I threw it all away

Question

I heard this sentence said by an American actor to an American audience.

This actor impersonates Nixon and he claimed he had made a thorough search about his life and could so understand him better and also respect him.

So he said: "I learned a lot about Nixon ...how he lived, what he felt...and then, when acting , I threw it all away. "

some people of the audience laughed and I guess they understood what I had understood: He forgot about it and simply acted as he had never heard about Nixon in his life.
However, the actor looked at the people who had laughed and was fast to explain:

"I meant....I applied all I had learnt about this man in my acting."

I was surprised at this phrasing. Is this a common way of expressing this? Would you as an American have understood the way he used it? What about British people'

Answer 1

From the point of view of a performer/interpreter the meaning I would take is that he used all he had learned but in an unconscious way. Instead of doing things intentionally to make himself more like the character he was portraying, he studied the man in depth, and let all that knowledge influence his spontaneous portrayal. Classical musicians say things like this a lot. A teacher in a master class will have someone work the hell out of a passage, and then tell them to throw it all out and just play it, knowing full-well that the work will show in whatever the student does with the piece

Heidita said:

This could have been it! He might have mispoken and tried to amend his mistake by explaining. Hmmm, possibly.

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Answer 2

I don't know if I know anything better than you, but the reason i said that it made sense to me the way it was worded was that if you are portraying a fictional character, you are free to make up everything about that character that isn't written into the part or the work in which it exists. If you are playing a historical figure, especially a modern one with whom your audience will be familiar, you must study that person in depth, in order to create a character that is in keeping with, and not at odds with the historical record and people's memories of the person. The impressive thing about Langella's portrayal of nixon is that it doesn't ever try to imitate or caricature him, which would have been so tempting all things considered, but it does look like your memories of the man. And he is always good, and doesn't disappoint in this film either.

MJ said:

I think a proofreader made an improper correction. Read it again carefully. I'm sure Mr. Langella was saying -- at least intended to say -- that in portraying an historical character, like in portraying a fictional one, "You have to dive in with both feet ... to get to the essence of the character."

The only difference is, if you want an historical character to ring true, you have to research that character "who and what he actually was," not analyze only who you think he might have been or who you might have wanted him to be.

Doesn't that make sense?

From your posts I'm deducing you know perhaps even better than I that for every successful character portrayal in any depth, the actor has gone the length, breadth, and depth of character analysis, torn it apart, put it back together, likely done improvisational work with the material, et al.

Steve said: But I have to say it makes sense to me as I pasted it....

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Answer 3

To say "I threw it all away" is to say that you then disregarded what you had learned. He is kinda saying that he put alot of effort into it and then decided to do things his own way. I don't think that it is particularly funny... maybe it was in the way that he said it'

Answer 4

I am Canadian. If you are looking for a segue between the Yanks and the Brits, that's us Canucks.
I would not have understood the meaning the speaker meant to convey.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Answer 5

Nathaniel said:

To say "I threw it all away" is to say that you then disregarded what you had learned. He is kinda saying that he put alot of effort into it and then decided to do things his own way. I don't think that it is particularly funny... maybe it was in the way that he said it?

HI nathan, no he did not. He explained what he had meant.

Answer 6

Moe said:

I am Canadian. If you are looking for a segue between the Yanks and the Brits, that's us Canucks. I would not have understood the meaning the speaker meant to convey.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Hi Moe, thanks, I am glad to hear that...jeje, after all I also misunderstood. That makes me Canadian

Answer 7

As an ex performer of sorts, I do understand I think. When you study a role or (in my case) apiece of music, You do so in great detail. When you perform you sort of try to distance yourself from all the technical work you've done in order to have things come off fresh, and with some degree of spontaneity. Maybe this is what he meant. Did this happen to be Frank Langella'

Answer 8

steve said:

As an ex performer of sorts, I do understand I think. When you study a role or (in my case) apiece of music, You do so in great detail. When you perform you sort of try to distance yourself from all the technical work you've done in order to have things come off fresh, and with some degree of spontaneity. Maybe this is what he meant. Did this happen to be Frank Langella?

Now this really surprised me , Steve, thanks for the name, I did not recall. so he actually IS AMERICAN!! Now that's stunning. I thought it was some kind of British expression.

Answer 9

The way that I understood it is that he just totally forgot everything that he learned about Nixon. So you may have interpreted it correctly. But it also could have meant that he gave up his effort to learn more about.

Answer 10

*"I learned a lot about Nixon ...how he lived, what he felt...and then, when acting , I threw it all away. "

some people of the audience laughed and I guess they understood what I had understood: He forgot about it and simply acted as he had never heard about Nixon in his life.
However, the actor looked at the people who had laughed and was fast to explain:

"I meant....I applied all I had learnt about this man in my acting."*

No, I wouldn't have understood that. I wonder if he meant to say "I threw it all in," meaning that he tried to incorporate everything he had learned. It's possible that he misspoke, but didn't realize that he had done so, and that's why he wondered why the people were laughing. We often make such mistakes when we speak, without realizing it.

Answer 11

This could have been it! He might have mispoken and tried to amend his mistake by explaining. Hmmm, possibly.

Answer 12

That's a strange way of expressing whatever he is trying to say. I'm not sure I understand it and I'm an American.

He might be saying that since Nixon was accused of lying he sometimes had to act the part of Nixon lying and he could not always portray Nixon as he really was.

It's just a theory, and it's kind of ridiculous.

Answer 13

I would have to see it to really understand what he was saying, but, I am siding more with Steve on the interpretation of what was being said and what it was supposed to mean.

Answer 14

I'm also inclined to the viewpoint that he misspoke and that was what was funny.

Answer 15

Tuvo que esperar hasta el fin de semana tener el tiempo, pero busqué la cita en una entrevista con Langella. No quiero tocar la bocina mía demasiada furtamente, pero lo di en el clavo. I can't write in Spanish worth a darn, but this stuff I know.
I can't get a link to work here for some reason, but this was at Playbill:
Playing a real, historical person is different from portraying a fictional character, Langella says. "You have to dive in with both feet to who and what he actually was. I resisted that for a while. I came to London armed with a great deal of visual research and I read a lot of books. I watched him. And then I thought, 'I'm not going to go in that direction.' But as days went by, I had no choice but to try to create his physical type, and to some degree try to create a look, a sense of it. There's no special makeup and no prosthetics. Then I threw it all away, as a sense of the character took over. I don't want to imitate him. I felt that if I can get to his essence, he'll come out that way."