Performance is inherently vulnerable': Kristen Stewart says acting is unmasculine'

"Performance is inherently vulnerable and therefore quite embarrassing and unmasculine. There's no bravado in suggesting that you're a mouthpiece for someone else's ideas. It's inherently submissive. Have you ever heard of a female actor that was method? Method acting is a term used to describe the immersive techniques derived from the practice of performance first outlined by Russian theatre director Konstantin Stanislavski in a series of books, beginning in 1924 with My Life in Art."

"If you have to do 50 push-ups before your closeup or refuse to say a word a certain way There's a common act that happens before the acting happens on set: if [male actors] can protrude out of the vulnerability and feel like a gorilla pounding their chest before they cry on camera, it's a little less embarrassing. It also makes it seem like a magic trick, like it is so impossible to do what you're doing that nobody else could do it."

Performance is inherently vulnerable and therefore embarrassing and unmasculine. There is no bravado in presenting oneself as a mouthpiece for another's ideas, making performance inherently submissive. Method acting developed as immersive techniques derived from Stanislavski and was popularized in the US by the Group Theatre and the Actors Studio, with notable female students including Ellen Burstyn, Sally Field, Jane Fonda, Melissa Leo and Marilyn Monroe. Male actors often adopt rituals—push-ups, chest-pounding, silence—to project dominance and conceal vulnerability. These rituals create a perception of extraordinary skill, making acting seem like a magic trick. Female actors are not inherently emotionally unbalanced.

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