ABSTRACT
Tom Cruise said in a televised James Lipton interview (“Inside the Actors Studio”) that the job of the film actor is to create subtext. I suggest what he meant by this was – once again – that the essence of most movie scenes lies in what the characters are thinking or experiencing, not what they are saying. Stories are about change. On the stage the changes are registered by what a character says. On screen, they are registered by the character’s reaction to what is said. I have heard this same idea put another way: the essence of acting on stage is found in the lines; the essence of acting on film is found in the spaces between the lines.
