Marlon Brando on acting, James Dean, Montgomery Clift, Marilyn Monroe, and Shelley Winters (1990)

Conversation with author James Grissom via telephone in August 1990.You're asking me now to look deeply into a mirror, because that is what takes place when an actor speaks of acting: I cannot help but reveal a great deal of myself in taking on my peers, in talking about what others did, or try to do, or are still trying to do.It's dangerous territory.One of the awful traps in the world of the actor is the tendency to remain an acting student to such a degree that your work remains a laboratory of your intentions and the ministrations of your particular teacher. When you study the piano or the guitar, there comes a day when you cannot believe that you are changing chords or sight-reading or composing your own music: It seems only seconds ago that you were the plodding student, searching for keys or strings, and now you are somewhat in control of this instrument and the history that resides around and within it. This is what must happen with acting as well. It happens with dance--dancer...