Terry Knickerbocker: Well, that was the thing, you know. I mean, we talked about the theater pays you in hugs. I mean, it I think it pays even less if you're a director. Basically what I discovered was I love directing. It's very difficult to make a living as a director, unless you're Joe Mantello and you have Wicked running or Julie Taymor. That that directors uh make make a good living from those residuals. Because if it you're Joe Mantello's been getting money from Wicked for however many years, Julie Taymor, the same thing. They get a little piece every week, they get a check because they've created the show. It's their direction. But um, I wasn't going to be doing a musical on Broadway. And so I didn't see that happening.

So I went, oh shrap. I've I've now lucked into a job I love that I'm not going to be able to pay my rent with. There are three things you can do, apparently, in polling directors that support that. One is to work for a theater, like on staff, associate artistic director, literary manager, you know, a lot of directors do that. Well, nobody in New York needed anybody. Public theater, fully staffed, playwrights Horizons Ditto. Um, so that wasn't gonna work. Um the second was apparently directing soaps. So uh a friend of mine who's who's a very good director, David Petrarca, he does a lot of film and TV now, but he was doing a lot of theater. Um, because I'd won this award through the drama league, their emerging directors program in the in the second year that they offered it.

So he came and saw my show, and and all these other artistic directors came and saw it, and it was you know, they give you a show. You you you in you you assist like at arena stage and a New York theater, and then you have like a coming out weekend of your show, and then all these people come and see it, and like it's like a showcase and it launches you. So, oh, you're really good, and thank you. And I said, Yeah, but what do I do? He said, Well, I know someone at the Guiding Light. Let me hook you up. Maybe you want to do that. It's been helpful for some friends of mine. So I went for a day, curious. I mean, I I frankly had a somewhat biased idea that soap opera acting was pretty limited, and soap opera writing was even more limited.

So it, I mean, there are some actually quite good actors on soap operas. It's it's I don't mean to insult them. Um, but some of them are pretty stiff. And and also for me, it's just I wouldn't want it to be an actor where I'm on the same job for 20 years. That's not fun. I like playing a lot of parts, you know. So I was there for the day, and that made it very clear that it was not what I wanted to do. It just um I don't know, it just wasn't my thing, you know. Um, it was a lot of like camera three, go, camera six, go, camera, you know, go, and okay, and that's a wrap, and let's move in and let's scene 42 C, scene 42 C. And like they're moving the sets and the costume and the fake trees, and you know, and then they're in the next thing, and it felt more like a traffic cop. And I suppose I could have figured out how to do it, but I don't know that I would have enjoyed it. I don't think I gave it a fair shake, but I just like that I didn't see it in my future.

[55:19] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah.

[55:19] Terry Knickerbocker: Um, and so and so the third way was to be a teacher. And I could have taught then, but I I really had the idea, I knew what an amazing teacher Bill Esper was. He was my teacher, and um it was the work I felt like meant the most to me. And so to teach that properly, I could, you know, a lot of Meisner teachers just were in a Meisner class with somebody and now took some notes and read some books, and now they teach it. But the way Meisner has been taught in its purest form is as part of a lineage, and so Sanford Meisner would hand pick people uh to teach with him, who he saw had promise, among them Wynn Handman, who died last year, and uh Bill Esper and Bill Alderson and some wonderful teachers at the Neighborhood Playhouse.

And then Bill was now my teacher, and so I approached him and um changed my life. You know, he said he said yes, and that began a 32-year relationship of um really learning at the feet of the master and cultivating my own approach, you know, because I I'm not a clone of Bill. I I actually learned that very early. I I was teaching at NYU and uh I was trying to be Bill, and Bill was a very commanding presence and um could afford to get away with being abrupt and arrogant and like he he he could own it, you know. But but I quoted him uh to the students, but didn't quote him, I just did what he said. I said, Do people go to museums or something like that? Or you know, some really patronizing comment, and like I the class just looked at me like, Are you serious?

Where the hell do you come from, you pipsqueak? And so I I I really learned that I would have to cultivate my own, keep the work as the work, but my own style of teaching that was my own, and that took some time to do it.

[57:28] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah, your own approach. I I haven't taken your class, but just in speaking with you, you don't seem very bombastic and aggressive. It you seem a more like detail-oriented, and you kind of float between this. Now we go here, now we go there. So it seems like just a different approach than trying to ram acting into someone.

[57:48] Terry Knickerbocker: Well, thank you. We're not in a class right now, and sometimes definitely you know, I'm a human being, and so sometimes I get annoyed, and also sometimes I have to offer a kind of energy that matches the energy that's happening in the scene so that it'll go in. It's like there's all a narrow door. So if there's a big conflict scene, I you know, I mean by going repeat, you know, and have a bit of a uh like you might say to your dog, bad dog, right? Um, because I'm really working with the work and the energy, it's not the actor, and and the actors also take it personally, which is uh gotta be, you know, you have to help them not to do that because otherwise they're gonna get defensive. So I mean, I can I can I can be sweet, I can be silly, I can be sharp, you know. I have a lot of tricks in the repertoire.

[58:41] Patrick Oliver Jones: I I'm sure you do well. You know, you're teaching actors to do all these things, so of course you've got to live it as well.

[58:47] Terry Knickerbocker: Yeah.

[58:53] Patrick Oliver Jones: When it comes to auditioning versus performing, this is this is one of those things that it took me a while to kind of catch the the drift, kind of the dividing line between the two. From an acting teaching standpoint, what do you see as that division between the two?

[59:10] Terry Knickerbocker: Well, first of all, I keep a very hard line in my class and don't talk about whether what we're doing is ready for prime time. I'm not talking about auditions. In fact, I have basically a no audition policy while you're in class. I want them to be investing in the training, so that then they can go and audition because you only have so much energy, and if you this training is hard. And if you were going to NYU or Juilliard or Yale, you would not also be auditioning. You'd be training, and so I really want them focused on that. But then, okay, I'm getting to the end of second year, a disease called second year itis starts to come in because it's like I know that class is going to be over in two months, three months, one month, and then I'm going to be kind of kicked out of the nest.

So I need to have a now what kind of mindset, which includes things like headshots and you know, representation, and okay, how to audition. And for sure, I'd be so interested to hear what you discovered. But I would say what I'm teaching in class is how to do the job once you have the job, right? Auditioning is a different skill, it's a very different skill that's adjacent and it's related because it has something to do with moments and stuff like that, and breaking down their script analysis in it. But there's something about going into a room with people you don't know, with material that may not be very good material, with a reader who's dead and bored, right? And turning that into your room and staying playful and not freezing and not letting the anxiety about results grip you, and trying to keep as loose and free as you can, and saying, and not expecting anything to come of it, right?

I think it's a lot of mind games, but it's also just a skill so that you can walk in, not be intimidated by the people in the waiting room who want to intimidate you, because there are all kinds of games that happen in the waiting room, not being intimidated by the person who's keeping the list who's got attitude, and says, your appointment was 1205, it's 1207. Okay, did you ever you know? There's so much stuff that could distract you, and what you really have to be able to do is love your work, see it as an opportunity to have moments. A day with moments in it, acting moments is a better day than a day without moments. So it's my favorite thing to do is to go in and do this and say, I, you know, I this drama league thing.

So I was doing a play from by Maria Irene Fornes, who wrote Mud and Pfeffoo and her friends, and it was a musical of hers that I was turning into a straight play called Lovers and Keepers. And so I, you know, I had a casting director, and I had really good actors coming in, including John C. McGinley. John C. McGinley, who was in Platoon and has had an amazing career. He'd just gotten out of drama school. No one knew who he was, and he walked in and he taught me something that day, and it was something like it was a little cocky, but I liked it. It was kind of like something like, okay, well, I'm not sure what you're looking for, but this is what I want to do. This is what I would do with this part, and I found that so refreshing, just the attitude of like, I'm not controlling, you know, like tell me what you want.

And you know, it's like I thought about it, I looked at the script. Here's my take on it. I'm definitely open to anything you want to offer me, but this is what I got. This is my performance, not this is my audition. And I love the freedom of that, the confidence in that. But I think auditioning's a skill. And the way to do it is to audition a lot. And to audition a lot for things that you're not even necessarily right for. You know, I don't think it's unethical to audition. This I may get some flack for this, but if you're auditioning for something that you know you're not available for, you know, it's a summer stock performance in Virginia, and you know you're doing something. I think go audition anyway, because if they offer you the part, they have someone else in mind.

If they don't, you know, like it's not a contract. And I think that can be for you and to meet them. I don't think you'll burn any bridges by doing that. If they say, don't audition unless you have this schedule free, then we can get into that. And one of my favorite stories, I had this wonderful, very naive woman who studied with me, but she was so she was like a young Marilyn Monroe, not in the sexy department, but in the naive department. She was just so open. She was like a flower. And she saw on backstage an audition for Waiting for Godot. Now, Waiting for Godot, all the parts are men, as written. But she didn't know that. So she went to this audition and everyone looked up and said, Hi, can we help you?

Yeah, I'm here for the audition. Um, you do know what play we're working on here. Yeah, the waiting for Goku, you know. You know, and he said, Well, not quite, but good. Um, it's a play for males. Oh. Well, okay. And then someone said, Well, you came all this way and it's a rainy night. Like, did you bring them on a logic? He said, Yeah, she got cast as Dee Dee. See? They loved her. All you can do is put your line in the water and keep putting it in and keep doing it well. And you'll get better and better at auditioning, like anything. And that actually brings up one thing that I would disagree with you on and other programs, is that when they don't allow auditions, in my mind, just like you said, it's something that by doing, I've heard that auditions are like the one of the best workshops you can do because you can really hone your skill, not only on auditioning, but just the craft of those type of settings. And so for me, it's a chance to put in practice as you're as you keep learning to audition as well. That's why I disagree generally with programs that don't allow auditioning.

[1:05:47] Terry Knickerbocker: Well, first of all, it's very refreshing to be disagreed with and so pleasantly. So thank you for that. Um, yeah, I mean I want look, we're not doing acting class to do acting class, we're doing acting class to work, and maybe it comes from what Bill Esper told me. You know, I was cast in a show with Ann Bogart directing when I went to interview with him to study, and I'd done about eight or nine projects with Ann, who was not as well known then as she is now. She hadn't started the CT company, she wasn't teaching at Columbia, but she was my teacher at NYU, and then we did all these outside projects, and she was a real true mentor. Um, and so on my way out the door after my interview with Bill, I said, Oh, by Bill, I just want to be full disclosure, I may have to miss one class in the fall.

And he looked at me and said, Why would you miss a class? And I said, Well, I'm in this show, and I think we you know, is it afternoon class? So I could do night performances, but we have we have tech that day. It's a 10 out of 12. He said, What's the show? Is it a Broadway show? I said, Uh, no. Is it an off Broadway show at the public theater and playwrights horizons? No, it's uh it's an off off Broadway show, but it's with a director I'm really, really connected to. And I told him about it, he'd never heard of it. He said, I don't think you should do that show. I said, What? I mean, isn't that the point? Right. He said, No, no, the point is not for you to do that show. The point is for you to become better.

And if you go from my class to that, those rehearsals and that performance, you may, because most directors don't really understand the craft of acting, and we're working on something that's very delicate at the moment, and they're gonna ask you, and because you're a team player, they're gonna ask you to do something inorganic. Could you yell there, could you laugh there? And because you want to please them, or because you want to be, you know, part of the project, you'll do it, and then you'll disrupt the organic way of getting to that behavior that I'm working on. I want to teach you how to win races, and we're gonna start by crawling. So I'm all for learning how to audition, just doing it while you're training to me, for me, if I may humbly disagree with you, disagreeing with me can disrupt the process.

Um, and it also just puts stars in your eyes. You know, I mean, I see people who are like, now look, if you're already a Broadway actor and you come and study with me, which I've had. I had at one point many people from the cast of Spider-Man studying with me and performing at night and studying with me during the day. Well, they have a career, and they have put in rehearsals and they have replacement rehearsals, and their agent is setting up for pilot season. So I asked them to slow that down. Like when Sam Rockwell came and studied with Bill, he was work, he was a working actor. And as soon as he committed to the two-year program, he told his agent, unless it's amazing, don't tell me about it.

Slow it down. I'm training now. Right. And it was, I think it was the best thing he could have done. So to me, it's about focusing in, because yes, you should get that practice, but this training takes a lot out of you. And you want all your creative energy going into that, I would say. And you know, when I was at Circle in the Square, which is part of the NYU program, we were located, we were we were in Broadway, like so, and Backstage came out, and a lot of students would come to class dressed for auditions, you know, and then the teacher would say, Who wants to work today? And they say, Oh, I'd love to work, but I have an audition later and my pantyhose, I don't want to, you know, in my makeup, and like, and they're like, Why are you in class now if you're trying to get a job? Get a job after it. I mean, aren't you here to train? This is the point. So we'll have to respectfully disagree on that one.

[1:10:01] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah, I definitely hear what you're saying. I guess in my mind, it's like, well, why can't the two happen at the same time? Like, for example, since I'm a singer, you know, you have a song that you sing and it's this particular range. However, as you warm up, you want to make sure to go even lower than the song and even higher than the song. So that way the song itself becomes easier. So it's important to stretch those other things that you may not use may not be useful in that particular song.

[1:10:34] Terry Knickerbocker: Yeah. I love the song analogy, but that's still a musical idea. Auditions are a commercial idea. Auditions are just a transaction, a calling card, a way of meeting, a way of them checking you out to see do I trust this person to carry the ball? It's a tryout. It's not really an artistic idea. Right. It's related, but it's not quite the same. It's like a job interview or a first date. A first date isn't a relationship, it's an audition. Right. And then, you know, and then if there's some sparks, then we can see about going along together. It's the rare bird that will be fully themselves and engaged on that first date. We're all putting on the best performance of our lives.

[1:11:21] Patrick Oliver Jones: I'm so happy to be married. I hope you are too, because I wouldn't know what to do.

[1:11:25] Terry Knickerbocker: No, no, definitely dating can be exhausting. I certainly remember those days.

[1:11:30] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, this has been a joy to talk to you and get to know you, Terry. So I appreciate it.

[1:11:34] Terry Knickerbocker: I was just thinking that you're very easy to talk to, even when we disagree. You're such a pleasant person. And for people who are listening, because I didn't know what you looked like, you have such a warm and inviting face. So it's been nice to speak with you.

[1:11:49] Patrick Oliver Jones: Thank you, Terry.

[1:11:50] Terry Knickerbocker: Thank you.

[1:11:53] Patrick Oliver Jones: Well, thank you for listening and joining Terry and myself in this conversation. For those who support this podcast as a WINMI producer or artist, there are also members only episodes where Terry and I talk about audition stories and insights, as well as he answers the final five questions. To gain access to these and other bonus episodes, go to join.whyillnevermakeit.com. Terry's warm and open presence and inviting personality just made not only this conversation easy, but it also gave me a sense of the kind of training that I would get at his studio. So I've already sent in my application and look forward to getting back in touch with my own actor self and building those skills again. Well, I'm your host, Patrick Oliver Jones, in charge of writing, editing, and producing this podcast.

Music in this episode is provided by Borrtex. Why I'll Never Make It is a part of the Helium Radio Network and a member of the Broadway Makers Alliance. Join me next time with Evelyn and Chris, a couple who work backstage in theater as we talk more about why I'll never make it.

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