Acting style and reputation Gary Cooper

cooper s acting style consisted of 3 essential characteristics: ability project elements of own personality onto characters portrayed, appear natural , authentic in roles, , underplay , deliver restrained performances calibrated camera , screen. acting teacher lee strasberg once observed: simplest examples of stanislavsky s ideas actors such gary cooper, john wayne, , spencer tracy. try not act themselves, respond or react. refuse or feel not consonant own characters. film director françois truffaut ranked cooper among greatest actors because of ability deliver great performances without direction . ability project elements of own personality onto characters produced continuity across performances extent critics , audiences convinced playing himself .

cooper s ability project personality onto characters played important part in appearing natural , authentic on screen. actor john barrymore said of cooper, fellow world s greatest actor. without effort rest of spend our lives trying learn—namely, natural. charles laughton, played opposite cooper in devil , deep agreed, in truth, boy hasn t least idea how acts ... gets @ inside, own clear way of looking @ life. william wyler, directed cooper in 2 films, called him superb actor, master of movie acting . in review of cooper s performance in real glory, graham greene wrote, lean photogenic face seems leave lens, there no question here of not acting. watch him inoculate girl against cholera—the casual jab of needle, , dressing slapped on while talks, though thousand arms had taught him stab , doesn t have think anymore.

cooper s style of underplaying before camera surprised many of directors , fellow actors. in earliest feature films, recognized camera s ability pick slight gestures , facial movements. commenting on cooper s performance in sergeant york, director howard hawks observed, worked hard , yet didn t seem working. strange actor because d @ him during scene , d think ... isn t going good. when saw rushes in projection room next day read in face things d been thinking. sam wood, directed cooper in 4 films, had similar observations cooper s performance in pride of yankees, noting, thought underplaying turned out right approach. on screen s perfect, yet on set d swear s worst job of acting in history of motion pictures. fellow actors admired abilities actor. commenting on 2 films playing opposite cooper, actress ingrid bergman concluded, personality of man enormous, overpowering—and expression in eyes , face, delicate , underplayed. didn t notice until saw on screen. thought marvelous; underplaying , natural actor ever worked with.