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Post by Scotbritt on Jan 27, 2011 11:50:03 GMT 8
Hi there, As a fairly new member on this forum and a recent discoverer of Hans I wanted to know if there are any copies of any magazine articles with Hans either mentioned or in interview format. I know some of the older ones are especially hard to find. I've searched for a few on ebay but haven't found too many. If anyone knows where I could find some that would be lovely,  Thanks! |
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Post by Gg on Jan 28, 2011 5:25:00 GMT 8
As far as hard copies of magazines with mention they have been very few ans far between. Maybe three total and two were in the UK. Now Lynettte may have goten her hands on a Czech resource while Bathory was in production, but that would be the extent. I would direct you to read the articles on hanmatheson.org if you are looking for interviews, as well as youtube so the bts interviews from TubeTales, Tess, Bathory, and maybe Dr Zhivago, but I could be mistaken on that last one... Oh! And there's a bried interview in the extras of I am Dina that kind of make me giggle.
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Post by Gg on Jan 28, 2011 5:26:48 GMT 8
On my mobile. Typos impossible to avoid...
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Post by Virgil Reality on Jan 28, 2011 7:40:59 GMT 8
As Gigi said, there have been few magazine write ups. Where known, transcripts and photos are on Hans Matheson Online. The way it's organised, you probably have to go through the pages of the relevant movies - or at the bottom of the Media page (scroll down) or Hans- The Man. Some examples "You Need Hans"promo for Mojo. "The Face" 1998. "Hello I Must be Cohen" -promo for Still Crazy. "Neon" 1998 "Hans Matheson Has 10 Minutes to Seduce us" promo for Bodywork. "Company" 2000 "There's Nothing Wrong with Sex on TV" - promo for Doctor Zhivago "NOW" 2002 "Doctor Zhivago" photo spread "OK" 2002 All were sourced on Ebay - there are others out there - a Radio Times circa Tess shows up occasionally There was a bidding war once on ebay where the price of a magazine went to ridiculous heights - out of spite I think; and said magazine was then used as collateral to access a former member's library of Hans material. We never want to go back to those crazy days For some members, the fact that Hans does little publicity is pat of the mystique. Imagine if he was "everywhere"? he wouldn't be our little secret. |
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Post by Gg on Jan 28, 2011 8:35:44 GMT 8
Wow, I think I've blocked that silliness out for years! I think I would've never remmembered without that post...  . What complete silliness that was!!!! I still don't quite get what that weird a$$ possessiveness was about! What's the point of having this stuff if not to share with people who have no way of purchasing it?! Something deeply neurotic about that.... You're very handy with that computer of yours!!! One dayI'll get off work and be back to mine... |
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Post by Scotbritt on Jan 28, 2011 13:01:33 GMT 8
Thanks for the links,  I'll be sure to check them out. For some members, the fact that Hans does little publicity is pat of the mystique. Imagine if he was "everywhere"? he wouldn't be our little secret. Very true, I do love that he's our secret. When I mentioned him to my friends most of them had never heard of him before. Clearly they just don't know what they're missing, |
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Post by lynette on Jan 28, 2011 22:49:26 GMT 8
As far as hard copies of magazines with mention they have been very few ans far between. Maybe three total and two were in the UK. Now Lynettte may have goten her hands on a Czech resource while Bathory was in production, but that would be the extent. I would direct you to read the articles on hanmatheson.org if you are looking for interviews, as well as youtube so the bts interviews from TubeTales, Tess, Bathory, and maybe Dr Zhivago, but I could be mistaken on that last one... Oh! And there's a bried interview in the extras of I am Dina that kind of make me giggle. Around the shooting Bathory was no specific article or an interview with Hans in the Czech Republic or in the Slovak Republic. Interview with Hans about filming is in the book by Juraj Jakubisko. But I feel that someone here this interview was translated and sent.  |
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Neferisis
Hans Afficionado
Just a dreamer holding on to what is precious: hope
Posts: 106
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Post by Neferisis on Jan 29, 2011 8:30:25 GMT 8
I was just reading Hans' interview "There's Nothing Wrong with Sex on TV" (2002) and I really enjoyed this passage: "The truth of the matter is that life's painful for everyone - no-one escapes. At the end of the day, all painful experiences make you a more compassionate person because you can relate to other people's pain. Of course, all life experiences also make you a more dynamic actor." Hans's interview speeches are somewhat inspiring... why doesn't he concede more of them? I wish one could learn more of his process for creating characters, actingwise |
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Post by Scotbritt on Jan 29, 2011 11:19:11 GMT 8
I was just reading Hans' interview "There's Nothing Wrong with Sex on TV" (2002) and I really enjoyed this passage: "The truth of the matter is that life's painful for everyone - no-one escapes. At the end of the day, all painful experiences make you a more compassionate person because you can relate to other people's pain. Of course, all life experiences also make you a more dynamic actor." Hans's interview speeches are somewhat inspiring... why doesn't he concede more of them? I wish one could learn more of his process for creating characters, actingwise I read that one. That one was probably one of my favorite interviews that I've read besides the Half Light one where he talks about riding the horses (poor guy). I agree; he has some really inspirational quotes that I just want to quote on my facebook page or something. |
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Post by Gg on Jan 30, 2011 2:38:15 GMT 8
Well,... we have got some small clues through his interviews about his process of charcterization. Even Samantha Morton has mentioned him and his use of music to study his characters and emerse himself in them. He also mentions in an early interview, remembering his first Method class and the instructor at drama school and how after being very quiet for his first year and sitting in the back, he found himself openning up one day in this guys class... guess it's been history ever since!
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Neferisis
Hans Afficionado
Just a dreamer holding on to what is precious: hope
Posts: 106
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Post by Neferisis on Jan 30, 2011 5:39:15 GMT 8
Well,... we have got some small clues through his interviews about his process of charcterization. Even Samantha Morton has mentioned him and his use of music to study his characters and emerse himself in them. He also mentions in an early interview, remembering his first Method class and the instructor at drama school and how after being very quiet for his first year and sitting in the back, he found himself openning up one day in this guys class... guess it's been history ever since! Yes, Gg, you're right! The other day you told me -by e.mail- some interesting stuff about Hans organic approach to creation. I always find your comments on this subject very though-provoking, since you're a professional performer yourself! I've learned a lot by those e-mails. I noticed that many actors don't want to talk extensively about their techniques for becoming a character... is that part of creating a certain "mystique" to it? What do you think? |
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Post by Scotbritt on Jan 30, 2011 14:38:50 GMT 8
I noticed that many actors don't want to talk extensively about their techniques for becoming a character... is that part of creating a certain "mystique" to it? What do you think? Probably. I also know that different people have different ways of how they approach a character. I think it varies and with Hans it definitely adds a bit of mystery to how the character comes off on screen or on the stage. Though as I learned through taking drama history courses at my school there are some actors who prefer method-acting in which they start behaving like the character him/herself in trying to get into the character's mindset. This can sometimes end very badly where an actor may have fully convinced themselves that they ARE that character. As far as I can tell I'm *pretty* sure that Hans never used this method for his role as say, Mordred... |
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Post by Gg on Jan 31, 2011 4:36:45 GMT 8
Well, from a more "global" perspective -- I think something has happened over the years as the acting medium has changed and as studio control over on-camera talent have, but nature, altered. In the "golden age" of Hollywood when the heads of MGM had the power to tell a married women to abort her first child (not exaggerating, happened to Judy Garland), actors hands were tied, mouths popped with pills, and minds, bodies, and souls were owned by the studios, their every word, particularly to the press, was scripted. When that all blew apart, actors had the freedom to expose themselves, but not without repercussions. Barbara Stanwick was a lesbian , Rock Hudson died of AIDS, and people started talking openly about their "approach". People had survived the RED SCARE in Hollywood (when Washington DC attached Hollywoods' right of free thought by accusing scores of directors, writers, performers, of Communist sympathies) and there was a wave of brash, in your face challenge to traditional thought.
Enter Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino and Dennis Hopper (amongst the performers) who enveloped themselves, unapologetically in Method. And it became very in-vogue in the 70's to do so. People were winning Oscars and gaining and losing weight for roles, taking drugs as "preparation" and it all seemed glamorous. Until younger actors, with nothing like their idols box office draw, started becoming "difficult to work with" and were reported as such. Mamet wrote a book that basically said -- yeah -- learn the f-ing technique and be professional...don't write your contract that you need your hotel room to be stripped of all 20th century technology if you want to play a part for me, because I don't put up with that kind of stupidity. Then Stansilavsky wrote that to take Method beyond the stage, to carry your character with you, was mental illness and nothing more - a disassociative disease that represented not talent or dedication, but illness.
But here were are years later and we still have Sean Penn and Christian Bale, still unabashedly proclaiming themselves as Method and happy to wear the badge -- though both have received criticism for it. My thoughts, as much as actors take their crafts seriously, I think it's a healthy thing to never truly believe you've gotten this completely figured out - or you're going to get to be a pretty inorganic, boring performer. In order to maintain that ever fluid approach, you have to quietly, privately, allow yourself to evolve and explore and that is hard to do while sitting in a chair telling an interviewer your "process". So, maybe it is a bit of conjured mystique, but maybe it is also a bit of protection, and bit of realization that the learning process is never really over, and to some it up and put it our there, puts into words something that just isn't concrete enough to express that way. The expression is in the performance, and that should be enough.
I did a modeling job yesterday and one of the (5'10" real models) whom I had met before ran up to me and (kneeled down to my altitude and) hugged me and we spent some time. She's one of these lovely, gorgeous woman who must look in the mirror (or look at her pay check) and KNOW that she is just empirically beautiful, but who really doesn't seem to internalize it and walk around, nose turned up, aloof and above all of those of us at 5'5" who can only admire her grace. She had been speaking to our booker and was gushing some work I did -- how do you? how do you? because she wants to act. I can give all the encouragement to someone like this in the world -- you are BEAUTIFUL, allow yourself to feel confident that you are worthy of the work, you are smart, go with your gut, trust your character choices and play with whatever the director gives you on the day, whatever you have to give it is VALID, you will find your path. But in the end, the only advice I can give to anyone is -- know your lines. After that it is just too personal a journey to be able to advise anyone on. I can critique a performance, a piece of material - "this is what worked for me; this is what I didn't connect with". But the journey is always going to be unique to the individual. Talking too much about it is pointless, because it is like speaking another language without an interpretor. Just doesn't translate, ultimately. Talking about it with other actors, people who you are collaborating with on the piece -- it helpful but ultimately, even in that context -- it is by and large a "curiosity". Do you really want to reduce your hard fought preparation/process to a "curiosity"?! These are the neurotic things I, at times, think... No to mention, it often takes retrospective reflection to really examine what it is you DID in the performance.
Joan Plowright once wrote that she went to Sir Lawrence Olivier's dressing room after a performance, before they were married, and said "MY GOD! You were brilliant". He turned to her, crying "Thank you" he weeped. She went to him, saying "why are you upset, you were amazing" and he replied "I KNOW! but I have NO IDEA HOW I DID IT!". Lightening in a bottle -- how the hell are you suppose to be responsible for putting that into words for the whole world to read?
Even this, my words, are conjecture, as to Hans... because you can never really get into another persons head, even if you have their words to give you clues.
I think METHOD is an approach -- a tool. It works for some and I certainly employ in the scene, and to some extent in my preparation. I suspect that anyone who has worked with it as tool uses it to some extent, and finds value in it, because it is a potent way to tap into your organic experience and bring truth to a character. But it is a philosophically double edged sword. I suspect, from the little he has said, that he felt the potential of Method's tools and employed them. What better way to play a villain without becoming one!!!! Look back into your history when you did some small villainous thing, felt some villainous thought, and let yourself live there in the character.
Just don't start torturing cats...
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Post by Scotbritt on Jan 31, 2011 12:34:13 GMT 8
I think METHOD is an approach -- a tool. It works for some and I certainly employ in the scene, and to some extent in my preparation. I suspect that anyone who has worked with it as tool uses it to some extent, and finds value in it, because it is a potent way to tap into your organic experience and bring truth to a character. But it is a philosophically double edged sword. I suspect, from the little he has said, that he felt the potential of Method's tools and employed them. What better way to play a villain without becoming one!!!! Look back into your history when you did some small villainous thing, felt some villainous thought, and let yourself live there in the character. Haha, very true. I remember when I was playing this character last year who was a real jerk and I had to kind of get into the mindset of a rough school boy (I was cast as a boy primarily). It was challenging but I just thought of some of the boys I knew in school and based my initial character around them. I agree with the metaphor of it being like a double edged sword though. You kind of have to find a happy medium that you're comfortable with that won't lead you to either extreme. That's probably the most challenging part of acting: finding that point where it's right on target. |
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Post by Gg on Feb 1, 2011 1:17:57 GMT 8
The double edged sword also comes into play because you are taping into something in yourself, your experience, your affective memory, that is in some small way you are "using" - something that may be sacred. There have been times for me, recently, that I have had to really ask myself if I was willing to tap into something that still feels a little bit too sacred to use unless I am 100% sure that it is worth taping into. Whether "using" it feels like exploitation and pollution of something too real to not protect. Some ZEN detachment, some space, is sometimes necessary before you can feel ethically able to use that tool. Ultimately, in your own time, it can be therapeutic. Nice byproduct but, an opportunity for catharsis, but in the end it does have at least something to do with what you're putting out there, and whether or not you are willing with giving it away. Sometimes you do have to be brave.
Sorry about the shear length of that last post...TMI, went on a tangent. Shocking I know. Scottbrit asked the question then Isis got me all chatty and rambly!!!! Apparently I think I'm in therapy on this board... Anybody else want to lie down on the couch with me? I'll start a new thread - On the Couch with the Matheson Mafia.
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. What complete silliness that was!!!! I still don't quite get what that weird a$$ possessiveness was about! What's the point of having this stuff if not to share with people who have no way of purchasing it?! Something deeply neurotic about that....
I'll be sure to check them out. 
