'Class' star David Krumholtz: 'You can't really teach acting'

Oct. 29 (UPI) -- David Krumholtz, who plays an ego maniacal acting teacher in the short film Class, said his character is very much in line with his own opinions of the profession.

Class, written and directed by Enzo Cellucci and Ash McNair, follows a student named Max (played by Cellucci), as he attends his first session of an acting class taught by Adam (Krumholtz), an enigmatic instructor whose style of teaching is based around confusing, tormenting and humiliating his students.

Krumholtz, 43, told UPI in a recent interview that his portrayal of Adam was partially based on acting class horror stories relayed to him by Cellucci and his own wife, Vanessa Britting, but for the most part, he just "came at it from a comedic perspective."

The actor said he didn't have much personal experience to draw from, as he has rarely worked with acting coaches and, in general, he doesn't have a particularly high opinion of the profession.

"I've always kind of thought -- and this is not to sound condescending or pretentious in any way -- but you can't really teach acting," he said.

Krumholtz posited that "actors who find themselves improving in their acting classes would have gotten there anyway with experience and/or suffering -- life suffering, failure. I think that's the best teacher for an actor."

Meanwhile, teachers like Adam "create a cult-like atmosphere where suddenly you can't function without relying on their advice, at the minimum, and them being there like some sort of Svengali," he said.

The performer said a good teacher should help an actor to look inward. He offered Leigh Kilton-Smith, an acting coach he worked with briefly years ago, as a rare positive example.

"Leigh was very much about me facing myself and forcing me to man up and grow up and find the truth and the honesty in what I was doing," he said.

Adam, by contrast, seems more interested in creating a cult of admiration around himself.

"I would never personally want to be in a class like the class in the film. I think it's a lot of hootenanny and a lot of BS ... Most acting coaches are failed actors, that's just the truth," he said.

Krumholtz said, from his perspective, the film is about "the willingness to be led, the willingness to be a follower, the lengths we'll go to impress someone who seems to be more confident than we are."

Kickstarting

The original idea for Class stemmed from a feature-length screenplay written by Cellucci and McNair, who are longtime friends of Krumholtz's.

"The original film was more centered around this struggling actor in New York City who has lots going on in his personal life, and the class was just a bizarre thing he was having to work around while juggling the other parts of his life," Krumholtz recounted.

The writers organized a table read for the original screenplay, and Krumholtz was brought in to read the role of the acting teacher. He said the table read inspired them to switch their focus to the acting class for its own short film.

Cellucci and McNair set up a Kickstarter to crowdfund the short film, and that's how Krumholtz became an executive producer on the project.

"I thought, well, instead of just giving them some dough to make the movie, I would just donate to the Kickstarter and surprise them," he said. "So I did that, and they were surprised to see I had donated on the executive producer level. And they were thrilled," he said.

"When they called and said they had gotten all the financing they needed, I was more than happy to jump in and play that role."

Krumholtz surprised the filmmakers one more time just before shooting when he announced that he would be performing the role of Adam in a British accent.

"One of the things I consciously did and also, I'll admit, by accident at times did, was different regional accents. One second he's Victorian, and the next second he's Liverpudlian. We talked about it on set, because it became noticeable, like, 'your accent's a little different in this scene than it was in the other,' and we thought it would be funny," Krumholtz said.

Krumholtz said he feels the inconsistent accent highlights the artificiality of the class and its teacher.

"He's probably some Jewish guy from Queens, just like me," Krumholtz joked.

Doppelgangers

Krumholtz said the role he continues to get recognized in public for the most remains Bernard the elf from 1994's The Santa Clause and its 2002 sequel, The Santa Clause 2. But he also occasionally gets approached by people who confuse him for The New Girl's Jake Johnson.

"I actually get recognized as Jake Johnson all too often. I'm assuming Jake gets me all the time," he said. "I had one guy, one morning I was on my way to get coffee, and he came up to me all excited, like 'Hey, you're the actor from The New Girl, right?' And I said 'No, that's another guy, but I am an actor myself,' and he kinda gave me the shrug off and was like, 'Oh, yeah, everybody's an actor, OK, bye.'"

Despite numerous Internet memes commenting on a resemblance, Krumholtz said he rarely gets confused for fellow actor Oscar Isaac in real life.

"The only time that it happened was when Inside Llewellyn Davis was coming out, and there were a lot of commercials for it on television, not a lot of people knew who Oscar was, he was fairly new to the public eye, and my dad was at home watching TV. My dad called me and said, 'What the hell is this, why didn't you tell me about it?' I said 'That's not me.' He said 'get out of here, he looks like you,'" Krumholtz recalled.

The actor said he has had occasion to discuss the memes with Isaac in person.

"I met Oscar at the premiere of Hail Caesar a few years back, and I told him, I said 'Hey, my name's Dave and I just want you to know lately people have been saying we look alike,' so we took a picture together. And then, more recently ... I ran into him at a friend's party and we agreed to call each other by each other's names, so he calls me Oscar and I call him David. He's a really nice guy, he's a funny guy," he said.

Class will be featured at the New York Shorts International Film Festival and the FilmQuest Utah festival, which begin Friday.