An Improvised Life

January 10, 2011
More a reflection on acting than a straightforward memoir, Academy Award–winner Arkin's musing on the creative process is a welcome window into the mind of an artist. After declaring to his father at age five that he wanted to be an actor, Arkin spent his Brooklyn childhood absorbing as much as he could from both everyday life and any opportunity he had to see films and plays. A move to L.A. in junior high cemented Arkin's performer dreams. As a student at Bennington's theater program, Arkin also performed with the earliest incarnation of Chicago's now famous Second City troupe, where he learned to appreciate the power of improvisation. Broadway and film roles followed, with Arkin integrating improvisation into his performances whenever possible, a skill he would hone over the years and later teach. The improv workshops—which Arkin taught and stresses were not "acting" workshops—began at Bennington and were also held at the Institute for American Indian Arts in New Mexico, where Arkin now lives. In this engaging and instructive book, he describes his own intuitive approach to acting and the ways in which he coaxed tentative workshop participants out of their shells.

January 1, 2011

The famous funnyman gets serious about his profession.

Arkin looks back on his career as an actor, but this memoir forgoes the backstage gossip and star-studded anecdotes readers might expect. In fact, the author largely ignores his accomplishments in favor of charting his inner evolution as an artist, focusing on intellectual and spiritual epiphanies that have shaped his approach to acting. Arkin's approach to autobiography is a bit unexpected—the intensely earnest, verging-on-New-Age tone is distinctly at odds with his familiar brusque, comedic persona—but rewarding, as the author illustrates the principles of his acting philosophy with a wealth of concrete details taken directly from his experience, resulting in a coherent and provocative manifesto. There are some intriguing glimpses at the process and personalities behind Chicago's seminal Second City acting troupe, in which Arkin first made a name for himself, and a handful of familiar tropes about the struggling young artist looking for work. But the author's interest is primarily in the discoveries he has made conducting improvisational-theater workshops, working with various acting mentors and performing on stage and screen. Arkin's basic premise is that good acting is born of an actor's commitment to the present moment, an embrace of spontaneity and willingness to give up rigid control. This Zen-like approach, which largely consists of the actor getting out of his own way, is hardly revolutionary, but Arkin has a knack for making it feel fresh and wholly sensible. He also displays a refreshing lack of egocentrism; many of the most profound lessons he recounts are the result of watching other actors, often amateurs, struggle with the challenges of improvisation laid out in his workshops. For an actor famous for his anxious, intense brand of comedy, Arkin's tone is surprisingly cool and measured, often wry but rarely laugh-out-loud funny.

Earnest, intelligent and well-observed—less a celebrity memoir than a serious consideration of the principles of acting and improvisation.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from February 15, 2011

If you pick up esteemed character actor and Academy Award winner Arkin's memoir hoping to find salacious stories of working with Sondra Locke in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, behind-the-scenes machinations between director Mike Nichols and Orson Welles in Catch-22, or the dirt on Steve Carell and Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine), you will be disappointed. With very few exceptions, name-dropping and anecdotal bons mots are conspicuously absent in this story of a 45-year career in film and theater. What you will find is a profoundly honest and revelatory reckoning of an artistic and personal awakening grounded in the methodologies of improvisation that Arkin learned in his early work with the seminal Second City. His experiences with individual psychotherapy, ongoing study of Eastern thought and philosophy, and leading improvisational workshops also infuse this narrative of the blossoming of an actor. VERDICT As honest and truthful a story of a life journey and arc toward artistic freedom as you are likely to find. All artists would benefit from Arkin's accrued insights and wisdom.--Barry X. Miller, Austin P.L., TX

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 15, 2011
Ever since he was five, Academy Awardwinner Arkin knew he would be an actor, feeling an unquenchable need to turn himself into something other than what I was. He became a self-described film junkie addict but realized that if he wasnt careful, his habit of pretending to be someone else all the time and his movie obsession could ruin his life. Indeed, at one point he realized he had no inner life, had become an innocent bystander to himself. Arkin recalls his folksinging days as a member of the Tarriers, examines the improvisational exercises he practiced as a member of Chicagos Second City, comments on his move from theater to film, and offers bemused insights into the notion of celebrity. Arkin also describes his attempts to better understand himself through a combination of therapy and self-education. This perfectly calibrated memoir is less an autobiography and more a primer on the process of becoming an actor. As such, actors of all levels and film and theater buffs will appreciate Arkins candid discussion of the creative process both from an acting and a directing perspective.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)