Dee Cannon is without
question one of the most gifted acting coaches/teachers
I have come across in years. Thoroughly committed and
passionate about her work, she’s got a remarkable
understanding of the actor’s craft.
I’ve found that her insight, her intelligence
and her unique brand of tough love combine to ensure
the actor’s discovery of the very best he has to
offer.
Michael Mastro
Broadway credits:
West Side Story,
Mamma Mia, Side Man,
Cat on a Hot Tin
Roof, 12 Angry Men.
Feature film:
Kissing Jessica
Stein.
Dee
Cannon's no-nonsense approach to acting is a refreshing
wake up call to any one looking to pursue a career
in performance, film, television or theatre. I had
the pleasure of working under Dee's tutelage for three
years during my time at RADA and she constantly challenged
my approach to acting; always encouraging me and her
other students to stay present in the "truth" of
every moment, to be vigilant about "detail" in
one's work and never allowing any of her students to
fall into complacency or habit. She devised a playful
approach to the work without ever losing sight of the
responsibility of the performer- both to tell a believable
story to their audience and the responsibility we have
as performers to ourselves: to serve our own craft
and to produce the best and most detailed work we can
at any given moment.
Dee has an ability to objectify you as a performer,
forcing you to sometimes accept truths about yourself
and your acting habits you may not be able to see
in yourself. This skill, and her constant engagement
and on-going work in the worlds of commercials, television,
film and theatre were amongst some of the best and
most useful preparation tools for entering into the
tough professional world of acting. I continued my
working relationship with Dee after graduation from
RADA and was fortunate enough to be instrumental
in having her as my personal acting coach in a Warner
Bros television series in 2004 and as an acting coach
for numerous auditions in Los Angeles. She is hard
working and expects hard work in return. I believe
her ability to tell it as it is and make insightful
perceptions and creative criticisms mark her out
as a forerunner in her field- I am grateful to Dee
for her ability to always make me challenge my own
acting pre-conceptions and strive for greater detail
and reality in the work that I do.
Owain Yeoman
Credits include:
The Mentalist, The Nine,
Kitchen Confidential, Generation
Kill,
Troy, Midsomer Murders.
Dee
has amazing qualities both as director and teacher.
Any actor fortunate enough to work with her will forever
know how to approach a role. She inspires and gives
courage. Immaculate attention to text, character and
detail are her trademarks.
Miriam Karlin, OBE
Credits
include: Original
West End cast of
Fiddler
on the Roof,
The
Rag Trade, Miss
Marple.
Feature films include:
Clockwork Orange and
Suzie
Gold.
Dee was a great source of inspiration when I needed her
to work on a role with me. We approached acting from the
perspective of a child - I tapped into my naivety and awe.
It was sometimes like an Easter egg hunt looking for hidden
ideas in the text. I had so much fun working with Dee always
enjoying the search and discovery of text and character.
Matthew Modine
Credits
include:
Full Metal Jacket,
Memphis Belle, Shortcuts,
Birdy,
The
New Hotel Hampshire, Mrs
Soffel.
I had the privilege to be taught by Dee Cannon for three
years at RADA. Not only did
I find her classes insightful, revolutionary and enjoyable;
on a much deeper level she has instilled in me a love and
respect for the craft of acting. The notion of being instinctive,
prepared and finding the truth in every character you play
is at the core of her work and is something I will always
hold on to. A wonderful and inspirational teacher.
Danny Mays
Danny
has performed five plays at the Royal Court Theatre
in London including two in the theatre's 50th Anniversary
year in parts that were specifically written for him.
He won the Best Actor prize at the Palmare Television
Festival 2003 for his performance in the hard hitting improvised
BBC film Rehab.
He has made two films with the acclaimed
British director Mike Leigh: All or Nothing and the 1950s
abortion drama Vera Drake which received 3 Academy Award
Nominations, the Golden Lion Award for Best Film, 3 BAFTA
Awards and 6 British Independent Film Awards including
Best British Independent Film.
Dee has an extraordinary gift for developing and encouraging
acting talent. Her dedication and ceaseless energy to help
actors reach their full potential is remarkable.
She is very highly regarded in her field, not only for
her work at RADA but also in
her private coaching.
John Grant
London Talent
Agent
Conway Van Gelder Grant.
Working with Dee Cannon is rigorous. You get the honest
truth about your acting abilities from Dee and she will
push you to be the very best. Trust her and go with it.
She knows what she’s doing. Since I trained with Dee,
her words are with me at auditions, in rehearsal rooms and
on TV and film sets. She’s tough but by God she’s
brilliant.
Katherine Kelly
Credits
include: Coronation Street
(won Best Actress at the 2009 British Soap Awards),
Life
on Mars.
Feature film
Mischief Nights.
Leading lady at RSC 2004-5.
During my ten years as head of the acting course
at RADA, Dee provided invaluable support as acting tutor
to the final-year students in the public productions I directed
in the Academy’s theatres. These ranged from high
farce (e.g. Feydeau’s Hotel Paradiso) to intense,
serious drama (such as R C Sherriff’s Journey’s
End). No matter what the style or the period of the script,
Dee’s no-nonsense, clear and thorough work has helped
many an actor to discover a firm basis of reality in his
or her characterisation.
In the case of comedy, this has meant the audience laughed
in response to performances with true resonance, not at
shallow caricatures. In serious plays, the audience would
be genuinely moved and not invited to wallow in sentimentality.
Such work not only brings great value to the cast and the
production. It also means that a few individual classes
with Dee may save hours of time in company rehearsals.
Ellis Jones
Head of Acting,
RADA
(1993-2003).
Dee has done some
incredible work at RADA at the highest level. She
has worked with generations of students and is one of our
most respected teachers.
Nick Barter
Principal,
RADA (1993-2007) .
Dee Cannon offered me a different approach to acting! I
had studied a variety of different ‘methods’
of acting for nearly seven years. But all this study was
bringing me more into my head and was definitely not bringing
me any closer to finding truth in my work.
It was Dee who taught me that you could do all the research,
play an objective, be psychological and then just rely on
the work and let it go when it comes to performance. I realised
that if I have truly done the work it can’t leave
me, so I learned to trust it and stop questioning it in
performance. This allowed me to have an inner life and freedom
which is what every actor is striving to find.
Nadine Bernecker
Film
credits include: Without a
Paddle,
One Among Us,
My Demon Within.
Dee Cannon was truly an inspiration to me. What I was most
struck by was her ability to take an actor who was having
a difficult time with a role, pinpoint exactly what the
problem was, and address it through an acting exercise.
It was amazing to see how the acting exercise would instantly
help the actor. She is also so clear as a director that,
as an actor, you know where exactly to go with a role. She
insists on every aspect of truth… from the actual
props, be it real food, correct costumes and actually living
the character.
Dee’s clarity as a director made me feel very secure
with what I was doing… and still she gave me enough
artistic space to create and explore.
Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo
Leads in musicals
include: Into the Woods, The Sound of Music, Les Miserables,
Evita, West Side Story,
A Chorus Line and
Sweeney Todd.
When I first sat down with Dee, I didn’t know what
to expect. In a sense, I had learned acting from acting
opposite many different actors: from doing, not studying.
In this way I had picked up a lot of on-camera experience…
along with a lot of bad habits.
Dee introduced me to “the work”: the science
and psychology of acting, the inners and outers, the art
of it. Most importantly, she laid a foundation for me to
find “truth” in my performance. Her insight
brought my craft to a new level. As a teacher, Dee is as
masterful as the method she extols, tuning individually
in to each student, to find a way in, to bring out the talent
inside.
Michael M Clements
Currently Executive
Editor for Washington Life Magazine.
Credits
include:
the lead in the Indy feature La
Population 12.
Featured roles in: Michael
Bey’s
The Island,
West Wing and Alias.
Dee has been such a mentor to me as a teacher, I hope she
would be proud of me. The training I have done with her
as a teacher is for me my base as an actor. I think of her
a lot and use her methods that I have trained with in all
my work as an actor. Of my four years of training at the
theatre academy, the weeks with Dee are the ones that affected
me the most, and gave me the base I stand on as an actor
today!
Sara Sommerfeld
Swedish
feature films: Baba's Cars,
Wings of Glass,
Tsatsiki Friends Forever and
Gota Kanal 3
Numerous plays at Stockholm
Royal Dramatic Theatre, Gothenberg and Malmo, including:
Three Sisters, Charlotte Lowenskold,
Full Speed Ahead and Grease .
Dee is a wonderful
acting coach. Her technique has been invaluable to me, starting
a new career in acting. She is very inspirational!
David Ginola
Ex-international
football star,
Model, L’Oreal.
Feature films
The Last Drop & Mr
Firecul.
I had the good fortune to meet Dee Cannon when I was a
student at the Swedish National
Academy of Acting (4-year programme) in 2003. Having
her as a teacher made a very big difference to me and all
my fellow students as she gave us very useful tools to
dig deeper into the understanding of acting and the importance
of being honest when working as an artist.
For a student, there is no way you can “hide”
or be “left unseen” when working with Dee. She
is responsible for allowing me to gain artistic courage
and being able to set foot on the big stages of Sweden after
graduating as an actor.
Joakim Grans
Stockholm
City Theatre: Rock N Roll, Hamlet. The Tempest, Amadeus,
A Streetcar Named Desire,
Marat de Sade.
Film & TV:
We Who Dance, Road Home, 16th Talk, Proud Matador and
Lanta
Fjadrar.
