Ellen Burstyn Slams Method Actors at Venice Masterclass — SkimNews
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- Ellen Burstyn received Venice's Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement and used her masterclass to critique modern method actors, saying they "don't know anything about it and just make a lot of noise" compared to Lee Strasberg's teaching of training the senses to respond to imaginary circumstances
- Burstyn recounted a co-star who got drunk for a scene, tore up the set, and required police to be called, calling it "not method acting; that's not any kind of acting. That's just misguided"
- Burstyn recalled eerie accidents on "The Exorcist" set, including a fire that ravaged much of the set and a crew member who lost their newborn child, while noting director William Friedkin dismissed the stories as "made up" for the film's 45th anniversary reunion
- Burstyn described a single encounter with Marilyn Monroe at a comedy club early in her career as preparation for playing Monroe in Maggie Gyllenhaal's "Flesh Impact," which imagines Monroe living into old age
- Burstyn called her road movie "A Place to Be" — co-starring Taika Waititi as a middle-aged man returning a racing pigeon from Chicago to New York — "a sexless love story" and said working with Waititi felt "like being in life, not in a movie"
- Burstyn reflected on her Oscar-winning role in Martin Scorsese's "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore," linking the film to the feminist consciousness-raising of Gloria Steinem, who she noted had just died
Why it matters: Burstyn's critique carries weight because she trained directly under Strasberg, whose name today's method actors invoke — her remarks expose a gap between the technique's intellectual roots and its pop-culture shorthand. The Venice spotlight simultaneously reframes her half-century career through a feminist, craft-first lens that studios rarely extend to actresses over 80.
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