When You're Doing a Play That Has Been Turned Into a Movie...

...and you're playing a character that has been essayed by an excellent actor and is now a Classic Performance, have you ever deviated completely from THAT actor's performance and people get mad at you for doing that? As if that actor DEFINES this show?

The reason I ask is because I think my school is doing Harvey and I'd like to audition for Elwood but I don't want to do a complete retread of Jimmy Stewart's performance. Mostly because he is Jimmy Stewart, and secondly because what is the use of trying to recreate past glory, especially that of someone who is currently dead. That's just...futile.

So I'm thinking of perhaps making Elwood into a bit of a kook and nothing at all as he was in the Stewart performance. I'm going to model him after Crispin Glover. It would still be the character but it would...just...be different...

Thoughts?

Just use movie performances for ideas- not to copy. See what their inspiration and interpretation was, thats all.

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I'm not quite sure..when I did Sally Brown there was loads of pressure to NOT sound like Kristin. I was forbidden to attempt any voice similar to what Kristin used. But then, what do you do, especially for this character, a child? So I just sounded like a child....and sang a bit Adelaide-ish but not too older sounding.



"So I'm thinking of perhaps making Elwood into a bit of a kook and nothing at all as he was in the Stewart performance. I'm going to model him after Crispin Glover. It would still be the character but it would...just...be different..." I like that....

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