In Character: Actors Acting

A collection of photographic portraits featuring well-known actors assuming a variety of roles, accompanied by their comments on the art of acting. By the award-winning photographer and best-selling author of "Athlete and "Nude Body Nude.

Publishers Weekly

Photographer Schatz (Athlete) turns his lens to actors and challenges them to show off their craft. Many of the names are well known (Chevy Chase, Danny Glover, James Earl Jones, Edie Falco), but Schatz includes character actors as well, making for a balanced gathering. The actors are given a one-line description of a situation and are then photographed close up, with only their heads and hands to use. Although some reactions are broad and make for lively photographs-many people open their mouths so wide that every filling gleams-it's the subtle shifts in expression that stand out. With only their faces available to convey the response to a complex situation, some actors choose to make tiny adjustments; these smaller, more contained expressions are intriguing, as when Robert Vaughn gives only a kindly smile when asked to be "a pediatrician with a bright five-year-old cancer patient who is making up an intriguing fairy tale," or when Ellen Burstyn purses her lips slightly to become "a woman scorned." Beyond giving a glimpse of each actor's range, Schatz includes his subjects' thoughts on their profession. Although his work makes a zesty entry to the coffee table stack, Schatz's portraiture is also a vital, thrilling window into the breadth of an actor's range. (Apr.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Howard Schatz lives and works in New York with his wife and business partner, Beverly Ornstein. His fine art work has been exhibited in museums and photography galleries internationally and has been published in numerous magazines as well as in fourteen books of photography, the latest of which was the critically acclaimed Athlete.
Roger Ebert has been the film critic of the Chicago Sun Times since 1967 and is the only motion picture critic to have won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism (1975). He co-hosts the top-ranking television show "Ebert & Roeper and the Movies." He is also the author of 15 movie books. He lives in Chicago.