How I Got to Be Whoever It Is I Am by Charles Grodin Read Free Book Online Page A

unusually focused, and I was focused on how to become a good actor, so the lack of accoutrements
     didn’t get to me. Since there was no cooking allowed, and it wasn’t financially viable for me to go out to restaurants, I
     got myself an electric frying pan, which I smuggled past the front desk under my coat. Today I’m
way
more law-abiding.
    I hid the electric frying pan under my socks in a drawer. I’ve always had a lot of socks. No matter what my financial condition
     was, for some reason I’ve always had more socks than any one person could wear. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not comparing myself
     to Imelda Marcos and her shoes, but I’ve always had a lot of socks.
    Anyway, in my illegal electric frying pan I would regularly cook chicken wings, which I got for nineteen cents a package.
     Today, I still eat chicken wings as much as any other food. According to my recent physical, I’m in tip-top shape. I’m not
     suggesting you run out and get chicken wings; I’m just saying…
    I think my experience at Capitol Hall—on Eighty- seventh Street between Columbus and Amsterdam in Manhattan—helps me identify
     with people in shelters. Of course, unlike me, most people in shelters don’t have confidence that someday they’ll be better
     than fine. Ironically, Capitol Hall is now a homeless shelter.
    I hooked up with my pal from the Playhouse, Julie Ferguson, who had also come to New York to study acting, and we got an audition
     for the Actors Studio. Julie and I had bonded with one look at the Playhouse as we felt equally silly prancing around the
     so-called movement class—another concept I have no use for in an acting class. Let it be for aspiring dancers.
    I had no idea the Actors Studio auditioned around a thousand people a year and accepted only a few. Julie and I were not among
     those few. It was the only thing in Manhattan harder to get into than a private preschool.

Uta
    J ulie and I then auditioned for the legendary acting teacher Uta Hagen and were accepted. I had studied acting for two years,
     as had Julie—at least. Nevertheless, we were invited to join Uta’s beginner’s class. I later realized that, generally speaking,
     acting teachers, like dentists, don’t have a high regard for each other. I remember throwing Uta a kiss as we left. I had
     no way of knowing that would be our last happy exchange for several decades.
    Among the things we were asked to do in class was to carry an imaginary suitcase across a room and open an imaginary window.
     I asked Uta what the purpose of that was. She deeply resented that I would question anything she said and let me know it.
    Nevertheless, I couldn’t stop myself from asking the question again. This time Uta threatened to throw me out of the class.
     What made it worse was when I wrote my first book and again said I saw no point in all that imaginary suitcase carrying and
     window opening.
    But I do credit Uta with something she said to me that was very helpful. I was doing a scene in class from the novel
The Catcher in the Rye
. When the scene was over, Uta said there was a “pure acting moment” in the scene and asked me if I knew what it was. I had
     no idea. At one point the actor playing my teacher started to hand me an essay I had written. I reached for it, but he took
     it back to look at it again. Uta identified that moment as the “pure acting moment,” because, as she put it, it was a moment
     when I didn’t know what was happening. That state of not knowing what’s coming next is a state good actors aspire to. It’s
     called “living in the moment” and not anticipating what’s coming. Learning that concept was very helpful as I tried to unfold
     what at the time felt like the mystery of acting.
    Decades later, Uta was a guest on my cable talk show to promote a book she had written. Even though she had long since dropped
     those exercises, before the taping began she let me know she still really didn’t appreciate my writing about