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.Gino Montesinos |
“I’m humbled by the instant respect and admiration I get from producers, directors, and casting directors because I am a trained Acting Center actor.” – -Gino Montesinos, NYPD Blue, Medium, Dexter, 24, NCIS |
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Gino Montesinos has been a successful actor for over 20 years. We asked him about the skills he has learned at The Acting Center and how those things have increased his abilities, changed his approach to acting, and ultimately his career. “In terms of confidence, The Acting Center has been extraordinary for me. Even though I worked fairly regularly before The Acting Center, I had a ‘hit or miss’ approach. I had no real technique. You either have a fast, effective technique or you wing it and hope for the best. I don’t have to wing it anymore, my confidence in the audition and filming process has skyrocketed. ” For an actor, imagination and creativity are keys to a real and believable performance. Gino told us how studying the technique at The Acting Center, and consistently using the drills, has changed him and opened him up to richer work. “The drills I use from The Acting Center open up my imagination so that my acting comes from a real, true place, helping me to be the character rather than doing what I think intellectually the character would do. Without exception, when I use these drills, the choices I make come from the true, organic place of me being the character and that is electrifying, exciting to watch, to experience, and have made me fall in love with acting again. So, quitting this glorious profession never enters in my head again as it has from time to time over the years.” So how does this all translate to being on set and delivering what the director wants with confidence? With as much experience as Gino has, we wanted to know why things are different for him now that he uses the Acting Center tools in his work. “Many directors don’t tell you exactly what they want, and that’s fine, because it’s not their job to act, it’s ours. With the Acting Center tools, I can instantaneously change direction. Whatever general feeling, idea, concept, hunch, that a director knows to be right when he sees it, but may not have the tools to help you get there, I can take their direction and give them what they want on a dime.” We asked Gino for a specific occurrence of this and he told us about a recent audition he had for a multiple-episode, recurring guest star role on a major TV show. He only had an hour and a half to rehearse and prepare a page and a half long monologue. Using his Acting Center techniques, within an hour, he had a firm handle on the character. “I knocked the casting director’s socks off, who said she was already seeing me in the part. She gave me one note and I instantly complied. She gave me a callback right in the room. I not only gave her what she was looking for, but more. As I walked out, she hugged me and thanked me for an ‘awesome’ audition. She said ‘I started my day with Gino Montesinos and I get to end my day with Gino Montesinos’. That kind of compliment and support was very rare before I came to The Acting Center. Now, it’s much more common and I’m humbled by this instant respect and admiration I get from producers, directors, and casting directors because I am a trained Acting Center actor. Period.” With so much experience in acting classes and show business, we wanted to know why Gino thinks The Acting Center is so different and why it works for him, as opposed to his previous studies. “Other studies quite frankly were too complicated for me to fully grasp and I gave them up because they were almost useless on the set. I had to come up with my own solutions on the set and at auditions, which was very nerve-wracking. It’s not like that with The Acting Center. What I do in class translates 100% at auditions and ON THE SET.”
I am a very experienced actor. For all intents and purposes, I don’t really have to be at The Acting Center, but I’m not interested in just being a working actor. I am interested in illuminating the human condition through my work as an actor. I am also interested in leaving an artistic legacy that I can be proud of.
For the first time in my career since I made that decision as a young boy, that I wanted to do that as an actor, I believe I am beginning to make it happen thanks to the continual training and honing of the craft of acting that I get to practice at The Acting Center.” |
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