Is acting about the truth or the technique?

That was one of a number of questions raised during a spirited, informative and often funny discussion among actors Dabney Coleman, Wes Studi, Anna Gunn, John Carroll Lynch and actor/director Mark Rydell during "The Actor's Panel."

The 90-minute event Saturday afternoon at the Hotel Santa Fe was presented by The Santa Fe Film Festival and drew a capacity crowd of about 80 people. Rydell, who directed more than a dozen movies including The Cowboys (1972), starring John Wayne, and On Golden Pond (1981), starring Henry and Jane Fonda, Katherine Hepburn and Coleman, moderated the talk.

"You can pretend to be anything, but you can't pretend to be an actor," he said in his introduction. "Acting is a craft. It requires study, it requires intelligence, and it requires imagination. ... Acting is really doing things under imaginary circumstances."

The other participants seemed to agree with that comment, and with some other proposed basic tenets of the craft — such as the need to focus on a want or desire for your character, and then back that up with a motive for your need.

Rydell and Coleman, who both came from one of the great acting schools in New York City — The Neighborhood Playhouse — stressed the need to find a way to make your character believable, in order to better convey that truth to an audience.

"I may not have always done what I wanted to, but I never faked it," Coleman said at one point.

"You say you've never faked it," one audience member responded. "Does that mean you were really attracted to Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie?"

"I've been asking myself that same question," Coleman replied.

Lynch, a film, television and stage veteran who said he was classically trained, suggested that there is often a false note pervading the craft when it comes to television and cinema, because it's obvious to the actor there's a camera set up just a few feet away.

Still, after talking about performing a chase scene in a television drama, he acknowledged, "You can't really pretend to run after a guy. You run after him!"

Gunn, a Santa Fe native who has a regular role on the AMC series Breaking Bad (shot in New Mexico), recalled studying under legendary theater actor, director and teacher Kim Stanley in Santa Fe. Gunn recalled taking part in acting exercises that could take up to 30 minutes and strand the actor in an imaginary forest as she searched for the truth of her character.

"I realized it (acting) was about discovery, exploring who this person is," she said.

She also told a funny anecdote regarding some of Stanley's students who took Method acting — in which, broadly speaking, the actor totally subsumes himself into the character — to extreme lengths. After an actor clad in military uniform with rifle and an actress dressed in a nightshirt holding a teddy bear wandered outside the theater to emote one night, a neighbor called the police, who then interrupted a Stanley-directed rehearsal.

"Officers, we are working!" the imperious Stanley told the perplexed policemen.

The talk often provoked laughter among the crowd as the panelists told stories of missing props and improvised bits of stage action. Studi — one of the festival's tributees this year — garnered a comic roar when, upon being asked by Rydell how he approached acting, responded, "I've just been getting by on my looks."

The panelists agreed that a key ingredient in their craft is a well-written script with complex characters. The director's input was also discussed, as was the need to use props while shaping a character.

Near the end of the talk, Rydell said, "It takes a lot of courage to be an actor. You have to be willing to expose yourself — and respond."

The festival's movies, workshops, panel talks and parties continue today at various venues around town. Visit www.santafefilmfestival.com for details.

Contact Robert Nott at 986-3201 or rnott@sfnewmexican.com.