Staging Biography: Actors Playing Real People

Overview

Watching actors portraying real people is a powerful and engaging experience — think Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in Iron Lady, Colin Firth as King George VI in The Kings Speech, Russell Crowe as John Forbes Nash in A Beautiful Mind, Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote in Capote and President Obama as Daniel-Day Lewis as Obama.

Knowing actors are recreating true events often makes a film all the more fascinating, yet creative liberties can also create a false understanding of the actual events. Where do we place ethics in this sphere of acting? Is it the actor’s role to be completely true to the character? What about those who know the subject?

In a public lecture entitled Staging Biography: Actors Playing Real People, Mary Luckhurst, Professor of Drama at the University of York and a Macgeorge Fellow at the VCA, shares her extensively researched understanding of the topic, including information gathered through interviews with some of the world’s most famous actors.

Image credit The Kings Speech