ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I examine John Wayne's highly crafted portrayal of Ethan Edwards in The Searchers (John Ford, 1956) through the lens of Constant-Benoît Coquelin's theoretical understanding of the actor's creative work in order to shed new light on the art of film acting. While at first glance the American film star and the French theatrical icon seem to have little in common, their shared views on the techniques of acting reveal that film acting and stage acting are, at base, the same basic art form. They may have worked in different eras and media and made use of different performance styles, but their remarkably similar craft suggests how theatrical history can productively illuminate the mechanics behind screen performances.
