More a reflection on acting than a straightforward memoir, Academy Award–winner Arkin's musing on the creative process is a welcome window into the mind of an artist. After declaring to his father at age five that he wanted to be an actor, Arkin spent his Brooklyn childhood absorbing as much as he could from both everyday life and any opportunity he had to see films and plays. A move to L.A. in junior high cemented Arkin's performer dreams. As a student at Bennington's theater program, Arkin also performed with the earliest incarnation of Chicago's now famous Second City troupe, where he learned to appreciate the power of improvisation. Broadway and film roles followed, with Arkin integrating improvisation into his performances whenever possible, a skill he would hone over the years and later teach. The improv workshops—which Arkin taught and stresses were not "acting" workshops—began at Bennington and were also held at the Institute for American Indian Arts in New Mexico, where Arkin now lives. In this engaging and instructive book, he describes his own intuitive approach to acting and the ways in which he coaxed tentative workshop participants out of their shells. (Mar.)
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Starred Review Ever since he was five, Academy Award�winner Arkin knew he would be an actor, feeling an �unquenchable need� to turn himself into �something other than what I was.� He became a self-described �film junkie addict� but realized that if he wasn�t careful, his habit of pretending to be someone else all the time and his movie obsession could ruin his life. Indeed, at one point he realized he had no inner life, had become �an innocent bystander� to himself. Arkin recalls his folksinging days as a member of the Tarriers, examines the improvisational exercises he practiced as a member of Chicago�s Second City, comments on his move from theater to film, and offers bemused insights into the notion of celebrity. Arkin also describes his attempts to better understand himself through a combination of therapy and self-education. This perfectly calibrated memoir is less an autobiography and more a primer on the process of becoming an actor. As such, actors of all levels and film and theater buffs will appreciate Arkin�s candid discussion of the creative process both from an acting and a directing perspective. --June Sawyers