从20世纪20年代开始，演员培训一直致力于在技术和情感自由之间寻求平衡。事实上，搜索一直持续到今天；但在美国和英国的演员发展史上，在20世纪30年代、40年代和50年代，寻找演员的过程一直不协调。斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基的书《集体剧院》和李·斯特拉斯伯格的演员工作室推动美国演员在心理和情感探索方面取得了进展，以至于他们实际上放弃了对外部技能的研究。在英国，这些技能至高无上。The search for an equilibrium between technique and emotional freedom occupied actor training from the 1920s on. Indeed, the search continues to this day; but in the history of actor development, both American and British, the search was consistently out of step throughout the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s. Stanislavsky’s books, the Group Theatre, and Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio moved American actors forward in psychological and emotional exploration to the point that they virtually abandoned the study of external skills. In Britain those skills reigned supreme.