Sanity’s great, but madness? Now, that’s interesting. “The most fun parts are the ones where you’re bad,” says director, writer, and master acting teacher Katt Shea. “In life, they take you to task for that. But when you’re an actor and you do it well, you’re celebrated like nobody’s business.” These memorable movie meltdowns are a great guide to letting loose when you’re playing someone with a screw loose.
Daniel Day-Lewis, “There Will Be Blood”
Is there a more unhinged madman than oilman Daniel Plainview? Day-Lewis plays the scene with intensifying cruelty, tapping into “that part of you that never gets expressed because you keep it under control,” Shea says. She urges her actors to get comfortable going to places society teaches them not to go. “But you have to know how to get freed up in a healthy way that’s not going to hurt anybody.” Practicing in a safe setting can “help access that part of us and also makes it OK to go there,” says Shea. “That’s why acting can be such great therapy, because once you tap into that kind of emotion, there’s no denying it, and denial is the thing that keeps us trapped both in life and in acting work.”
Kristen Wiig, “Bridesmaids”
Not all meltdowns are mature, whether it’s IRL or onscreen. Wiig’s epic meltdown as Annie Walker at her best friend’s bridal shower is out of control and hilarious. “I actually train my actors to have two-year-old tantrums [in scenes],” says Shea. “It [lets you] get in touch with all of your emotions—plus it’s super fun.” But even when going for a more comedic moment, it’s important to root a performance in real emotions. When Wiig’s Annie feels as though she’s losing Lillian (Maya Rudolph) to Helen (Rose Byrne), it taps into many of our fears and jealousies. “All those times our friends have betrayed us, we just wanna have a tantrum,” Shea says. “What [Wiig’s] doing feels authentic. Comedy isn’t funny when people are trying to be funny.”
J.K. Simmons, “Whiplash”
If the part demands you go dark, then commit. Simmons does just that—he boils with sadistic rage. “We all think like that character at some point,” says Shea. “Maybe we’re trying to teach somebody something but they’re not getting it and you want to throw a chair at their head. We don’t do that, but he totally gets into it, which is why it’s so horrifying. We all could be that evil. He must be exorcising some demons. It’s very creepy, but also freeing.”
Faye Dunaway, “Mommie Dearest”
Restraint is not an option when it comes to melting down in a performance. “I don’t have them think,” Shea says of the actors she’s coaching. “I want them to be out of their heads.” Dunaway’s performance as Joan Crawford admonishing her daughter Christina is pure, unbridled horror. “She found that. I don’t think you do that when you’re in your head about it. I don’t think she was in her office saying, ‘I think I’ll do this like a horror movie.’ I think she found that in herself.”
Peter Finch, “Network”
The actor’s performance reflects the zeitgeist of the late 1970s and the escalating anger in American politics. “He’s tapping into passion, fear, desperation, strength, courage. He’s heroic,” Shea says. “Finch was a theater actor, and he imbued that performance with real grit. His lines were recited perfectly, but his emotion was unhinged, raw, urgent, and unpredictable. There was no masking the true panic his character was feeling.”
Film director-screenwriter Katt Shea (“The Rage: Carrie 2,” “Rescued by Ruby”) has been honored by retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the British Film Institute in London, and various festivals throughout Europe. A retrospective of her films was exhibited at Film Forum in NYC. Fantaspoa, one of the largest genre film festivals in the world, presented Shea with its Career Achievement Award, the first ever given to a female film director.
