Some time back, Terry Knickerbocker (Don’t laugh, that is his real last name) taught some master classes in Vancouver to aspiring actors here. He’s already mentored some of the most amazing actors ever like Sacha Baron Cohen, Zac Efron, Boyd Holbrook, Emmy Rossum, Daniel Craig, Michelle Williams, and so many more who even get mentioned in this article. Like Austin Butler, who was just involved in Dune Part 2. As you can tell, Terry’s made it big with the names he worked with, but he’s always down to help other people too, no matter what their rank of experience. While we couldn’t meet in person due to certain timing issues (I was booked with other happenings during his master classes) we had a fun and engaging conversation via Zoom about what he was going to offer and how much he anticipated working with Vancouverites. Let’s get going on the lesson for today, which is what Terry told me about what he would do, and had eventually done.
HNMAG: You’ll be in Vancouver doing some teaching. What does your master class cover?
Terry Knickerbocker: Well, it kind of covers whatever the actors bring and my attempt to help make the work that each actor’s bringing, more clearer, more precise, simpler, and just to raise the quality.
HNMAG: Can you explain what the Meisner technique is?
Terry Knickerbocker: The Meisner technique is an approach to acting training, that was developed by Sanford Meisner who was a member of a group theatre with Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, and others who were all inspired by Stanislavsky who was this Russian master-theatre director and practitioner. Meisner’s approach also aligns with his own background as a trained pianist. Whereas a lot of approaches to acting start as what we would call scene study, which means that your first acting class might have you working on a scene from a good play, that’s how I personally started before I found the Meisner technique. He starts with something more like what a musician would be like scales and so scene study would be like starting piano lessons with Beethoven which doesn’t make any sense when you think about it. Nobody goes to a concert to hear scales, but when you learn scales it makes you more advanced to music much like you learn scales of acting with the Meisner technique. Any acting technique is about how you turn a script into something that feels like truthful behaviour that honours the writer and also the actor.
HNMAG: Why did you choose to go to Vancouver for some teaching?
Terry Knickerbocker: I was fortunate enough to meet Jeb Beach who is the host and has an acting studio in Vancouver. I met him during the pandemic when I was trying to figure out how to keep my own studio in New York afloat at a time when we couldn’t be with each other in person. I met him through a mutual contact and found that he had been very successful in moving his studio and the training that they do online. I did some webinars with his students because Vancouver has a very active actor community because Vancouver’s very active in production. It’s got great crews, great talent, and also all these tax advantages and ends up being a very economically feasible thing for a production that might normally shoot in LA to go up to Vancouver to get some good breaks. There’s a lot of actors there who similar to Atlanta in the United States, they are very focused on getting work. What they’re less focused on which makes my focus with Jeb a nice synergy is the training for acting. They’re more focused on how to do a good audition, how to do good self tapes, how to work on their audition technique, and there’s a little bit less focus on how to work on the acting itself. It’s a nice partnership and I’m going to meet a lot of eager actors who want to get better at their acting, so when they do audition and get jobs, they’ll have more to bring to the table.
Terry has had the pleasure of already meeting some of these actors through Jeb and got the opportunity to meet even more through his class. Terry also explained how one needs to work in television and film to have a sustainable career, which was also covered in the class. Working on good plays also makes someone a good actor which is why people like Samuel Rockwell and Denzel Washington always do theatre on Broadway to sharpen their techniques. A lot of the material in the class came from plays that were done in theatre, which is really quite different. When you work on good language and good plays, it makes you an all-around good actor everywhere, Terry told me.
HNMAG: Would you definitely see about returning to Vancouver for more master classes?
Terry Knickerbocker: Why not? I mean it’ll be my first time. I’ve only been to Montreal so I’m not too familiar with Vancouver. It looks lovely, is a smaller town than New York, obviously and I love going anywhere there are actors who are hungry to be good actors. Vancouver has a nice population of that. It’s a trial run for now, Jeb and I have been talking about it for a couple years. We did an online master class a couple years ago, and this’ll be the first one in person and I’m really excited to come in person and see what we can do together.
HNMAG: What other acting techniques do you teach?
Terry Knickerbocker: Well, at the end of the day, I really think you need to have a barrel full of techniques. When I coach actors, especially A-listers, those people are not necessarily Meisner actors nor are they coming to me to teach them how to act. It kind of just boils down to ‘How do I make the acting quality?’ I don’t consider this a Meisner master class, I may use some of the vocabulary, but it’s really if someone is living out the story in a truthful way. What you really need to do is get to the top of the mountain, and the Meisner technique is just one approach. I’ll use whatever I have in my toolkit because I’m also a graduate of NYU and I learned different approaches.I think of what needs to be improved, like movement, voice, what matters is can I find a language to help that individual actor fulfill what they’re trying to fulfill to honour themselves and the script in a way that’s truthful, vibrant, and interesting to the artist, and that actor.
HNMAG: You have a history of coaching star actors. How do you get involved with them?
Terry Knickerbocker: I’m lucky that I get to choose who I work with. When I taught in the University system I had some wonderful students but they didn’t choose me and I didn’t choose them. But as someone who runs their own studio, I get to work with who I want to work with and because someone comes to me for coaching doesn’t mean it’s a good fit. The people I’ve chosen to work with over the years, I’ve been really lucky to have them and I love working with all of them. They’re all very different, and that always keeps me on my toes so I can really find my way into their process and they feel good about it.
HNMAG: And what was it like working with Austin Butler while preparing for Dune 2?
Terry Knickerbocker: That was fun but a little bit challenging because he was in Hungary when we were working, we worked on Zoom. As things are with Blockbuster scripts they were being very careful with who could see the script and I don’t even think Austin had the entire script. He just had his pages and I think I might’ve had to sign an NDA, I’ve done that before with Marvel movies and Indiana Jones, but even then I had screenshots so getting the character’s arc was a little bit tricky. But that character was really well written and we knew what lane he had to be in, which was the bad guy. Villains are really a lot of fun to work on, and it was a real different turn from Austin working on 3 years of Elvis. We got to really play and think about things that were hedonistic. I think we used references like how he was a snake, thought about images from Caligula, and just about what it was like to be purely evil and have no empathy whatsoever, to not really care what happens to the people you’re harming. That was the approach into the character, he had not psychological insight into anybody else. It really gave us a lot of permission to do things in life we’re not allowed to do.
Terry went further into other details on how he doesn’t think about techniques, his first obligation is to the story. That’s also what is the first obligation to actors as well as the different genres.
HNMAG: How do you help the actor after figuring out the story?
Terry Knickerbocker: First I have to understand what the writer’s intention is and what kind of project it is. After getting an understanding it all, I help the actor in whatever way they can live inside the genre and tell a story that’s truthful. Ultimately, techniques need to be invisible.
HNMAG: Let’s go back a little more into your origins. Where did you learn your skills from?
Terry Knickerbocker: I was fortunate that I had parents who really loved the arts. My dad and mom loved theatre, and sculpture, and painting. As well as classical music, and I was really lucky that they exposed me to all that. When I came to want to go to NYU for training, they were supportive of that as well. I started acting in grade school, all through high school, got a BFA in NYU, and when I graduated in spite of the fact I had wonderful classmates, teachers, and an amazing experience in one of the best cities to study acting in. I still felt not completely prepared. The training had been that scene study approach and so sometimes my work was good, sometimes my work wasn’t. Then I got exposed by fortunate accident to an actor in a play who I thought was amazing and got to see him every night because I was working backstage. and it turned out his teacher was the man who became my teacher, my mentor, a man named William Esper. He had a studio and trained with Meisner, and I didn’t know about Meisner. That two years changed my life and gave me such a solid foundation for my work. Then I was working as an actor and was lucky enough to be asked to direct something. I thought it sounded interesting and then I discovered I liked directing even more than acting, which is weird because I’ve been acting for so long. I’ve been teaching it for 30 years and love teaching acting, and along the way got into this adjacent part of coaching actors and it’s a different part.
HNMAG: And are there any other places in Canada you plan to teach acting?
Terry Knickerbocker: It seems to me Toronto is the next logical place to think about, it has such a vibrant arts scene and Montreal, but I’ll go wherever actors want to work.
Obviously, Terry couldn’t stay too long but you never know when he might be back. I hope he and Jeb get some more master classes going and I hope he found Vancouver to be fun. Right after the interview, he asked me about places to check out because he wanted to show his kids around and make some fun memories. I really do hope he comes back, because as an actor myself, I just might need some of Terry’s special training.