by Dov Kornits
“I’m coming to teach my masterclass The Golden Box in Brisbane,” says renowned Los Angeles based acting coach Michelle Danner. “It’s a two-day intensive, in which I discuss a toolbox that the actor has, where they use very specific tools to break down a script, create a character, make it come to life.
“I come from studying with Stella Adler, Ata Hagen, Herbert Berghof. Teaching is a passion of mine. Storytelling is at the core of teaching and directing movies. I have two schools in LA. A lot of people come and study from all over the world. I have worked with some wonderful Australian actors, including the extraordinary Toni Collette, who I was doing ADR with yesterday. She was in Sydney, and I was here in Los Angeles. I directed a romantic comedy with her, Alex Pettyfer, Eva De Dominici and Andy Garcia called Under the Stars.
Born in New York to an Italian mother and an Austrian father, Danner lived in Paris from 3-15 years old, and maintains a unique accent when she speaks today, and also in her portrayal of Angelina in the heartwarming comedy The Italians, her latest directing effort to see release.
“I think that I did this thing in school where I would revolutionise the school every three months. I adapted The Queen’s Necklace by Alexandre Dumas into a play, I cast 40 students. I did this other play where I rented the municipal theatre in town, and it was a huge success. And at the end, all the actors went with their hats and collected donations, and we split it amongst everybody. I was very proactive and enterprising as a child in school.
“The transition from teaching to directing came from my desire to tell stories and working with actors. People call me an actor’s director because of how I communicate with actors and how I understand what it takes for them to create the character, to script, analyse, to make the choices in the scene. I continue to teach as I feel that is an important thing for me to do. There are not a lot of teachers that direct, but I find that it works hand in hand.”
The Italians is about an Italian American family living in Los Angeles. Vincenzo (Rob Estes) and Angelina are empty nesters who spend more time annoying each other and looking after their respective garden patch, than showing love towards each other. Their only son Nico (Matthew Daddario) finally brings his girlfriend, Lily (Abigail Breslin), over for dinner, and all hell breaks loose when Angelina decides that the girl doesn’t meet the unrealistic standards that she has set for her son’s potential future wife.
“It’s okay to be flawed, that’s real,” Danner says when we ask her about the characters in her latest film, citing Sean Penn’s character in Dead Man Walking. “A good actor is willing to be unlikable. The actor that goes into a role wanting to be liked, I think is potentially a disaster. I think you have to be willing to be real and to get to the truth of it. And the truth is that people have good qualities and not such good qualities.
“I channelled my mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother, my sister, I channelled everybody,” she says about the inspiration for Angelina. “My family was quite tough. But the core of our family, there was always a lot of love. People would do anything for the other person.”
We bring up Abigail Breslin, who is so wonderful in The Italians, but reminded us of her Oscar nomination as a child for Little Miss Sunshine. It’s not about that. “You have to love doing the work,” says Danner, wearing her acting coach hat. “If you are nominated for an award, what does that mean? That means you have to roll up your sleeves the day after, and you have to work even harder.
“Stella Adler said that you have to have talent, but then you have to have the work ethic that enhances the talent that you already have.
“Stella also said that you also have to have the hide of the rhinoceros – to be able to let all of the rejections and all the BS roll off you – and the soul of the rose.
“I think that every time you put your hat in the ring, and you audition for something, you have to make that the creative experience. It’s like Pacino says, ‘I never audition. I only act’. You make that the experience and the cherry on top is if they want to hire you. You also have to be proactive. You don’t wait for somebody to say yes to you. You say yes to yourself first.”
The Italians will be available on Digital from 26 August 2025.
Michelle Danner will be teaching workshops in August in Brisbane at the Australian Performing Arts Conservatory. August 15th: On Camera Workshop (an interactive class with scene work that will bring their auditions to the next level); August 16th and 17th: The Golden Box. More information, click here.
