Jerry Coyle is an actor, director and an acting instructor in New York . He had come to Kosovo as a festival judge and had organized a workshop for camera acting. We met at the breakfast table in the hotel and spent the rest of the time together. He is a lovely, joyful, old chap and a punctual and clever humorist who accelerated everything with his remarkable sense of humor. We talked about everything; life, cinema, Tehran , New York and watched an Albanian play in which a live chicken was slaughtered with the blood splashing all around. Jerry hated this play, and so did I. The director said he wanted to show the cruelty of rape, something that happened many times during the war and has remained with the women of Kosovo. Jerry criticized the play because he believes that an art form shouldn't manipulate, but instead it should take the audience on a trip and slowly bring them back to their seat with the realization that something has happened.

Taking part in Jerry's workshop was an interesting experience (and he is hoping that he can organize one in Iran as well). He told me about working with Robert De Niro and his small role in “The Good Shepherd”. He said De Niro appears bashful in ordinary life and that he certainly opens up in front of the camera.

Jerry, as he puts it, was trying to open up the hearts and feelings of his students and lubricate their mind. His techniques were startling. He was asking them to say different sentences with different feelings and even asked an actress to express these feelings in her idea of speaking in Mandarin. He yelled at an actor who was trying to make everyone laugh, “Don't entertain us! You are an actor not a clown. Try to touch us not to please us.” After the class he asked me if he went too far. “Maybe a bit”, I answered. Jerry mentioned how this actor was tortured in prison. Another actor suffered greatly during the war. His pregnant sister and her husband were killed by the Serbs. His other sister and his parents died after the war due to illness and trauma. The actor needed the laugh and the fun and Jerry was trying to convey to all of the actors that acting is very “serious playing”. “In English we call it a ‘Play'”, he'd say. He told the actors that their pain and joy are their tools and actors need to enjoy expressing their feelings and to be confident portraying all their emotions. Jerry said that he had promised himself to be kind with the actors in Kosovo as they had been through so much in their lives.