Editing Anthony Perkins (section)

===Influences===
Perkins, having grown up in New York as the son of a theater performer, was heavily influenced by stage actors in the early years of his interest in acting. Slowly, however, his influences shifted, especially with the new wave of Method actors on the big screen. In 1958, Perkins admitted to ''Holiday'' magazine that the single performance that he believed had impacted his acting the most wasn't off the boards: "The single performance which influenced my own acting the most was [Marlon] Brando's in ''On the Waterfront''{{nbsp}}... That's the direction I want to go as an actor. To convey the maximum with the simplest, barest means."{{sfn|Winecoff|1996|p=153}} He also mentioned James Dean later on: "Well, I was certainly impressed with the originality of [Dean's] talent. Of course, it was popular at the time of his emergence."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRUnHo7Tzp0|title=The Dick Cavett Show: Anthony Perkins|website=The Dick Cavett Show|access-date=January 19, 2022}}</ref>

Perkins was a lifelong member of the Actors Studio, an institution both Brando and Dean attended as well, which could have contributed to his interest in the Method. Perkins's posthumous biographer, Charles Winecoff, though, dismisses any ideas that Perkins was a Method actor: "Young Perkins fell somewhere in between the mannered style of his father's era and the new, seemingly organic style exemplified by Brando and Dean."{{sfn|Winecoff|1996|p=153}}

Especially in his early years, Perkins took advice from a host of his costars, a majority of whom were experienced and revered actors in their own right. The most influential of his fellow stars were [[Gary Cooper]] and [[Henry Fonda]].