‘The purpose of these acting exercises’: the Actors’ Studio and the labours of celebrity

Abstract

Celebrity studies has paid attention to the post-modernisation of identity in contemporary celebrity culture; but the ways in which modern discourses of acting-as-work have persisted vis-à-vis larger socio-cultural shifts in both labour and self-performance deserve closer attention. Drawing upon the work of Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello and Ernest Sternberg, this essay explores the shifting styles of self-presentation that are bound up with the history of the Actors' Studio's star and celebrity texts, paying particular attention to the ways in which ‘Method’ actors have been represented as workers. It first argues that the self-presentational style inscribed by the promotional and pedagogical discourses of Method acting circa 1955 can be located within a distinctly modern performance paradigm. It then considers how, although a similar style of self-performance seems to be articulated on the television series Inside the Actors’ Studio (ITAS) the programme's evocation of the Studio's brand of authenticity is, rather, a pastiche performed according to the logic of what Andrew Wernick has called ‘promotional culture’. Thus, whereas the discourse around the Studio in the 1950s positioned Method celebrities as efficiently authentic stars and actors (cf. deCordova), ITAS is concerned ostensibly with the celebration of performers who excel at synergistic visibility.