Today, via an IFFBoston contact, I went to a last minute talk at Harvard by Stephen Tobolowsky. I've seen him in dozens of films but I think of him first as Ned Ryerson from Groundhog Day. It turns out he's also a story teller and a really good one. He made a film of him telling some stories from his real life, Stephen Tobolowsky's Birthday Party (which I haven't seen and isn't on Netflix) which led to a podcast hosted by David Chen of /Flim called The Tobolowsky Files. I had never heard of it but it's apparently quite popular and I now understand why.
Tonight he told a half hour story about his experiences studying acting at SMU. While we can't all relate to acting school, we can all relate to having a bad teacher, though perhaps not as vengeful as he experienced. The story of how this one teacher tried to get him expelled from the program and how he simply refused was spellbinding.
There are thoughts of him turning this into a traveling show and I look forward to the opportunity to see him again. He has a book of stories coming out but until then, I plan on catching up with The Tobolowsky Files in iTunes.
1 comment:
I wonder how many people run into him on the sidewalk and punch him in the face.
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