On October 5th, 1947 a place was opened that would change cinema history forever…The Actor’s Studio; was founded by Elia Kazan (an Oscar-winning director), Cheryl Crawford (a theatre producer), and Robert Lewis (a theatre director and author). There many great actors were taught by some of the greatest teachers ever to walk the planet; Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, Sanford Meisner, and Harold Clurman to name a few.

At The Actor’s Studio, they implement the Stanislavski System, a method developed by the Russian theatre legend Konstantin Stanislavski. Stanislavski’s system involves giving actors tasks or exercises to strengthen their performances. This soon became what we know as method acting. Method acting consists of intensely studying the character you are playing (not for pretentious reasons but to get in the mindset of who you are trying to portray).

The “method” started to take hold of the Broadway and Hollywood worlds when Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, and Karl Malden were in the first production of A Streetcar Named Desire, where Marlon Brando played the explosive brute Stanley Kowalski. After the breakout of Marlon Brando, several other early members of The Actor’s Studio also started getting attention.

Post-Streetcar, in the 1950s, The Actor’s Studio started to produce more major stars: Paul Newman, his wife Joanne Woodward,  Geraldine Page, Shelley Winters, Steve McQueen, Marilyn Monroe (yes, you read that right), Martin Balsam, Pat Hingle, Lee Grant, Montgomery Clift, Ben Gazzara, Eva Marie Saint, Lee Remick, and the moody James Dean. During the 1950s directors and writers such as Elia Kazan, Tennessee Williams, Clifford Odets, and James Baldwin started implementing the actors into their works.

In the mid-to-late 1960s and early 1970s, New Hollywood began. A new phase of violence, sex, and profane language was introduced into the movies, and so was another new crop of actors. Earlier in the decade, notable alumni such as Anne Bancroft, Kim Stanley, Paul Newman, Geraldine Page, and Shirley Knight started to gain prominent attention and accolades.

The crop consisted of today’s acting heroes: Dustin Hoffman, Jane Fonda, Harvey Keitel, Ellen Burstyn, Al Pacino, Estelle Parsons, Robert Duvall, Sandy Dennis, George Peppard, Walter Matthau, Robert DeNiro, Lesley Ann Warren, Maureen Stapleton, Jill Clayburgh, Jack Nicholson, and Sidney Poitier.  They have inspired the actors of today from their quietest and most nuanced performances to their biggest and boldest performances.

During the 1980s and 90s, the studio still had a hold on the world of Hollywood. Paul Newman, Robert Duvall, Geraldine Page, Martin Landau, and Maureen Stapleton had finally won their Oscars for their respective performances in The Color of Money, Tender Mercies, The Trip to Bountiful, Ed Wood, and Reds. 

From the 2000s to 2020s, the newest graduates of the studio included future MCU stars Bradley Cooper, and Chris Evans, as well as Sabrina Impacciatore (from The White Lotus), and Josh Bowman took their craft and implemented it into their work (No people were harmed by Bradley Cooper and Christ Evans). And soon a new group of actors will leave their mark.

Since the studio’s inception, it has earned a collective 159 Oscar nominations for its alumni which resulted in roughly 30 wins. The studio has a legacy that rivals any acting school (including Julliard). It’s free to apply to but membership is not guaranteed unless you are accepted. Once accepted you will be trained to become a better actor and performer. Membership to The Actors Studio lasts a lifetime, and several alumni such as Alec Baldwin, Ellen Burstyn, Al Pacino, Estelle Parsons, and Harvey Keitel currently teach and run the studio.

There is not a complete list of the alumni that have attended The Actors Studio. For references please visit the links below.

The Actors Studio Alumni Wikipedia Page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Actors_Studio_alumni

The Actors Studio Website for Alumni: https://theactorsstudio.org/who-we-are/notable-members/

The Actors Studio Instagram Page: @theofficialactorsstudio