Episode 68: Freeing the Artist within with Eric Morris

I’m deeply honored to have interviewed my acting coach, Eric Morris on the Wholeness Podcast. Whether you’re an artist or just simply intrigued by the craft, please listen as what he’s dedicated his life to is liberating “actors” i.e. people from themselves and their own limiting thoughts – very similar to what I too have dedicated myself to.

Being a coach for over 12 years, I’ve found connecting with my inner artist (we all are creators) to be incredibly liberating, fun and healing.

Having been a coach – there is a lot of emotional bypassing I see being taught, meaning the expectation that our past should no longer impact us, or somehow that having emotions is bad and we should all “Om” our way through our days without having reactions.

I found Eric Morris and his work to be profound and life-changing. I found myself sitting in class, thinking “this is what I teach” just not to actors, but the work of freeing oneself of their mind so they can be free to be happy and live their best lives.

Eric Morris (born November 19, 1931) is an American actor, acting teacher and author who founded his own theory of acting based on the works of Stanislavski, Lee Strasberg and Martin Landau.

He has coached Jack Nicholson, Arnold Shwarzenegar and Alec Baldwin to name a few. His passion for truth and authenticity drove him to create the Eric Morris System of Acting, which provides actors with concrete techniques to explore their own psychology as the underlying source of their challenges – and unique gifts – as actors.

Eric Morris has been teaching his unique acting system in Los Angeles, New York, all over the United States, and around the world for fifty three years. His approach to acting is to teach actors “how not to act” but to become “professional experiencers” which means that instead of imposing emotional behavior they must experience in reality what the character is actually experiencing in the material. This is accomplished by using their own life experiences as choices to address and fulfill the life experiences of the character in the piece.

What we cover and what you’ll learn:

What was missing from your acting teachers that moved you to create your own system for actors?
At age 89 you are on top of your game and have more books in you – what drives you to constantly create?
Why imaging is so powerful and how it’s created manifestations and healing in his own life and his students.
What is the difference between the instrument and the craft
Why did you create your own method
Much of what you teach can apply to anyone, not just actors – how does your method help others to cope, heal and be free?
Why is acting and real life not separate
Why is that what most acting teachers teach
Sub personalities – why is it important to access our emotions and what are sub personalities? Do we all have them?
You’ve written 10 books and have an 11th on the way – if you had to select only 3 to tell an aspiring actor to read what would they be?
If you had only 1 to tell someone who has been blocked or disconnected from their themselves to read to help them transcend their limiting beliefs what would it be?
Why was your next book so important for you to write?