Sandra Seacat, actress and renowned acting coach to stars including Laura Dern, Andrew Garfield, Harvey Keitel and Michelle Williams, died on Tuesday at the age of 86, a rep confirmed to TheWrap on Thursday.
She was surrounded by loved ones in her home in Santa Monica, California, friend of the family Stan Rosenfield said in a statement shared with TheWrap.
“She was a revolutionary, a culture-changing teacher of acting and storytelling,” said actor Andrew Garfield, who costarred with Seacat in what would be her final acting role in FX’s “Under the Banner of Heaven.”
Garfield added that Seacat, who played his mother in the limited series, was “a beacon for all of us of what a life of deep meaning and beauty can look like. And she was irreverent and forever playing like a joyful unbridled child. I feel grateful beyond words to be able to call her my teacher, my acting partner in ‘Under The Banner of Heaven’, my mentor and my friend.”
“Sandra lived by seeing magic and possibility in everything,” said Laura Dern, who shared the screen with in Seacat in the HBO series “Enlightened.”
“She met the discovery of character and story with equal protectiveness, irreverence, humility and grace. She taught us the practice of investigating healing through acting,” added Dern. “But more than that. She invited us to know ourselves as artists and humans in ways I could’ve never begun to explore without her. She’s been my teacher since age 17 and I had the honor of acting alongside her several times. She is my whole heart.”
“Sandra impacted and inspired my life in ways that only God could have orchestrated,” said Common. “Her love for people, her love for life, her love [for] acting let me know, as she would always tell me, ‘You can heal people through your work as an actor, you can inspire people through your work as an actor.’ And that truly made me see the higher purpose in the art that I do.”
Seacat was born on Oct. 2, 1936 in Greensburg, Kansas on October 2, 1936. After graduating from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, she headed to New York City where she joined Lee Strasberg’s prestigious Actors Studio.
She went on to become an innovative, in-demand teaching coach of her own and counted Mickey Rourke, Aaron Eckhart, Meg Ryan, Misha Baryshnikov, Isabella Rossellini, Melanie Griffith, Don Johnson, Peter Falk, Shia LaBeouf, and Martin Henderson among her many students.
Seacat is survived by her husband Thurn Hoffman and daughter Greta Seacat, who is also an acting teacher.
A memorial will take place in NYC and Los Angeles later this year. In lieu of flowers, contributions to celebrate Sandra’s life should be made in her name to The Actors Studio.
