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Here's how Howard McNear developed Floyd the Barber's mannerisms
McNear reveals how much of himself is in Floyd.
A common question asked of creatives is "Where do you get your ideas?" Despite the question's popularity, it comes up time and again during press junkets and interviews. The public wants to know what makes this person special. What makes them different from you and me? How do they come up with the stuff they're famous for?
Some actors base their work on real people. Maybe a neighbor has some interesting quirk or physical particularity. They take those traits and wear them like a costume. Other actors might just mine their personal experience, mapping past traumas to current scripts to embody their characters.
In an interview with The Bangor Daily News, Howard McNear told the Maine publication that he inhabited his most famous character by stretching out truths about himself and how he acted in his daily life.
"He's a sort of nervous wreck and you can't be on too much with it," said McNear.
While he had a ton of acting experience before setting foot in Mayberry, Howard McNear became globally famous for playing the barber, Floyd, on The Andy Griffith Show. His jittery way of leaving sentences hanging made him a lovable goofball. McNear's characterizations were unique and proved to be one of the funniest parts of the show.
"I think they evolve from the person himself," he said of actors' choices. "I think perhaps it's my own mannerisms— exaggerated, of course. I've often wondered if such portrayals aren't built up from the subconscious. I've worked with practically all the big comics and have arrived at that conclusion after analyzing their techniques...
"As a young fellow, I was painfully shy. I'm still shy. I really feel perfectly at home only when I'm on stage. Meeting people is far harder for me than being behind the footlights; perhaps that's because I can feel I'm someone else when I'm acting. I was trained for an architect because my father was an architect and bank vault engineer."
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