What do Robert Duvall, John Voight, Sydney Pollack, Tony Randall, Gregory Peck, Jeff Goldblum, James Caan, and Tom Cruise have in common? They all trained under the master acting coach Sanford Meisner. Famous playwrights like Arthur Miller and David Mamet were also his students. His teaching technique, known as the Meisner Technique, is regarded as one of the most effective tool to master the art of acting. The goal of the Meisner technique has often been described as getting actors to “live truthfully under imaginary circumstances.” The technique emphasizes carrying out an action truthfully on stage and letting emotion and subtext build based on the truth of the action and on the other characters around them, rather than simply playing an action or emotion.
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