Terry Knickerbocker

Scene Study with Terry Knickerbocker

Terry coached Sam Rockwell towards his Oscar Winning performance in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and Oscar Nominated performance in Vice. He has spent years coaching. Clients include Michelle Williams, Boyd Holbrook, Emmy Rossum, Sacha Baron Cohen, Chris Messina and Zac Efron.

Terry is a graduate of The Experimental Theatre Wing in the Drama Dept. at New York University. After graduating from NYU, Terry trained as an actor and a teacher with William Esper. He taught at The William Esper Studio for 25 years, and continues as part of the core faculty at the Experimental Theatre Wing at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. He has also taught directing at Playwrights Horizons Theatre School and Yale University. Other essential teacher/mentors include Maggie Flanigan, Rina Yerushalmi, Steve Wangh, Terry Hayden, Nikos Psacharopoulos, Jackie Brookes, Mary Overlie, Ryszard Cieslak, Jerzy Grotowski, Pierre Lefèvre, Moshe Feldenkrais, Dr. Louis Ormont, and Dr. Harry Fogarty.

“I first took an acting class from Terry Knickerbocker more than 25 years ago. Since then I have worked with him on every film and stage role I’ve done. Nobody’s better at what he does. Terry is incredibly intuitive and full of ideas that are usually outside the box. His sense of what is truthful is like a laser. I depend on him. He’s invaluable to me and I don’t know what I’d do without him.” – Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Vice, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind)

“..The environment Terry creates feels immediately rich with ideas and specific choices. Going off and making a movie after our work together, I felt well-armed to bring a very real, original, and emotionally fleshed-out person to the screen. I felt confident in my choices and spent less time second-guessing myself. All our work freed me up to be in the moment, and improvise with specificity, and to feel very alive in the role I was playing.”” – Natasha Lyonne (Poker Face/Peacock, Russian Doll/Netflix, Orange is the New Black/Netflix)

“This is a high order for a very humble career. I first came in to contact with Terry Knickerbocker 10 years ago during a summer intensive in the city. I was, at the time, seeking my BFA in acting at The North Carolina School of the Arts. I spent those 6 weeks with Terry and experienced what an actor could do and what I as an actor must do: continually mine for the truth, play actions, push limits of both reality and imagination and above all to never, ever, ever stop this pursuit. After leaving Terry’s class that summer I concluded my last 3 years at NCSA receiving my BFA in Acting and quickly auditioned and continued my actor training at the Yale School of Drama. Naturally, upon graduation and settling into the city, I found Terry and his teachings again. Attending Terry’s class is for me one of the essential practices of my career. He has continually met me where I am in my process and growth as an actor–be it as a seventeen-year-old aspiring actor with no credits to his name or two time graduate with both a blossoming film and tv career to boot. He raised the bar–pushing me, nudging me, challenging me and in some cases daring me to be more truthful, more transformative, more ugly, more beautiful, more human. For any actor who wants to call themselves an actor and be proud of the title and occupation, Terry and the Terry Knickerbocker Studio is a must. Terry is to the acting profession what Phil Jackson was to the game of basketball: a barometer of greatness. When he asks you, “how good you want to be”, it is not a challenge it is an invitation, an invitation to be more human–more human on stage, on screen, and in life.”” – Jonathan Majors (Creed III, Ant Man and the Wasp, Loki, Da 5 Bloods)

“Terry has been an invaluable part of my process for many years. He helps me shape my characters, prepares me for auditions, and challenges me to push myself as an actress. When I send him a new script, he has ideas on everything, from subverting obvious character choices to what physicality or props might help me express something non-verbally in a scene. He also shakes me of any quirks or bad habits I might develop. – Emmy Rossum (Angelyne, Shameless/Showtime)

“Terry is like my Phil Jackson he gets my skills and my acting choices primed to the max!” – John Leguizamo (Romeo + Juliet, When They See Us/Netflix, Bloodline/Netflix)

For further information about the acting workshops of Terry Knickerbocker in Berlin, please click here