Tony's Philosophy

I think the easiest way for you to understand why Anthony Meindl’s Actor’s Workshop is different from any other Los Angeles acting class or Hollywood actor workshop is to read my own personal story of how I stumbled upon this new, exciting and completely original and non-“Method” way of working.

I remember growing up always having a flare for the dramatic. Always wanting to put on skits and entertain people and explore different parts of myself. I remember when I bravely declared to my parents that my college major was going to be in Theatre Arts! (with an exclamation point). “People actually get degrees in this stuff?” my mom asked. Well, duh. It was a way of avoiding having to take Calculus. Piece of cake.

I read all of the famous acting books required on my college reading lists. I’d excitedly rip open the brand new two-hundred page opus written by some exotic artiste from the hinterlands of Europe that was never in the used book bin at our student union bookstore (those bastards!) practically salivating with anticipation. I thought reading these theatrical bibles was going to make me the next Barrymore or Olivier or hell, I’d have settled for a role on Mork and Mindy.

Sadly, my excitement turned into perplexity. Then ambivalence. Then boredom --with my slowly nodding-off head jerking me back awake as I tried in vain to keep my eyes open. I spent $69.95 for this Ambien aid! Well, I thought, wasn’t college supposed to be about taking naps? But here I was wanting desperately to be an actor and learn from the greats. The greats didn’t sleep during acting lectures. Or did they?

Most of that first year of college was spent reading and sleeping through texts and trying to understand what the hell the authors were talking about. Dramatically I’d scream at my teacher, “I just don’t get this.” I should’ve saved the drama for my scene.

Thinking the Americans must be missing something I high-tailed it to London where I got my master’s degree and thought that here, in the land of theat-uh, I’d surely be taught the thing that no one seemed to be able to teach me.

Sadly, it was more of the same, except that I ate brussel sprouts alot and learned to talk in a faux Victorian accent sort of like Madonna. I was still being told to wilt like a flower and I didn’t know why as I’d never done that in my life before. God, it was just like high school: memorize, memorize, memorize! But was I actually experiencing anything?

I was brainwashed into thinking that I had to be working on exercises or I just wasn’t learning. I wasn’t doing the thing that all the cool, bohemian, sexually ambiguous, starving-artist, torn-clothed, chain-smoking English stage actors were doing. I wasn’t suffering for my art in class or talking forever about the intricacies of what I was doing or how I was an artiste and how these exercises were ripping me open and getting me to purge my soul. And how the “character” would do this and do that and I had to figure out my thru-line and history and motivation and profile and back-story and arc (Method!) If I wasn’t struggling and confused and obsessing about it, then I must not be getting this whole acting thing. If I wasn’t spending hours and hours and hours dissecting and scribbling my script and talking about it while getting wasted downing oversized pints at the local pub speaking with a funny accent maybe I wasn’t an artist. Most of the time, my habit from America followed me over the Atlantic. I just wanted to take a nap.

So then I’d do that awful snow-job we perform on ourselves: “I’m stupid. I don’t get this. I’m never going to get this. I’m a horrible actor. I suck. I’m going to quit acting and work for the English Railroad. Or Posh Spice. And eat shepherd’s pie my whole life.” But the truth I much later began to realize was, “What if this way of working just doesn’t work for you?” What if it was all meant to be easier? Truly a light bulb moment. And I never looked back.

So if this sounds like something you can relate to, something that maybe you – yourself -- always felt about acting, it’s time to go on a new journey.

A journey that explains it all to you in a new, inventive, truly life-altering way.
A journey that will change the way you think about yourself and your life as you’re currently living it.
A journey that will make you smile and laugh and do things you never thought possible in your work and life.
A journey that will require you to engage in an honest exploration and assessment of who you are (and where you are).
You’ll be forced to take a look inside.
It might be scary.
It may not always be pretty.
But all journeys lead to the same place: The most empowered, free, passionate, joyful, risk-taking, courageous actor you will ever become.

I promise you that. Or your money back! (Seriously.)