Earle Foxe — “How I Got In” (1917) 🇺🇸

Pathé’s Leading Man

“I was curious to see how pictures were made, so one day I invited myself to go down to Kalem’s. I knew the director, Mr. Lawrence [Edmund Lawrence], and he, having seen me on the stage, said I was the type he wanted as leading-man for Alice Joyce, who had just arrived in the cast. He insisted that I try it, which I did, and I found it very much to my liking. Some motion picture actors have a great deal to say about their first sensations before the camera. I felt very much the same that I did the first time I faced an audience on the stage. I was a bit self-conscious and fearful of the consequences, but was able to keep my balance and to realize that it was all in the day’s work and something to get used to. I watched the director, was soon lost in my part and forgot everything else.

“I like the photoplay better than the stage because there are such infinite possibilities. A greater variety of subjects can be handled in this way and there is a greater scope for the play of the emotions. The more knowledge one has about pictures, the more evident it is that there are a great many ways in which they can be improved. However, censorship will not improve them — least of all a national board of censorship. It limits the efforts of the producer in a direction where enlightenment is needed and might do a great deal of good.

“To the ones who are trying to get in I say — Unless you are really talented and are sure of it, and have great capacity for holding on, working hard and making the most of every opportunity, stay out. It is your duty to make the most of your capabilities, but — better a good plumber than a bad actor.”

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Collection: Motion Picture Magazine, August 1917

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