Jean-Louis Rodrigue

Rodrigue has coached hundreds of actors in developing their character’s physicality and movement. His most notable work includes: I, Tonya, Vice, Mary Queen of Scots, Love and Mercy (film), J. Edgar, W., Passion Fish, The Time Machine, Seabiscuit (film), and The Normal Heart (film). He collaborated with director Ang Lee and screenwriter David Magee in the development of the tiger movement for the Academy Award-winning Life of Pi (film), and he choreographed the period movement for The Affair of the Necklace starring Hilary Swank.

Since 2009, Rodrigue has conducted several workshops, within the Berlinale Talent Campus program.[11] He was involved in the development of a new hands-on training programs for emerging actors, the Talent Actors Stage, for which 15-20 international actors are selected annually.[12]

Rodrigue has coached at several Los Angeles locations throughout his career. At the Geffen Playhouse, Rodrigue was the movement coach on Nine Parts of Desire in 2005[13] and on Long Day's Journey into Night, starring Alfred Molina, in 2017.[14] He was awarded a fellowship grant from the Montalvo Arts Center to develop and direct a play adaptation of Bernhard Schlink’s best selling novel, The Reader. He coached Chris Pine in The Lieutenant of Inishmore at the Mark Taper Forum. He also worked with Gulu Monteiro on The Bacchae at the Getty Villa.

He has collaborated with Larry Moss on Daisy White’s Sugar, Pamela Gien’s Obie award-winning play The Syringa Tree at Playhouse 91 in N.Y. and Bo Eason’s Runt of the Litter at the 37 Arts Theater, N.Y. He has coached with Rita Maffei and Larry Moss in an Italian production of Pamela Gien’s The Syringa Tree at the Teatro Stabile di Innovazione in Udine and at Il Piccolo Teatro di Milano, Italy. For her performance, Maffei won the Gold Medal from the President of the Italian Republic.

Rodrigue maintains an impressive international profile as one of the leading experts in the field of the Alexander Technique and is sought after by significant performance artists and institutions in the U.S. and abroad. By using awareness techniques to improve posture and develop a healthy method of movement, he assists his students in their use of the self, creating a natural presence, and preventing injury and pain.

Rodrigue integrates animal behavior and movement into his research and work. He is known for helping actors develop characters through animal movement studies. His primary areas of research are animal movement, behavior, morphology, nature perception, and human/animal connections. This interest was sparked by two influences: Leonardo DaVinci and Carlo Mazzone-Clementi. While in Milano in 1957, Rodrigue's father introduced him to the scientific and artistic work of Leonardo DaVinci. They would often go to the National Museum of Science and Technology where the largest collection of models of DaVinci’s inventions are kept as part of the permanent collection. They also would visit the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana, the largest archive of Da Vinci’s drawings of animals. Later in his life while studying at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, Jean-Louis studied with Carlo Mazzone-Clementi who introduced him to the application of animal behavior and movement to character development, and opened up a way of working that has distinguished Rodrigue’s contribution to acting in the film and theater industry.