Don’t Overlook Your Training Practice, Freedom in Our Creative Lives, and the Meisner Acting Technique with Terry Knickerbocker
Listen to the episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts | Watch on YouTube
Listen to the episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts | Watch on YouTube
“Really good art is amazing to witness. It changes people, it changes culture. When you make a great film, a great song, a great painting, or a great poem, the world changes. But when it’s mediocre, it’s just forgettable, like mediocre pizza.”
Meet Terry Knickerbocker, the renowned acting coach and founder of the Terry Knickerbocker Studio in Brooklyn. Terry discusses the transformative power of training, creative freedom, and the courage it takes to reinvent yourself. Terry brings 30 years of experience helping actors unlock their authentic voices, refine their craft, and find their purpose.
In this conversation, we explore how the Meisner technique nurtures freedom and authenticity, helping actors overcome the barriers of fear and self-doubt. Terry shares his philosophy on teaching as a collaborative and profound responsibility and his belief in guiding students to build technical skills and emotional depth.
Terry is committed to learning and training. He is a graduate of NYU’s Experimental Theatre Wing and a longtime student of the Meisner technique under William Esper. He is incredibly dedicated to quality and transformation in acting and has coached over 300 film, TV, and theater projects, working with industry greats like Sam Rockwell, Natasha Lyonne, and Emmy Rossum.
Whether you’re an actor or simply pursuing excellence, this conversation offers valuable takeaways for anyone committed to personal and artistic growth.
This episode is for you if:
You’re an actor seeking to refine your craft and build a solid foundation.
You want to reconnect with your creative impulses and embrace freedom in your work.
You’re ready to color outside the lines and trust your instincts, even when it feels risky.
You’re navigating fear and uncertainty while pursuing a major career or personal transformation.
You want to create high-quality and consistently good art.
Looking for a specific gem?
[03:25] Terry explains his approach to teaching craft, emphasizing the difference between learning the basics and mastering the craft.
[04:10] Terry’s origin story and journey from a family of lawyers to acting
[07:19] How Terry discovered acting, his early experiences in theater, and his unconventional path to NYU.
[27:29] The importance of consistent practice in developing craft
[29:25] Terry discusses the value of dedicated practice, professional training, and the misconception around mastery, comparing it to the discipline of athletes like Kobe Bryant.
[35:10] Why quality is essential in art and how care, humility, and discernment drive high achievement.
[38:10] How deep listening and connection enhance life and acting
[47:19] Terry shares how authenticity, impulse, and courage play a role in creative expression and highlights examples like Philip Seymour Hoffman.
[48:44] Terry’s thoughts on impulse, freedom, and courage
[52:34] Naomi and Terry discuss Matthew McConaughey’s bold career pivot and the bravery required to make significant life changes.
[54:01] Terry explores fear as the primary barrier to growth and the need for risk-taking to expand creatively.
[57:40] Terry reflects on the fulfillment of teaching and helping students unlock their potential.
🎬 This interview was edited by Chara Ho, Co-Founder of Zesty Nobody
Conversation Transcript
Naomi Haile Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of The Power of Why podcast. My name is Naomi Haile, and today, I’m joined by the incredible Terry Knickerbocker. Terry, welcome to the show!
Terry Knickerbocker: Thank you so much, Naomi! I didn’t know that’s how you pronounced your last name.
Naomi Haile: Well, I'm from, I'm from East Africa, and so I take my dad's first name, which is Haile.
Terry Knickerbocker: Yeah, oh wow, that’s great—like Haile Selassie.
Naomi Haile: Terry, I’m so excited to chat with you today. I learned so much just from exploring the Summer Intensive with you this summer, and I think you’re brilliant. The way we connected in the class—both as students and eager learners—allowed us to soak in your expertise and insights, and we saw real growth in just over six weeks. I can only imagine the exponential growth your students experience in the two-year conservatory. Thank you for agreeing to be on the podcast today! I want to dive into purpose, the importance of training, and your journey in starting your own studio after working with William Esper for a few decades.
For the audience, I’d like to introduce you to Terry Knickerbocker. For the past 30 years in New York City, Terry has acted, directed, coached, and produced art alongside some incredible individuals. He is a graduate of the Experimental Theater Wing in the Drama Department at NYU and, after graduating, trained as an actor and teacher with William Esper, where he taught for over 25 years. His desire to build an acting career that celebrates the voice and imagination of the individual led him to discover the Meisner technique in his training with William. He also served as a core faculty member at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, consulting with playwrights and screenwriters on their scripts and coaching actors in over 300 film, television, and theater projects on and off Broadway, as well as regionally.
Some of the actors Terry has worked with include Sam Rockwell, Chris Messina, Boyd Holbrook, Natasha Lyonne, and many others. In 2015, Terry launched his own company, the Terry Knickerbocker Studio in Brooklyn, where he and his dedicated team help actors master their craft and build confidence through the Meisner technique. You can learn more at terryknickerbockerstudio.com.
So, welcome again to The Power of Why.
Terry Knickerbocker: Thank you. I’d make one small correction, Naomi. I don’t think we’re helping students master the craft at the studio; rather, we’re trying to teach them the craft. Sanford Meisner, whose work we teach here and who I consider my mentor and “grandfather,” would say it takes another 20 years to reach mastery. Mastery is akin to Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours theory—it’s something to aspire to over time. We’re here to give students the tools, much like medical school trains you to be a surgeon, but it probably takes 20 years to become a master surgeon. Mastery isn’t something you achieve quickly; it’s a long-term goal.
Naomi Haile: Absolutely, thank you for that. Thank you for clarifying! I’d love for you to start by telling us a little bit about your origin story. I know you’re the child of two lawyers, yet you chose a path as an actor. How did you grow up, and what did you love doing as a kid?
Terry Knickerbocker: My parents met in law school and lived in Brooklyn Heights until I was seven, then moved to Boston for my dad’s new job. It was tough for my mom—she loved New York, born and raised in the Bronx, a New Yorker through and through.
What did I love doing? I loved pretending, and I loved music. My parents took me to the theater and concerts. We always had music at home. My dad had a Hi-Fi set with a record player and speakers. I loved movies, plays, puppets, and pretending. I remember my dad had this chess set, and I’d pretend the wooden box it came in was a boat and the chess pieces were passengers on the boat. So, I was always making up stories. I have a sister who’s five years younger than me, and a couple of close friends—Wendy Smith, my neighbor, and Mark Laszlo down the street.
I also loved sports, especially hockey after we moved to Boston, where it was colder. I learned to skate and loved it. I didn’t really choose acting as a career until later, although I did enjoy it growing up. My mom helped me learn lines in sixth and seventh grade when I was in a play, then I took a break from theater until my senior year in high school when I did West Side Story. I loved being a part of that production, but I didn’t fully know who I was at that point. College was the next step, though I wasn’t that interested. I was a bit of an underachiever—my report cards always said I wasn’t living up to my potential, and it was true.
And it's true, I wasn't really all that interested, and I was a
Naomi Haile: Were you bored?
Terry Knickerbocker: I think I was sad and confused, and I didn’t really feel like I’d found my place. I felt a bit like a square peg in a round hole. I was a bit defiant, didn’t like being told what to do, smoked a lot of weed back then, and ended up at Boston University without really wanting to go to college. I hadn’t even filled out most of my applications, though I was supposed to, and wasn’t doing my homework. The West Side Story experience in high school had been a highlight, but beyond that, I wasn’t really interested in school.
Eventually, my dad found out that I hadn’t applied to colleges, and, as he was teaching at BU at the time, he made some calls and got me in. I might have had decent SATs, but my grades were just okay. Once enrolled, I kept up the illusion of attending classes, even though I wasn’t going. My parents paid for BU, and I lived in a dorm even though they lived in Cambridge.
In my first week, I saw an audition notice for an obscure French operetta, The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein, by Jacques Offenbach. I auditioned, got a part in the chorus, and discovered how much I loved singing. That became my home and family. The production was put on by a club, the Boston University Savoyards—not the official BU Acting Program, which I wasn’t in since I was a liberal arts student planning to major in French. I liked speaking French and had a good accent, which I think relates to acting and voice work.
That club became my family. I ended up staying with them, eventually becoming president. We put on a lot of shows, and I performed with a similar group at Harvard, as Boston had a whole community obsessed with Gilbert and Sullivan. My dad used to play their records, so I’d grown up familiar with their work.
Of course, my parents eventually found out I wasn’t going to class, and BU kicked me out after my first year. I wasn’t passing and had either F’s or incompletes. So, I moved out, found an apartment with a girlfriend who played the cello in one of our shows, and started working. After a couple of years of doing shows, I realized I needed to actually learn the craft of acting rather than just winging it.
I applied to NYU, the only place I applied to. I took the train down, auditioned with some unique poems instead of traditional monologues (as suggested by a fellow actress who knew her craft), and I got in. From there, my life really changed. So, that’s a short version of my origin story—I didn’t grow up wanting to be an actor; I sort of found it by accident. Or maybe, there are no accidents.
Naomi Haile: Yeah, and you were auditioning in high school, right? Did you do anything in elementary or middle school related to theater?
Terry Knickerbocker: I did a couple of plays in middle school—that’s when my mom was helping me. I don’t remember what those plays were, just typical school productions. Then, when I was around 11 or 12, I went to summer camp, and they had a drama club. But, for whatever reason, those people didn’t really seem to want me. I could go there, but I wasn’t part of the “in” crowd. There was also a radio club, and I liked radio too, so I became a DJ on the camp radio station, spinning records because I liked rock and roll. Things really took off after I got kicked out, once I started doing stuff with the Savoyards and then with the Harvard and MIT people.
Naomi Haile: Can you take us back to your time at NYU, graduating, and those early years training as an actor with William Esper? How did you first find William Esper, and what was that transition period like from finishing at NYU to training at his studio? Did it happen organically, or did you seek him out?
Terry Knickerbocker: Yeah, so I was at NYU, and for all four years, NYU at the time had an affiliation with different studios through the drama department’s studio system. They’d place you in one of usually six studios, based on some sort of intuition. I was placed in a studio called Circle in the Square, which is a theater on Broadway in New York, and they also had an acting school. They’re no longer connected to NYU, but they were back then.
I spent two years at Circle in the Square, which was a very traditional program, and the training was heavily method-based. The main acting teacher was a wonderful woman named Theresa “Terry” Hayden, a member of the Actors Studio who had studied with Lee Strasberg. There was also an influential Greek director, Nikos Psacharopoulos, who had founded the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts, which is one of the premier summer theaters in the country. Nikos was especially gifted with the works of Chekhov, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill, and Arthur Miller. So I was doing that training.
Meanwhile, NYU requires you to take academic courses, so I took an elective theater class called Contemporary Experimental Theater, taught by a guy named Ron Argelander. The class focused on avant-garde work happening in New York and beyond, starting in the 1960s, and I found it fascinating. Ron was a great teacher, and he had started something called the Experimental Theater Wing at NYU with a woman named Mary Overlie and a man named Wendell Beavers, who were married at the time. The Experimental Theater Wing had just started as an internal studio at NYU.
I talked to Ron because I noticed that Circle in the Square was located on Broadway and 50th Street, right in the heart of Broadway. Backstage, which was the main newspaper back then (before it became a website), would come out, and many students would audition for roles while they were still training. Sometimes, the teacher would ask in class, “Who wants to work today?” And some people would say, “Oh, I’d like to work, but I have an audition later,” and they’d be dressed for the audition.
Something about that didn’t make sense to me. At the time, I didn’t know why, but now I’d say that when you’re there to train, it’s like being in a dojo. You’re focused on your craft, and you’ve got to commit to that work.
Meanwhile, at the Experimental Theater Wing, it was just an empty space with people in sweatpants working on their craft, and something about that felt really special. So I transferred from Circle in the Square to the Experimental Theater Wing and met a wonderful teacher named Rena Yaroshami, an Israeli director. She, along with many other teachers there—including the great Anne Bogart, who later founded the SITI Company—was foundational in the idea of making your own work and truly discovering your place in the craft.
I didn’t think I’d ever need to go above 14th Street. I wasn’t interested in Broadway; although I loved movies and television, I didn’t think that path was for me. We were just going to make our own, weird, personal work. I did a lot of plays and projects, worked with great teachers and classmates, graduated, and continued to be in a class with Rena and some of my classmates.
After we graduated, we would just go there and work, and I did some projects with Rena. She worked at a wonderful theater called La MaMa here in New York, an important Off-Off-Broadway theater. For a couple of years, I was doing projects after I graduated from NYU—sometimes making some money, working as a waiter, and living in the East Village. I was in this class with Rena, a scene study class, where we’d work on a scene, and then, when we were done, we’d move on to another. It was an ongoing weekly thing. She’d rent space in the East Village, and one week I worked on a scene from Bertolt Brecht’s play Baal. It went well, it was great.
Then the next scene she suggested was from Mourning Becomes Electra, a play by Eugene O’Neill, who also wrote Long Day’s Journey into Night and The Iceman Cometh. I couldn’t figure it out. Intellectually, I understood what was needed; it was very dramatic. The scene involved a brother and sister in a room with their dead father’s body, calling for deep emotional engagement—catharsis, as in the Greek play Electra, or works like Medea and Oedipus. That scene demanded a deep well of emotion, and, though NYU gave me great experiences, it hadn’t left me with a toolkit or craft to solve the acting challenges in that scene.
That realization frightened me. I thought, “I should know what I’m doing.” How could it be that some days I felt capable and other days I didn’t? I was still, in a way, winging it, despite having had all these teachers. It was like a smorgasbord—you learn a bit about cooking sushi, then a bit about Russian food, then Spanish or African food. You know how to make those dishes, but you don’t understand the principles of food or what makes it work, right?
At that time, my teacher Rena Yerushalmi was also directing a show at La MaMa that I was working backstage on, and she was dating a guy named Joel Rooks. Joel had studied with and was now teaching for William Esper, though I didn’t know that initially. One day, Rena came in and said, “We’ll do this thing called the repetition exercise,” because Joel had shown it to her, so we tried it. I thought, “Okay, that’s fine.”
Then, every night, I’d see Joel backstage at La MaMa, playing the lead in this show, and he was mind-blowing—such a masterful performance, consistently amazing and fresh each night. I asked him, “Joel, how do you do that?” He replied, “I studied with this guy, Bill Esper.” I’d never heard of him or of Meisner, which is hard to believe now, but he was kind of a well-kept secret. Back then, we knew about Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler (who was also teaching), and Uta Hagen, but I didn’t know about Meisner. So I made a phone call, set up an appointment with Bill, and told him, “I think I want to train with you because I want to become good.”
Bill said, “Sure,” and I always share this story when people ask me about it. I thought that, since I’d been at NYU for four years, I wasn’t a beginner. So I asked, “Bill, where are you going to place me in your studio as an NYU graduate?” He replied, “At the beginning.” I pressed him, saying, “Yeah, Bill, but where in the studio? I’m a graduate of NYU.”
He got a bit annoyed and swore, “Are you fucking deaf? At the beginning!” Then he added, “Look, you went to NYU, and that’s a good school. Congratulations—you must be talented. But everyone who studies the Meisner technique with me starts at the beginning, because we don’t know where the holes are in each actor.”
Okay, that was a little humbling, but it made sense. So I signed up for Bill’s class starting in the fall. The amazing, yet frustrating thing was that Bill’s class was already full when I met with him in August—this was two years after I’d graduated from NYU. Since he didn’t have any space, he told me I could be an “alternate.” Alternates would watch the class, then work in a smaller group with another teacher while waiting for a spot to open, which would eventually happen because people left for various reasons. He said, “I’ll kick them out, or they’ll decide the work’s too hard, or they’ll decide they don’t want to act anymore, or they’ll want to move to Hawaii, or who knows what.”
Usually, spots opened up by Christmas. There were eight of us alternates, and people started leaving one by one, until there were only two of us left—and then no one else left. So my entire first year, I ended up in the unique position of watching Bill’s class while working occasionally when someone was absent or sick. Bill would say, “Well, come on, you come up and work,” but most of the time, I was observing and absorbing all his teaching.
For the alternates, our teacher was the amazing Maggie Flanagan, who later went on to start her own studio in 2001. Maggie had been with Bill for many years and was just beginning to teach at that time.
And you know, she’s a genius, so I really got the benefit. Unlike most of my classmates who were already in Bill’s class, I had two heavyweight teachers. Not only that, but when I was working with Maggie—as you may remember, Naomi, in the Meisner work, you usually bring in one exercise, right? Everyone brings in one activity. But when it got down to just me and one other guy, Ted, she said, “I’m not going to come in and work with the two of you for just one exercise. That’s boring to me. So you should each do two exercises.”
So I started doing two exercises, which was like a double workout. Plus, I’d have to have another activity ready in case someone was absent from Bill’s class. It was like going to the gym and doing three-a-days, you know? Sometimes I’d do three exercises in one day, so I built incredible acting “muscles” that first year.
Then, Bill’s class—as is mine now—required an invitation to continue into the second year. I was nervous about whether I’d be accepted, and we’d get a physical letter; there was no email back then. But I got in, and I was in Bill’s class for the second year. It was the most transformational time because Bill was an incredible teacher, Maggie was an incredible teacher, and my classmates were just great. It was thrilling—the best two years of my life. It was so artistic and, as you said in the introduction, so transformational. It really instilled in me something all about craft, process, and tools.
Naomi Haile: That was something you emphasized in every single class we had. First of all, I can’t even imagine coming up with three exercises per class, because I think we struggled with just one or bringing it in each week. So, yeah.
Terry Knickerbocker: I’m just thinking—look at the people who write for Saturday Night Live. They have to come up with so much material every week. And when you’re put up against a problem, you find a way to solve it, and you get better at it because you’re solving it, right? I’m sure. How many podcast episodes have you done? Over 100? So, would you say you’re better at this now than you were when you started?
Naomi Haile: It was a good challenge, and I think there was also the pleasure of seeing what everyone else came up with—and how it was different each time we did it—which was fantastic. Something you emphasized often was the value and importance of training.
When you were watching that actor on stage, you talked about the consistency; you’d go a few times a week, and every time, it felt fresh. Even if it was the same play, it felt fresh and consistent. Can you talk a little bit about the importance and value of training, what you’re seeing today in the industry, and how to arrange for consistent behavior? That’s something I’ve heard you discuss in another interview.
Terry Knickerbocker: Yeah, well, I think that someone who’s really good at something is good at it all the time, whether they’re an athlete, chef, plumber, doctor, teacher, painter, dancer, singer, or musician. People who reach a high level of skill are consistently able to perform at that high level. I’m talking about the quality of their work—the food they’re able to cook, the music they can make, the songs they can sing or write. Their output is consistently good.
To achieve that level of consistency—unlike when I went to Bill and discovered my work was hit or miss—takes a lot of practice. That’s what craft is: learning the craft. It’s an old-fashioned idea, like bricklaying or house painting. I have this amazing Jamaican painter, Clayon, whom I was lucky to find when I bought a house in 2006. Someone recommended him, saying, “You have to work with Clayon; he’s old-school, he knows what he’s doing.” And Clayon is a master—humble, but when he’s done with a job, it looks perfect.
“That ability to do something beautifully and well comes from training and studying.”
Look at ballet or the violin—it takes years to get really good at something. And I think there’s a misconception, especially with acting, that you don’t need to put in that time, like with a sport. How long does it take to become a Kobe Bryant?
A Muhammad Ali—of course, there’s talent, that natural affinity for doing something and a love of it, I would assume. But it’s putting in the reps. Kobe Bryant, for example, had a reputation for getting up at four in the morning to go to the gym, three hours before the rest of the team showed up. When you do that every day, consistently, you’re going to have something. So, it’s this obsessive devotion to doing something well that leads to high achievement, whatever that is. Because what you practice, you get good at. If you practice being lazy and inconsistent, you’ll be good at being lazy and inconsistent, right?
I love when things are done well, whatever it is—it could even be a sandwich, but if it’s really made well, it’s a pleasure. There’s so much content out there now—between Hulu, Netflix, Paramount Plus, and so on—but a lot of it’s mediocre. Recently, there was an article in The New York Times about “meh TV,” describing shows that are popular but not amazing. You’ll watch them because they’re better than other stuff, but they’re not “Whoa, that’s appointment television. That’s a must-see TV.” Then you have shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Sopranos, or The Wire, with extraordinary writing, extraordinary acting—a perfect storm. That’s the kind of work I want to see and the kind of work I want actors to be able to do.
When you hire a superstar, you expect that level of skill from them, and that comes from practice and training. There’s a fallacy that just being good-looking and focusing on auditions, networking, and getting a job is enough. Sure, you can get a job if you’re good-looking, pushy, and have a lot of followers—someone will hire you. But at the end of your career, you won’t have a body of work you can be proud of.
“Really good art is amazing to witness. It changes people, it changes culture. When you make a great film, a great song, a great painting, or a great poem, the world changes. But when it’s mediocre, it’s just forgettable, like mediocre pizza.”
There are a lot of pizza places in New York, but most of them are forgettable. I want someone to be able to make that memorable slice that keeps you coming back for more.
Naomi Haile: Yeah, that's powerful.
Terry Knickerbocker: It’s quality. It’s the emphasis on quality, which we talked about on day one in your class. Do you care about quality? Because quality calls for care; it also calls for discernment and a lack of perfectionism so you can be humble and say, “Oh, I’m not there yet. What do I need to do to get incrementally better, inch by inch?”
Naomi Haile: Yeah, I took a lot away from your class. As someone who came in obviously not as an actress or someone pursuing that space, I found so much value in what you said about getting out of your own head—which I know I continue to struggle with. Your class helped so much in leaning into impulse; it helped tremendously. Sometimes, I can’t even put it into words because I saw the value even in interviewing and listening. I think the skill translates so much into how we show up as people and relate to each other.
For me, it transcended work and extended into relationships and connecting with people. So, yeah, it was really amazing.
Terry Knickerbocker: It’s about being authentic, isn’t it? Yeah, and about valuing what’s true for you, even if it’s not popular or what most people might say. It makes you very self-aware, because the actor needs to use themselves. You know, bricklayers are very aware of bricks, cement, and their tools, but we make acting out of ourselves. So, we have to truly understand what it means to be human—and what it means to be this human.
What gets me going? What do I care about? What do I really feel, not what I’m supposed to feel? You meet someone and say, “Hey, nice to see you,” and they reply, “Yeah, nice to see you,” but you can sense it wasn’t really nice to see you or that they don’t like you that much. Cultivating that awareness of your own personal truth and really listening—deeply, empathetically—creates so much connection in the world, both with others and with ourselves.
Naomi Haile: Yeah, and also frank conversations, where I noticed almost immediately, within the first couple of weeks, how I was able to show up in conversations with the people I care about. If I sensed something was a little off or we needed to have an important conversation—one you might otherwise avoid—it allowed for a deeper connection because we were able to go there with each other.
Something you talked about in class was how incredible actors, like Viola Davis, who spent time in theater, are so resonant—not just because of their voice and how they use it, but also their ability to be both private and public, something you often emphasized.
Can you talk a little about accessing your unique talent? You’ve mentioned that talent is inherent or something you’re born with, but that it needs to be coupled with coaching and consistent training. What does it take to access that unique talent? And among the individuals you’ve crossed paths with, who stands out in terms of their ability to access it consistently?
Terry Knickerbocker: The first person who comes to mind is Philip Seymour Hoffman. He was like a volcano, someone who really honored the wildness inside him for the purpose of storytelling through so many different characters. He had an incredible reverence for the craft and for storytelling.
It’s like that question kids get asked: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” We assume people should know by a certain age, but some people figure it out earlier. Look at Michael Jackson—those early performances with the Jackson Five, singing “ABC” and others. Even as a tiny kid, he was clearly a genius.
(Side note—I don’t know if you can hear this, but they’re singing “Happy Birthday” at my studio right now. There’s a lot going on, and it might bleed through—I’m in my office, but it’s not soundproof. That’s my community!)
So as I was saying, I didn’t know I was going to be an actor; when I started, it was more like a hobby. I literally thought I was going to be a French major and then maybe work as a diplomat, like at the UN or as a translator. Becoming a teacher seemed like an enormous responsibility that I hadn’t considered.
I believe parents and a community need to support the time it takes for people to discover what they were born to do. I have a bit of a metaphysical idea that everyone is born for a reason—that they have some unique contribution to offer humanity and this planet in the brief time we get to be here. And it doesn’t necessarily have to do with fame; it might mean being a mother, a politician, an actor—but there’s something they were born to do. Giving them the space to discover what that is and listen to what emerges is so important.
Looking back, I can say, “Oh, of course, I wanted to be an actor.” But I didn’t know it back then, and I’m a bit of a late bloomer. Others are more like the tortoise than the hare—some people know right away, or are pushed into it. Like my son—I have an 11-year-old son and a 3-year-old daughter. My son hasn’t shown much interest in acting; he loves math, video games, and being social, which is the opposite of me since I’m more of a recluse.
But this year, in sixth grade, he joined drama club as an after-school activity, and I have to catch myself from saying, “Oh, that’s really cool,” because I don’t have an agenda for him to be an actor. My only agenda is for him to be happy.
Terry Knickerbocker: There’s a guy named Frederick Buechner, who died recently, and he talked about the concept of a worthy life. You know—what is a worthy life? He said it’s something like when your “great gladness meets the world’s great hunger.” It’s when the thing you love to do more than anything—your zone of genius, the thing you’d do even if you didn’t get paid for it because it feels so good—meets what the world needs in that moment. That’s an incredible thing, whatever it is.
Naomi Haile: Yeah, do you feel like you’re operating in your zone of genius? And what would you say that is?
Terry Knickerbocker: I think my zone of genius has something to do with acting and helping people—whether they’re learning to act or they’re professional actors I coach. I just had a session this morning before we started, with one of the people you mentioned in the intro, working on a new movie. It’s about helping them solve that part of themselves that wants to be expressed and clarifying it. It’s like being a midwife or a facilitator, unkinking the hose, supporting what wants to emerge, and giving guidance, coaching, and feedback. Sometimes it means pushing a little bit if they’re unsure—not in a harsh way, but encouraging what’s ready to come forward.
You know, change is scary, and childbirth is painful—not that it’s meant to be painful, but that’s just how it is. It’s sometimes hard to birth something new, to know what wants to come out, because we’re so used to what’s familiar. This actor said to me, “Oh my God, I just got this script, and it’s everything you’ve always wanted for me.” He was so excited about it, saying he couldn’t stop thinking about me when he read it because it aligned with so much of what we’ve been working on for years.
So, I think my zone of genius—though it’s a tricky word, but I’ll embrace it—is connected to the craft of acting and helping actors. It’s about listening to them, seeing what wants to come out, knowing how to support that, and standing for quality in the process.
Naomi Haile: Yeah, that’s the through-line of everything you do. Guiding actors through any blocks they may have in their work is something you just talked about. I remember one class distinctly when you said, “I wish I could meet you all at two years old.” In that moment, it resonated with me—I thought back to when I was a kid, and how much more free and fully ourselves we are then. Everything just comes out the way it needs to, without any desire to filter it through anything.
So, how does reconnecting with that childhood freedom—through, for example, the clowning classes you have at your studio—help actors in their process of refining their craft?
Terry Knickerbocker: Well, it’s the creative process. You mentioned the word “impulse,” and I’m thinking about Robin Williams. You can see in his work, and certainly in his talk show appearances, this completely unfiltered, wild, free creative genius. He just loved to honor his impulse and had no filter—he didn’t care.
Yesterday, Ezra Klein, a columnist for The New York Times, did an audio essay about Donald Trump, noting that what unnerves people most about Trump is that he genuinely doesn’t care what anyone thinks. He says what’s on his mind, whether it’s dancing to music for 40 minutes or whatever else. I’m not a Trump supporter, but a lot of people respond to that freedom in a weird way. Of course, he has all these handlers to make sure he doesn’t go off the rails.
There’s a question on your sheet about coloring inside the lines or outside the lines. It’s about being willing to color outside the lines and not care. Two years old is a beautifully free time, where that impulsive part of you isn’t concerned with being appropriate or meeting expectations—it just lets anything come out. That’s incredibly useful for creating, for putting paint on the canvas and cleaning it up later. It’s about trusting the voice inside you that’s not the “civilized” or “appropriate” voice, not the voice Freud might call the superego or the inner parent saying, “Don’t do that; people won’t like that.”
In the artistic space, you need to trust your impulses. Think of Matthew McConaughey—he was the king of rom-coms, making all this money, but something inside him said, “This doesn’t make sense for me anymore; I want something more dramatic.” He was out of work for three years, even turned down $12 million for one role, which takes guts, until he pivoted to Dallas Buyers Club. I love that bravery, that willingness to stick to his guns and say, “This is what we’re doing now.”
“It takes courage and inner listening. The freedom we have as children is exactly what we need as adults in our creative lives—not doing what we’re supposed to, but what feels true and right for each of us. We only get one life, so we might as well honor it.”
Naomi Haile: Yeah, bringing that in. I remember listening to that interview, and I’m sure McConaughey talks about it thoroughly in his book—the decision to pivot and break out of the mold he’d been stuck in for a long time. In that example of him turning down millions of dollars, they kept increasing the offer to try to convince him to take the role. And it was brave to say no because he knew he was working toward something greater for what he wanted out of his career.
I think that decision can translate to so many other areas. When you’re making a change or looking to reinvent yourself, it requires you to actually become a new person to be able to step into that. I’m curious, because you’ve worked with so many people, both in classes and one-on-one, what are the most significant internal barriers you see people navigate that tend to get in the way of their acting work? Is it this freedom and childlike expression? Or is there something else you’ve noticed?
Terry Knickerbocker: Not a barrier—that’s actually what wants to come out. The barrier, I think, is fear. Fear is the primary obstacle for most people because change is scary. Leaping into a new career, getting married, buying a house, or moving to a strange new town on impulse—it’s terrifying.
There’s also this concept of the “starving artist,” and career prospects in acting are different than in fields like getting an MBA, becoming a doctor, or being a lawyer. There are no guarantees. I’m not talking about becoming a movie star, because that’s about luck, marketing, and timing. They may not need what you have, in terms of stardom. But I believe that if you really get good at something, you’ll be successful, because the world needs people who are good at things. It’s terrifying, though, because it’s an investment and a leap of faith; it’s saying, “I’m going to do this, even though I don’t know how it’s going to turn out.”
That’s the career side, but even in trying something new—like in your class—I’m a proponent of neuroplasticity and of taking risks, shaking up the snow globe, and not just doing what’s comfortable. What’s comfortable starts to get a little encrusted, and then you’re not in a space of expansion anymore. I think we need to keep expanding, to keep finding new horizons.
Going down an unfamiliar, unknown path is scary, so accepting that and doing it anyway is the best course. But what a lot of people do is stop themselves, and then they end up with regrets.
Naomi Haile: Yeah, there was something else you said before we wrap up today—that most of the barriers to allowing whatever needs to come out are just habits we’ve built over time. You touched on it again just now. I’m curious, in your role as a teacher, and with over 25 years of experience—which I think is an amazing and incredible responsibility—what do you appreciate most about being a teacher? What do you value about helping people release and tap into that expansion, building new habits that allow them to produce high-quality work and get closer to operating in their purpose, within their zone of genius?
Terry Knickerbocker: Well, isn’t it so exciting? I mean, yeah, it’s just so collaborative, you know? To be given someone’s trust like that—it’s why I was scared to teach for a long time, because it seemed like such an enormous responsibility. It’s the same reason I’d be scared to be a surgeon—what if I mess up someone’s brain?
But I love that connection, and I love helping others make that connection, to be part of that collaboration. Theater is such a collaborative art; even in a one-woman show, you still need someone to run the lights. It really does take a village. When all of that comes together, with everyone moving in the right direction, it’s like what you see in championship teams, in movies and shows that come together seamlessly, or in restaurants that operate at a high level to deliver an incredible experience. I’m thinking about the show The Bear—when it really comes together, it’s thrilling.
Being part of that, being part of something where everyone works together to create something, and helping someone take their next step—that’s what I love. I’ve appreciated teachers like Maggie Flanagan and Bill Esper, and so many others, who were instrumental in sharing, mentoring, and paying it forward, giving me what they learned on their journey. It’s amazing to pass on what I’ve figured out to people who are hungry for it, so they can become their own geniuses. That’s thrilling. I love it. It’s a bit like parenting, in a way.
Naomi Haile: Yeah, thank you for this. It was really nice to speak with you and reconnect after a couple of months. I didn’t mention it at the beginning, but you’ve also spent time in Vancouver and Atlanta on your tours and road shows. So, I’d love for you to talk about how people can support you and your studio and the work you’re doing. How can people connect with you online and on the road?
Terry Knickerbocker: Well, that’s very nice of you. I just came back from Vancouver last week, and I’m about to go to Berlin and Copenhagen. Of course, I also have the studio in New York City, where most of my work life is focused on teaching acting and running what I believe is the best acting studio in New York. It’s not just because of me—though I’m part of it—but also because of my incredible staff, faculty, and students (who you may have heard singing “Happy Birthday” earlier!). We have a wonderful community here.
If you’re curious about becoming a good actor, even as a beginner, and don’t want to reach the end of your life regretting that you didn’t take the chance—didn’t go skydiving when you wanted to—we’d love to see you here. Our main offering is a two-year conservatory program that really sets you up to have a career and gives you the skills to do it. But we also have shorter programs, like the six-week intensive you did. We offer spring and summer intensives and other shorter options.
As you mentioned, we teach clown, voice, movement, acting, Alexander Technique, Michael Chekhov technique, stage combat, neutral mask, voiceover—all the tools that make you a skilled, and ultimately successful, actor. And even if you’re just curious, it might be worth exploring. I think you showed up not because you were set on being an actor, though I think you could be one if you chose to, but because it felt like it might be helpful in some way. And you said it’s made you a better listener and maybe even a better friend or family member. It really changes you.
So if you’re interested in a deep, fun, playful, meaningful journey, we do great work here. You can reach out to us at terryknickerbockerstudio.com—that’s Knickerbocker, like the Knicks, K-N-I-C-K-E-R-B-O-C-K-E-R, and Terry with a Y. You can also reach me directly at terry@terryknickerbockerstudio.com. And, of course, come visit us in Brooklyn—we have a beautiful studio, as you know.
Naomi Haile: Thank you. Thank you, Terry, and thank you, everyone, for listening to another episode of The Power of Why podcast. We’ll catch you in the next conversation.
Terry Knickerbocker: Thank you so much. Naomi, it's been a pleasure.
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