by Martin Kihn
It will come as no surprise to you that I have had about a thousand different therapists, psychiatrists, and social workers over the years. I’ve spent decades “on the couch,” and it has had a profound effect on my personality: It made me even more whiny and self-centered than I was in the beginning. Like every other person in Manhattan with health insurance.
This is by way of explaining why I felt—at this stage in our journey together—further introspection was not the way to go. My whole life was too theoretical; my library was a lot more interesting than I was. Ben had inspired me to try the outside-in approach.
So I bought a copy of Backstage and scanned the classifieds looking for an acting teacher. What did I want? Probably a man. Definitely an Asshole. But how can you tell if somebody’s an Asshole from a tiny ad? They’re hardly going to announce it to the world: “Asshole Acting Teacher—You’ll Hate Me!”
On the verge of despair, my eye was drawn to a teacher with a—well, a strange name. At the time it seemed like an omen. His name: “AL PACIO.”
I did a double take. Then I looked at the guy’s picture and realized it wasn’t a misprint. Tony Montana himself was not taking acting students. However, he looked to be nasty enough, from what I could see in black-and-white, and his ad said he specialized in “Eliminating Bad Habits.”
Those, I had. I gave him a call and left a message.
Two days later a crabby-sounding older guy called me back at work. If he really wasn’t Al Pacino, he did a good job of hiding it; I felt like I was talking to Serpico himself. I made the mistake of asking him what acting method he used.
“Fuck fuckin’ methods, man,” he spat out. “The only thing you need is the Truth. All that other shit is bullshit trying to squeeze money out of your dick.”
He was definitely my man. We arranged to meet in his apartment downtown. Then he asked me why I thought I needed his help.
I gave him a little background on myself and my quest.
“Hold on,” he interrupted, “I thought you said you’re in advertising.”
“I am.
“But you’re an actor? I’m confused, big boy.”
“No—I want to create a character. And I’m going to play him in my life.”
There was quite a long silence as I contemplated—not for the first time—what a silly pickle I’d got myself into with this project.
Emily appeared, grabbed a handful of Kleenex, and left.
“It’s your dinero, man,” he said, finally. “Whatever floats your kayak.”
I thought I’d risk telling him a Truth of my own: “I want to be like Tony Montana.”
“Who?”
“The guy in Scarface? You know, ‘Say hello to my lee’l friend!”
“Never heard of him.”
This guy had to be kidding. He practically named himself after Pacino. “You guys have similar names,” I pointed out.
“Huh?”
“Pacio, Pacino. You know. Did you do that on purpose?”
Another pause. I think he was firing up a cigarette, or maybe a crack pipe. “Guess you’re right. See you Saturday, man.”
Al—as he insisted I call him—seemed to own an entire townhouse in the West Village on one of those streets that look like a part of Disneyland called Olde Europe. It was very lavish for an actor I’d never heard of, and I decided he either had a wealthy boyfriend, a family fortune, or he robbed trains on the side. The answer, when I finally learned it, was a lot less dramatic.
Like many well-off men who don’t work much, he dressed like he was about to get on a boat. I usually saw him wearing Reyn Spooner Hawaiian print shirts or T-shirts from ten-year-old tours by Metallica. Not a tall man, he leaned forward like he had a slight pain in his ass, and his hands were always headed somewhere. He had thick silver hair and a deeply lined, leathery face, as though he’d spent too much time on his roof. His accent was definitely old New York, with a flavor of jail.
“So,” he said, looking me up and down for the first time, “you’re a lot older than you sound on the phone.”
“What?”
He ignored the question. This would happen a lot. “You wanna work on assertiveness?”
“Not really. I—”
He interrupted me; which also happened a lot. “Yes, you do.” “Well—”
“You want to act more assertive.”
I thought about it. “I guess you’re right.”
He was silent a moment, then burst out laughing. It was a punchy, pained laugh. “Whoa, whoa, boy,” he said. “See what I mean, man! How hard was it to get you to change your fuckin’ mind? Not! We’ve got a lotta work to do, little brother.”
“But I—”
“Let’s start this peace train now, amigo. Take off your shoes.”
Turned out Al was all about the Work. In the Moment. And, later, of course, the Check.
Immediately, he lead me through a quick series of facerelaxing exercises called the “Lion-Fist” (squinching your face up like a fist, then opening it like a roaring lion), the “Lip Circle,” with distinctly sexual tongue motions, the “Oo-ee Wee-waw” lip stretcher, and some sinus massaging.
“Okay, we’ll adapt the usual voice shit for your Asshole character. Repeat after me. When she kicks the pricks, she yanks the banks.”
I said: “When she kicks the pricks, she yanks the banks.”
“He fucks the schmucks and gags in bags.”
“He fucks the schmucks and gags in bags.”
“Hand me the gun you dumb stumblebum.”
“Hand me the gun you dumb stum—”
And so on. Silly little tongue twisters until my tongue was twisted numb.
“This area here,” said Al, running two fingers in a V-shape over the region around my nose and cheeks, “is called ‘the mask.’ There’s resonators for the voice—they’re in the chest, back, and here. Most people don’t use them when they speak. If you can activate all three, you’re a fuckin’ genius.”
“What kind of voice would my character have, do you think?” I asked. I was very happy to be speaking words I had made up myself, for a change.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said.
“Huh?”
“He’s an Asshole, right? What’s he care how the fuck he talks?”
Al opened up his Sub-Zero refrigerator and scratched his balls, keeping both hands fully occupied.
“Eye contact,” he said. “He’d care a lot about that. And the placement—where he sat in a room. In a meeting. What he did with his hands—the handshake. He’d take up a lot of space, do the dominant thing. I’m guessing he’d be a guy who understood body language. At least on an intuitive level. Not so much how he talked, but when. Right?” It was almost as if he’d read my notes on the Nemesis.
There was some banging of glass inside the refrigerator and Al squealed, “Shit!”
Then he came back into the room carrying an open glass bottle of pomegranate-flavored iced tea, saying, “You’ve got a lotta bad habits.”
“I know that.”
“You’re self-conscious. There’s a lotta tension in your face. It’s like a—like a muscle you never relax. Your jaw is permanently cramped. You know that?”
Actually, I didn’t know that. I nodded.
“Your voice isn’t clean, it’s from a place of tension. Your natural voice is probably okay but you’re holding it in your chest, not down here.” He pointed to his lower abdomen. ‘Your eye contact is weak—what’re you afraid of? Anything?”
“I don’t think so,” I trembled.
“How’re you with feedback? ’Cause I’d like to give you feedback.”
Actually, I was just great with feedback, as long as it wasn’t about me. But I thought: suck it up. No progress without pain. That’s why you’re here: You really want to change.
“Can you talk?” he asked me, and I realized I’d gone inside my head again.
“Sure.”
“Let’s start with the Instrument. You work out at all? This,
I’m doubting.”
“I used to—”
“What about boxing? DeNiro boxed. I knew DeNiro. He’s a strange cat. Real quiet. Terrible skin. Tell you what—this is what we’re gonna do…”
Al laid out an agenda for me. I’d have to work my body, a.k.a. the Instrument. There wouldn’t be any scripts, line readings, scene study—I was learning how to improvise.
He said: “I don’t know you, but you’re nothing like this guy, the Asshole. Right?”
“I guess,” I said. I was sitting on his pillowy chair now, looking out the window.
“It’s a stretch. But it’s okay—we can play against type. Normally I’d say that takes talent but since you obviously don’t have any, we’re gonna work with what we got. Okay?”
“Thanks.”
He frowned. “Oooh, is little Marty’s feelings hurt? I’m sawwy, Marty.” Then he barked: “Actors don’t have feelings! Got it?! Leave them the fuck back in your purse! You understand?”
I understood I wanted a different acting coach. But this bozo definitely had what I needed: a terrible personality.
“I’m gonna have you do what actors do—they get a part’s different from them. Happens all the time. I hang out with Nathan Lane, he’s nothing like those fuckin’ roles he plays. A really sweet guy, when he isn’t hungover. See, he’s up in a show, he’s acting. Know what I mean?”
This made sense to me. At first I’d thought of getting an acting coach so I’d be better at faking things, but Al was telling me I could take it a step further. I could prepare a character—“The Asshole”—doing everything an actor does to set up for a role.
The only difference was, the world was my stage. And I didn’t know the script.
The next time I went to Al’s apartment he met me at the door in a white karate outfit with a red jungle cat decaled across the front. He was sweaty from doing something I didn’t want to know about. He offered me a Volvic water and led me down the long, long hall into the Oh, God! room. That’s how I thought of his living room, which was white and minimalist like a snowstorm in heaven but punctuated with luxuriant green plants and a couple big cats who moved so little I wondered at first if they were stuffed.
“Stand up,” said Al, getting down to business right away. “We need to move that sorry Instrument. Do some contractions.”
I did what Al did, arching my back, then plunging forward like I was punched in the gut. Then we did windmills and jumps, stretched our faces out and scrunched them up, made weird noises and grunts.
Al was shaking his head, smiling. “How old’re you?”
“Forty.”
“Hmmm,” he said enigmatically. “Late bloomer.”
He led me in a Meisner exercise called “Repetition.” He stood in front of me and said, “You have a big nose.” Wait. “Now you repeat that.”
“You have a big nose.”
“No, no—you say, ‘I have a big nose.’ Just do that back and forth—until it changes. Don’t force it. If it doesn’t change—don’t worry bout it.”
‘You have a big nose,” said Al.
“I have a big nose.”
“You have a big nose.”
“I have a big nose.”
We went on a long time. I didn’t know what to do, and I was waiting for him to take the lead. I was thinking he enjoyed talking about my nose a little too much, especially because he had a particularly delightful little nozzle, like James Dean’s.
After like an hour of this, he said, “You look annoyed.”
“I have a big nose—”
“No, no, no!” he screamed, going off into his “cook’s kitchen” again. “You respond to me! Be in the scene, Marty! You ain’t a robot, you’re a human being.”
I didn’t know it then, but that was about the nicest thing Al would ever say to me.
We began again, and I responded correctly: “I look annoyed.”
“You look almost angry.”
“I look almost angry.”
“Where’s the fuckin’ creamer?!”
“Where’s the creamer?”
“Great! Great! Keep it going!” he shouted as he emerged from the kitchen with a tall no-whip latte in a glass.
“You look like you want to punch me,” he chanted.
“I want to punch you.”
“You’re pissed.”
“I’m pissed.”
“But you’re a wussy.”
“I’m a wussy girly-man.”
“You can’t stand up for yourself,” he said, picking up a copy of W magazine and thumbing through it.
“I can’t stand up for myself at all.”
“Keep it in the Moment! Don’t judge it—observe it!” He put the magazine back on the table. “Your lower jaw is twitching.”
“My lower jaw is—” I couldn’t keep this up. His observation was correct: My lower jaw really was twitching. It’s what happens when I need to say something but my nice-guy circuitbreakers don’t want me to do it.
He looked at me, shaking his head as though I was confirming his worst fears about me.
“How’re you feeling, Marty? What’s the emotion?”
“Tense—”
“No—that’s obvious—no—the emotion. The content.”
“Angry.”
“Like you don’t care what I think of you, right?”
“I guess.”
“Like a … dare I say it, like an Asshole?”
Actually, I was feeling like he was the Asshole, but I got his point. Maybe Assholes do go around thinking everyone else in the room is an Asshole. Maybe they’re just trying to fit in.
He gave me three homework assignments, which I pass along to you. The assignments, to be done more or less simultaneously, were:
1. Study examples of jerks in action. Ideally this was from real life but could also be characters in TV shows, movies, books, anything. Study how they behave and how they talk, and any evidence of what their inner life is like. “Think Alec Baldwin,” said Al, “most of his characters, except that one on TV. Also Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross, that’s a good one for you.” You already have a head-start on all this from your observations of your role model and Scarface.
2. Build a biography for my character. “Know where he’s born,” said Al, “where he went to school, what his mom is like. All that.” This was something good actors did routinely, he told me. “Some of them write books about the role,” he said. I decided this one was optional; it seemed too hypothetical.
3. Use my own life. Practice jerky behaviors in the course of my day and see what happens. How do people react? How do I react? What are the feelings?
“And when you’re out there,” said Al, indicating the world outside his huge French windows, “always be thinking: What would an Asshole do now? How would he act?”
“When do you think I’ll be ready to try it… out there?” I asked him, nervously.
He shot me that look of deep disappointment I was getting used to.
“You were ready,” he said, “twenty fuckin’ years ago.”
“I’m happy to say this, man,” said Al the next time I saw him. “Even you have a touch of Asshole in you already.”
“Thank you.” It felt good to hear it, even if I didn’t believe him.
Al had told me to build up the inner life of my Asshole character by understanding his story—where he was born, what his childhood was like, and so on. Trouble was, I didn’t know where to start. My own childhood, while rich with interior drama and violent, pregnant silences, was kind of uneventful. And although my younger siblings and I begged them from time to time, my parents never even got divorced. I always blamed the failure of my poetry career on the lack of abuse I’d endured as a kid.
I made the mistake of suggesting that the goal of all this imagination was to get myself to feel more like an Asshole.
“Nobody cares what you’re feeling,” said Al, with some feeling. “Think ’bout it—can you see a feeling? Huh?”
“Uh …”
“Answer’s no. The only thing you see is what you do. You hearing me? You’re living in your shitcake skull too damn much, Pee-wee.”
“Gosh, I think—”
“No—no! You do … then you think … then you feel. Seems backward, but it’s true. There’s something called the—you heard of Michael Chekhov? Legendary acting teacher? No? Well, he talked about this thing called the ‘psychological gesture.’ Same point here. What he’s saying is, what can I do up there on stage, in rehearsal, to create a certain mental state for myself? You’ve gotta think about your goal—what you want leads to your behavior, what you do. That causes feelings. See how that works? Cause-effect, right? You do, you feel—not the other way ’round. Make sense?”
He took three apples out of the bowl on the table and started to juggle them with impressive skill.
“Even Stanislavsky said you don’t have to live everything you feel on stage,” he said, focusing on a spot in the air. “People are not rational. We get choked up at a Kodak commercial. Look at marriage—makes no sense at all. Waste a ton on a goddamn wedding, then you just gotta give them half your fuckin’ income for life when they meet some guy at the yoga ashram and so maybe he has a house on the Cape. Big deal. That’s no excuse to rip a guy’s heart out of his chest.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. He stopped juggling and put the apples down. We were facing each other near the big window that looked out on the street. “Boo!” he shouted, in my face.
I’m sorry to say I jumped back and, well, I yelped. Like a little boy.
“Start runnin’!” he screamed, and chased me around the sofas. I backpedaled like a clown.
“What—?”
“How you feelin’ now? Run—come on! I’m comin’ at ya! Hah! Faster, old man!”
And just like that—he stopped.
“What was that about?” I asked Al.
“What you feeling now? Angry? Scared?”
“Maybe—”
“Don’t maybe, Marty That’s all over.”
“Alright—yes,” I said.
“Yes, what?”
“Angry and scared.”
“Good—now which came first? The feeling or what you did?”
“I’m not—”
“Did you move away ’cause you’re scared—or were you scared ’cause you moved away? Think about it.”