When I came to Hollywood I was 38 years old and....in a hurry. I glommed onto the “hot” acting class at the time, (a director who'd just released a hot new movie) and quickly became aware that, although great fun, it was not teaching me anything. I didn't just want coaching on a particular scene, I wanted to know how to do this “acting thing.” Why did it work three times, but not the fourth? That's the kind of thing that drives actors mad, and made me keep searching for an answer.

After auditing the 5 top acting schools in Hollywood (and finding them all pretty wonderful) one of the “horses” in Equus (read the play) recommended Darryl Hickman. I was skeptical, (the guy played a horse with no lines) but...I audited, and: Mind blown. There was Darryl. And there was the rest. He was the ONLY teacher I've ever encountered that actually had a teachable (and more importantly, learnable) step by step process for mastering the craft of acting.

Every other great coach today (and that includes the greats of the past (Meisner, Adler, Strassberg) are, and were not teachers; they are and were fabulous, intuitive coaches, that could help you create a good specific performance, but did not teach you a way to do it yourself. I wanted to “eat every night” as the saying goes. And...I stole everything I know from Darryl Hickman...He loved that our program has continued his life's work. Our mission statement at MDS Actors' Studio is: “To Give Actors Mastery of Their Own Process. Every Time.”