THE NEW GORILLA: 8 Oscar-Winning Actors and Where They Trained

Good little bit on some great actors and where they trained. I love the "we're all characters" by Strasberg.

1. DUSTIN HOFFMAN

The two-time winning actor (“Rain Man,” “Kramer vs. Kramer”) studied with one of the Method acting greats: Lee Strasberg in The Actor’s Studio. “I was very affected by Lee Strasberg when I studied with him,” said Hoffman in an interview with American Film Magazine in 1983. “He would say over and over again, ‘There is no such thing as a juvenile or an ingenue or a villain or a hero or a leading man. We’re all characters.’ I was maybe 21 years old, I’d just come to New York to study, and it hit me very strong, because I was a victim of casting. Even today, casting people can kill you. Because you sit down, and before you say a word they’re going to look at you and without knowing anything about you tell you, ‘Well, you’re not a leading man. You’re not a juvenile. We’ll cast you as a doctor, or a scientist, maybe.’ ” Hoffman has been nominated for an Oscar a total of seven times.

4. DENZEL WASHINGTON

Washington trained first at San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theatre but it was at Fordham University in the Bronx, N.Y. that he took his first acting class. After his film “Flight,” Washington told the New York Times, “Being a movie actor wasn’t on my radar at all. I took an acting class at Fordham, and it was kind of easy, or I enjoyed it, I should say, and people told me I was good. When I started out, I was just thinking about the stage; it was never my goal to get to Hollywood. But here I am.” He went on to win Oscars for “Training Day” and “Glory.” New York audiences got see Washington on stage in the latest revival of “A Raisin in the Sun.”