Constantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski (1863 – 1938), was a Russian Actor and Theatre Director. His innovative contribution to modern European and American realistic acting has remained at the core of mainstream western performance training for much of the last century. Stanislavski organized his realistic techniques into a coherent and usable 'system'. Thanks to its promotion and development by acting teachers who were former students and the many translations of his theoretical writings, Stanislavski's System acquired an unprecedented ability to cross cultural boundaries and developed an international reach, dominating debates about acting in the West. That many of the precepts of his 'system' seem to be common sense and self-evident testifies to its hegemonic success. Actors frequently employ his basic concepts without knowing they do so.
His is a systematic approach to training actors. This system is at some point different from but not a rejection of what he states earlier in affective memory. At the beginning, Stanislavski proposed that actors study and experience subjective emotions and feelings and manifest them to audiences by physical and vocal means.
Among the actors who have employed Stanislavski's System in some form are Jack Nicholson, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Harvey Keitel, Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, Warren Beatty, Robert Duvall, Johnny Depp, Gregory Peck, Sidney Poitier, Jessica Lange, William Hurt, Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Gene Hackman, Kevin Spacey, Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, Benicio del Toro, Mark Ruffalo, Vincent D'Onofrio, Sandra Bullock, Kate Winslet, Adrien Brody, Denzel Washington, Elizabeth Taylor, Hilary Swank, Anthony Hopkins, John Alexander and Sean Penn.
Sir John Gielgud said, "This director found time to explain a thousand things that have always troubled actors and fascinated students." Gielgud is also quoted as saying, "Stanislavski's now famous book is a contribution to the Theatre and its students all over the world."
Stanislavski's goal was to find a universally applicable approach that could be of service to all actors. Yet he said of his System, "Create your own method. Don't depend slavishly on mine. Make up something that will work for you! But keep breaking traditions, I beg you."
Stanislavski's aim was to have all of his characters performed as "truthfully" as possible, relying on full commitment to objectives and physical actions, rather than artificial reproduction of emotion.
