How Stanislavski Reinvented the Craft of Acting

In the 1950s, a wave of “method actors” took Hollywood by storm. Actors like James Dean, Marlon Brando, and Montgomery Clift, brought a whole new toolset and perspective on the actor’s craft to the films they performed in. The foundation of their work, however, was laid in Russia more than fifty years prior to their stardom. Stanislavski’s conception of “psychological realism” in performance challenged ideas about the essential features of the actor’s craft that had been held for centuries. In the