Acting with a capital ‘Ayyyy’: 50 years after playing the Fonz, Henry Winkler is teaching a new generation of acting talent

Henry Winkler is pictured at the Television Academy's Televerse festival in Los Angeles on Aug. 15. (Valerie Macon/AFP/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

As part of the Television Academy’s first-ever Televerse festival last weekend, a truly meta thing happened: Henry Winkler, perennial star of “Happy Days” and an Emmy-winner for his work on “Barry,” taught an acting class.

The performer known for playing the Fonz who has also dipped into impressively distinct corners of the entertainment stratosphere – from the “Scream” movie franchise to “Parks & Rec” to “Arrested Development” – watched a collection of actor pairs present scenes in Downtown Los Angeles and gave them at-times challenging feedback in front of an audience, with notes ranging from “stop moving so much” to “don’t hide!”

If that picture feels somewhat familiar, it’s likely thanks to Gene Cousineau, Winkler’s gleefully self-important sendup of an acting teacher introduced to us in 2018 when “Barry” premiered. The series, which starred Bill Hader as an impressionable hitman who gets caught up in the L.A. acting and theater scene, ran for four seasons and netted ten Emmy Awards (the show aired on HBO Max, which like CNN is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery).

“My mission is that you taste something different than you did when you started your rehearsal to bring the scene here,” Winkler said before the real-life class started, also noting that teaching the craft is one of his “favorite things to do.”

It’s no surprise that it’s one of his preferred activities, since he’s had considerable experience. “It is a shock that I have been doing this here in Hollywood for 50 years, so you learn a few things,” he said.

Chief among those things was a tenet he kept coming back to throughout the class, as well as the interview with CNN that followed: “You have to get out of your own way.”

“It took me a long time to finally get out of my own way. You’re constantly working on getting out of your own way. And when you do, it’s like nirvana,” Winkler shared in the class. “You know it in your every fiber of your being. It’s amazing. So you never stop trying.”

From an acting perspective, he recounted how there were times earlier on in his career when he would find himself reading a scene with a famous celebrity, and how it would trip him up.

“I thought to myself, ‘I’m in a scene with a star!’ as opposed to being in the scene,” he quipped.

But the ‘get out of your own way’ mantra could also be applied to life in general for the celebrated actor, who is now almost 80.

“When I did ‘Barry,’ I was 72. When I did The Fonz, I was 27. I knew what I wanted at 27 – it took me til I was 72 to put it together,” he said. “You’re constantly working on breaking yourself down, getting out of your own way.”

And how do you do that, exactly? The answers seem simple, easy even. Be present. Listen. Listening especially was another common theme that showed up in Winkler’s instruction and approach at the festival.

But if it were that easy, everyone would do it. Sometimes, it also just comes down to the chemistry an actor shares with his scene partner.

A scene partner like Ron Howard, who cut his teeth alongside Winkler as Richie Cunningham on “Happy Days” before going on to become an Oscar-winning film director and producer.

“Sometimes when you’re working with somebody who is really good, there is no language at all (needed to connect on a performance level). Ron Howard and I, in the very beginning of my career here in Hollywood, we had like an imaginary thread between us,” Winkler recalled of those early, happy days. “There was no talking. We took a 3-page scene, we would memorize it, rehearse it, improvise it and shoot it three times in 20 minutes.”

“That was our connection,” he added, calling it “uncanny.”

More recently, Winkler was as thrilled as the rest of us when Howard stepped in front of the camera again for a guest part in the first season of Apple TV’s “The Studio.” And he was even more excited when is friend scored his first Emmy acting nomination for the role.

“I called him when he got nominated, he was so excited,” Winkler shared, calling Howard “just an animated, wisdom-filled fellow.”

The wisdom is clearly abundant in both “Happy Days” alums. A day after the acting class, Winkler was on hand at Televerse as an inductee into the Television Hall of Fame alongside Viola Davis, Ryan Murphy and Conan O’Brien.

And what about coming back as the Fonz again now in a “Happy Days” reboot or continuation series, since everything from “Tron” to “Clueless” is getting the sequel treatment?

“I would do the Fonz retired, absolutely,” Winkler said of his most beloved character from that 1970s-era show, before dropping into his famed Fonz voice and adding, “grandchildren… lot of fun, very difficult, but you get to give ‘em back!”

By Dan Heching, CNN