An actor (sometimes actress for female; see terminology) is a person who acts in a dramatic or comic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity.^[1] The ancient Greek word for an "actor," ὑποκριτής (hypokrites), means literally "one who interprets";^[2] in this sense, an actor is one who interprets a dramatic character.^[3]

Terminology[link]

After 1660, when women first appeared on stage, actor and actress were initially used interchangeably for female performers, but later, influenced by the French actrice, actress became the usual term. The etymology is a simple derivation from actor with ess added.^[4] The word actor refers to a person who acts regardless of gender, and this term "is increasingly preferred", while actress refers specifically to a female person who acts. Actress "remains in general use",^[4] although in a survey of a "wide cross-section of current British English", compiled in 2010, actor was almost twice as commonly found as actress.^[5] Within the profession, however, the re-adoption of the neutral term dates to the 1950s–60s, the post-war period when women's contribution to cultural life in general was being re-evaluated.^[6] Actress remains the common term used in major acting awards given to female recipients.^[7]

The gender-neutral term "player" was common in film in the early days of the Motion Picture Production Code with regards to the cinema of the United States, but is now generally deemed archaic. However, it remains in use in the theatre, often incorporated into the name of a theatre group or company (such as the East West Players)^{[citation needed]}.

History[link]

Actors Jim Brochu and Steve Schalchlin performing in The Big Voice: God or Merman play.

The first recorded case of an actor performing took place in 534 BC (though the changes in calendar over the years make it hard to determine exactly) when the Greek performer Thespis stepped on to the stage at the Theatre Dionysus and became the first known person to speak words as a character in a play or story. Prior to Thespis' act, stories were only known to be told in song and dance and in third person narrative. In honour of Thespis, actors are commonly called Thespians. Theatrical legend to this day maintains that Thespis exists as a mischievous spirit, and disasters in the theatre are sometimes blamed on his ghostly intervention.

Actors were traditionally not people of high status, and in the Early Middle Ages travelling acting troupes were often viewed with distrust. In many parts of Europe, actors could not even receive a Christian burial, and traditional beliefs of the region and time period held that this left any actor forever condemned. However, this negative perception was largely reversed in the 19th and 20th centuries as acting has become an honoured and popular profession and art.^[8]

Techniques[link]

Method acting[link]

Method acting is a technique developed from the acting 'system' created in the early 20th century by Konstantin Stanislavski in his work at the Moscow Art Theatre and its studios. The Group Theatre first popularised the Method in the 1930s; it was subsequently advanced and developed in new directions by Stella Adler, Sanford Meisner, Uta Hagen, Lee Strasberg (at the Actors Studio in the 1940s and 50s), and others.^[9] In Stanislavski's system', the actor analyzes the character in order to play him or her with psychological realism and emotional authenticity. Using the Method, an actor may recall emotions or reactions from his or her own life and use them to identify with the character being portrayed.

Method actors are often characterized as immersing themselves so totally in their characters that they continue to portray them even off-stage or off-camera for the duration of the project. However, this is a popular misconception. While some actors do employ this approach, it is generally not taught as part of the Method. Stella Adler, who was a member of the Group Theatre, along with Strasberg, emphasised a different approach of using creative imagination.^[10]

Method acting offers a systematic form of actor training in which the actor's sensory, psychological, and emotional abilities are developed; it revolutionized theatre in the United States.^{[citation needed]}

Presentational and representational acting[link]

Presentational acting refers to a relationship between actor and audience, whether by direct address or indirectly by specific use of language, looks, gestures or other signs indicating that the character or actor is aware of the audience's presence.^[11] (Shakespeare's use of punning and wordplay, for example, often has this function of indirect contact.)

In representational acting, "actors want to make us 'believe' they are the character; they pretend."^[11] The illusion of the fourth wall with the audience as voyeurs is striven for.^[12]

As opposite gender[link]

In the past, only men could become actors in some societies. In the ancient Greece and Rome^[13] and the medieval world, it was considered disgraceful for a woman to go on the stage, and this belief persisted until the 17th century, when in Venice it was broken. In the time of William Shakespeare, women's roles were generally played by men or boys.^[14]

When an eighteen-year Puritan prohibition of drama was lifted after the English Restoration of 1660, women began to appear on stage in England. Margaret Hughes is credited by some as the first professional actress on the English stage.^[15] This prohibition ended during the reign of Charles II in part due to the fact that he enjoyed watching actresses on stage.^[16] The first occurrence of the term actress was in 1700 according to the OED and is ascribed to Dryden.^[7]

In Japan, men (onnagata) took over the female roles in kabuki theatre when women were banned from performing on stage during the Edo period. This convention has continued to the present. However, some forms of Chinese drama have women playing all the roles.

In modern times, women sometimes play the roles of prepubescent boys. The stage role of Peter Pan, for example, is traditionally played by a woman, as are most principal boys in British pantomime. Opera has several "breeches roles" traditionally sung by women, usually mezzo-sopranos. Examples are Hansel in Hänsel und Gretel, Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro and Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier.

Women in male roles are uncommon in film with the notable exceptions of the films The Year of Living Dangerously and I'm Not There. In the former film Linda Hunt played the pivotal role of Billy Kwan, for which she received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In the latter film Cate Blanchett portrayed Jude Quinn, a representation of Bob Dylan in the sixties, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Women playing men in live theatre is particularly common in presentations of older plays, such as those of Shakespeare, that have large numbers of male characters in roles where the gender no longer matters in modern times.^{[citation needed]}

Having an actor dress as the opposite sex for comic effect is also a long-standing tradition in comic theatre and film. Most of Shakespeare's comedies include instances of overt cross-dressing, such as Francis Flute in A Midsummer Night's Dream. The movie A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum stars Jack Gilford dressing as a young bride. Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon famously posed as women to escape gangsters in the Billy Wilder film Some Like It Hot. Cross-dressing for comic effect was a frequently used device in most of the thirty Carry On films. Dustin Hoffman and Robin Williams have each appeared in a hit comedy film (Tootsie and Mrs. Doubtfire, respectively) in which they played most scenes dressed as a woman.

Occasionally, the issue is further complicated, for example, by a woman playing a woman acting as a man pretending to be a woman, like Julie Andrews in Victor/Victoria, or Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love. In It's Pat: The Movie, filmwatchers never learn the gender of the androgynous main characters Pat and Chris (played by Julia Sweeney and Dave Foley).

A few roles in modern films, plays and musicals are played by a member of the opposite sex (rather than a character cross-dressing), such as the character Edna Turnblad in Hairspray—played by Divine in the original film, Harvey Fierstein in the Broadway musical, and John Travolta in the 2007 movie musical. Linda Hunt won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for playing Billy Kwan in The Year of Living Dangerously. Felicity Huffman was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for playing Bree Osbourne (a male-to-female transsexual) in Transamerica.

See also[link]

References[link]

Sources[link]

• Csapo, Eric, and William J. Slater. 1994. The Context of Ancient Drama. Ann Arbor: The U of Michigan P. ISBN 0-472-08275-2.
• Elam, Keir. 1980. The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama. New Accents Ser. London and New York: Methuen. ISBN 0-416-72060-9.
• Weimann, Robert. 1978. Shakespeare and the Popular Tradition in the Theater: Studies in the Social Dimension of Dramatic Form and Function. Ed. Robert Schwartz. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-3506-2.

Further reading[link]

• An Actor's Work by Constantin Stanislavski
• A Dream of Passion: The Development of the Method by Lee Strasberg (Plume Books, ISBN 0-452-26198-8, 1990)
• Sanford Meisner on Acting by Sanford Meisner (Vintage, ISBN 0-394-75059-4, 1987)
• Letters to a Young Actor by Robert Brustein (Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-00806-2, 2005).
• The Empty Space by Peter Brook
• The Technique of Acting by Stella Adler

External links[link]

Look up actor, actress, or player in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Actors' Equity Association (AEA): a union representing U. S. theatre actors and stage managers.
• American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA): a union representing U. S. television and radio actors and broadcasters (on-air journalists, etc.).
• British Actors' Equity: a trade union representing UK artists, including actors, singers, dancers, choreographers, stage managers, theatre directors and designers, variety and circus artists, television and radio presenters, walk-on and supporting artists, stunt performers and directors and theatre fight directors.
• Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance: an Australian/New Zealand trade union representing everyone in the media, entertainment, sports, and arts industries.
• Screen Actors Guild (SAG): a union representing U. S. film and TV actors.

Priya Rai
Priya Rai at Aqua Lounge in Beverly Hills, CA on Dec. 26, 2009
Born	(1977-12-25) December 25, 1977 (age 34) New Delhi, Delhi, India[1]
Other names	Priya Anjali Rai Priya Rai Anjali
Ethnicity	Indian[2]
Height	5 ft 3 in (1.60 m)[1]
Weight	98 lb (44 kg)
No. of adult films	80 (per IAFD)[1]
Website
http://www.priyaanjalirai.com/

Priya Rai , also known as Priya Anjali Rai and Priya Rai Anjali (born December 25, 1977^[1]), is an Indian American pornographic actress.

Early life and career[link]

Priya Anjali Rai entered the adult industry in 2007.^[3] Priya Rai moved from New Delhi to the United States at the age of two.^[4] Rai grew up in the suburbs of Minneapolis, MN. She attended Arizona State University.^[4] Priya started her career in modeling (fashion and swimwear). She was an exotic dancer for 12 years prior to beginning her career in pornography.^[2] Priya Anjali Rai won the 2009 AVN award for the Best All-Girl Group Sex Scene in her film Cheerleaders where she co-starred with Jesse Jane, Tommy Gunn, Memphis Monroe and Alexis Texas. Currently, however, Priya is spending the majority of her time at her personal website where she interacts with her members via live cam shows.^[3]

Awards[link]

• 2009 AVN Award for Best All-Girl Group Sex Scene (Cheerleaders).^[5][6]

References[link]

External links[link]

Find more about Priya Rai on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Images and media from Commons

• Official website
• Priya Rai on Twitter
• Priya Rai at the Internet Movie Database
• Priya Rai at the Internet Adult Film Database
• Priya Rai at the Adult Film Database

Sanjay Suri
Born	(1971-04-06) 6 April 1971 (age 41) Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1999 – present
Spouse	Ambika Suri

Sanjay Suri (Hindi: संजय सूरी) is an Indian actor who appears in Bollywood films.

He made his debut in 1999 with Pyaar Mein Kabhi Kabhi. He went on to star in many supporting roles but finally got his big break with Jhankaar Beats in 2003, where audiences started to recognize him as a seasoned actor. He is co-producer and actor in the film I Am.^[1] He is also the co-founder of the film production company Anticlock Films.^[2]

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Sanjay Suri was born on 6 April 1971, in Srinagar, Kashmir, where he spent 19 years of his life. He has an elder brother and elder sister. Living in Srinagar he developed a strong love for nature and the outdoors. As a child Suri was a star squash player and was on his school and state teams. In 1990 his father was killed in a terrorist attack and the family was forced to flee to Jammu where they briefly lived in a refugee camp.^[3] They then shifted to Delhi.^[4]

Modelling career[link]

When Suri moved to New Delhi in 1990, he was thrust into the world of modelling. He modelled for many companies including Gillette, Nilkamal Furniture, Times of India, Philishave, and Nescafe.

Acting career[link]

1999 witnessed Suri's breakthrough in Bollywood with a supporting role in the movie Pyaar Mein Kabhi Kabhi, co-starring Rinke Khanna and Dino Morea. Although the movie flopped, Suri was noticed. His next films were Daman: A Victim of Marital Violence (2001), Filhaal... and the musical Dil Vil Pyar Vyar (2002).

In 2003's Pinjar co-starring Urmila Matondkar he got rave reviews but it was not until Jhankaar Beats later that year that he became popular. His role alongside Juhi Chawla was greatly appreciated. Slowly he got more roles in movies, but his movies were not box office successes. Despite the failure of his films, his performances continued to be appreciated.

In 2005 he delivered a critically acclaimed performance in My Brother… Nikhil, as a homosexual AIDS victim, once again co-starring Juhi Chawla.^[5] The movie received unanimous praise among Indian film critics. The movie fared decently in Mumbai, but was a failure elsewhere in India. His succeeding films have not done as well.

Suri and Onir (who also directed My Brother Nikhil) also worked on Sorry Bhai! and under the banner of Anticlock Films have produced I Am which weaves together four stories on different topical issues. With this film they have ventured into a new mode of production involving crowdsourcing, a concept that had not been explored before in Indian cinema. The movie released on 29 April 2011^[6] and went on to win the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi.^[7]

Personal life[link]

Sanjay with his wife Ambika

Suri along with his wife Ambika, welcomed their first child, a boy, in August 2007, and a second child in August 2010.^[8] Sanjay Suri has been honoured by Sandeep Marwah with the membership of International Film And Television Club of Asian Academy Of Film & Television.

Filmography[link]

References[link]

Tim Roth
Tim Roth, 2009
Born	Simon Timothy Roth[1][2] (1961-05-14) 14 May 1961 (age 51) Dulwich, London, England
Occupation	Actor/Director
Years active	1982–present
Spouse	Niki Butler (1993-present)
Children	3 Sons

Simon Timothy "Tim" Roth (born 14 May 1961) is an English film actor and director. He is best known for his roles in the films Made in Britain, Legend of 1900, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Four Rooms, Skellig, Planet of the Apes, The Incredible Hulk and Rob Roy, receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for the latter. He most recently starred as Cal Lightman in the TV series Lie to Me.

Early life[link]

Roth was born in London, England, the son of Ann, a painter and teacher, and Ernie, a Fleet Street journalist, painter and, until the 1970s, a member of the British Communist Party.^[3][4][5] Roth's father was born under the surname "Smith" in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, New York, to a British immigrant family of Irish descent; he changed his surname to "Roth" in the 1940s, "partly through solidarity with the victims of the Holocaust, partly because the British were far from welcome in some of the countries to which his job took him".^[2][5][6]

Roth attended the Strand School in Tulse Hill. As a young man, he wanted to be a sculptor and studied at London's Camberwell College of Art.^[7]

Career[link]

Roth made his acting debut at the age of 21 playing a white power skinhead in a TV film titled Made in Britain. Roth played an East End character in King of the Ghetto which was made by the BBC. This four-part drama was shown in 1986 on national television, based on a novel by Farukh Dhondy. Partly set in Brick Lane, the drama caused a sensation among the public, especially amongst the Bengali community.^{[citation needed]} In contrast to his Made in Britain role, Roth then played a desperately shy and introverted character in the 1984 Mike Leigh film, Meantime. In 1985, he appeared in the television film Murder with Mirrors opposite Bette Davis, John Mills and Helen Hayes and in 1984, Roth played an apprentice hitman in Stephen Frears' The Hit with Terence Stamp and John Hurt, earning an "Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Newcomer". With that recognition, he appeared in several other films during the end of the decade. In 1989, he had a memorable supporting role as the buffoonish lackey Mitchell in Peter Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover. In 1990, Roth began to enjoy international attention with starring roles as Vincent van Gogh in Robert Altman's Vincent & Theo and as Guildenstern in Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. Roth and other young British actors who were becoming established film actors such as Bruce Payne, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and Paul McGann were dubbed the Brit Pack,^[8] a nickname based on the Brat Pack of the United States.

Roth impressed director Quentin Tarantino and was cast as Mr. Orange in his 1992 ensemble piece Reservoir Dogs. This film paved the way for more work in Hollywood. In 1994, Tarantino cast him again as a robber in the acclaimed Pulp Fiction. They worked again in the 1995 film Four Rooms, where Roth played the extremely physically animated role of Ted the Bellhop. Roth was very successful playing viciously evil English nobleman Archibald Cunningham in Rob Roy opposite Liam Neeson; for this role he earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, a Golden Globe nomination and won a BAFTA.

In 1996, he went a different way, starring with Drew Barrymore in Woody Allen's musical comedy Everyone Says I Love You. He also starred as Danny Boodman T.D. Lemon 1900 (or just "1900") in The Legend of 1900, and in the same year co-starred with Tupac Shakur in the drama Gridlock'd. He made a critically acclaimed debut as a director in 1999 with The War Zone, a film version of Alexander Stuart's novel. In 2001, he portrayed General Thade in Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes. Roth was the original choice for the role of Severus Snape in the Harry Potter film series, but he turned it down for the Planet of the Apes job.^[9] He was also considered for the part of Hannibal Lecter in the 2001 film Hannibal before Anthony Hopkins returned to reclaim the role. Roth appeared in Francis Ford Coppola's Youth Without Youth and Michael Haneke's Funny Games, then starred opposite Edward Norton in The Incredible Hulk as Emil Blonsky.

From 2009 to 2011, he starred in a series on Fox called Lie To Me. He played Dr. Cal Lightman, an expert on body language who assists local and federal law organisations in the investigations of crimes. His character was based on Dr. Paul Ekman, notable psychologist and expert on body language and facial expressions.^[10]

In 2010, Roth appeared on the cover to Manic Street Preachers' 2010 studio album, Postcards From A Young Man.

In 2012, Roth was announced as the President of the Jury for the Un Certain Regard section at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.^[11]

Personal life[link]

Roth has a son, Jack, born to Lori Baker in 1984.^[12] He married Nikki Butler in 1993 and they have two sons, Timothy Hunter (b. 1995) and Michael Cormac (b. 1996). Roth is a supporter of the Green Party of England and Wales.^[13]

Filmography[link]

As actor[link]

As director[link]

• The War Zone (1999)

Awards[link]

• People's Choice Awards 2011 – Favourite TV Crime Fighter (Lie to Me)^[14]

References[link]

External links[link]

• The Officially Unofficial Tim Roth Web Page
• Tim Roth at the Internet Movie Database
• Tim Roth at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Allmovie entry for Tim Roth
• Audio Interview w/ Rafferty/Mills Connection Podcast (2009)