Every actor has something unique to bring to the table, but when it comes down to creative education and growth, even some of the most famous, successful actors crave that classical training. It gives a throwback approach to learning and experiencing different technique to reach different emotions, and it allows you to explore the unconventional, tried, and true ways people have portrayed the human condition for over thousands of years.

Here’s a list of six of the most prominent L.A. acting schools that offer both new and seasoned actors the classical training they seek, in addition to so much more. Here are two we hold in special esteem:

The Joanne Baron/D.W. Brown Studio
After studying under Sanford Meisner and William Esper in New York City and opening her own studio there, Joanne Baron and her husband, D.W. Brown, have taken their East Coast acting skills out West with the Joanne Baron/D.W. Brown Studio. Students learn the Meisner technique of “living truthfully in imaginary circumstances,” or the American version of Stanislavsky’s system. Robin Wright, Halle Berry, Julia Stiles, Jeff Goldblum, and Patrick Dempsey are all former students.

Ivana Chubbuck Studio
What do James Franco, Jared Leto, and Brad Pitt have in common? Besides Oscar nominations, they have all studied under Los Angeles’ Ivana Chubbuck over her more than 30-year career. Chubbuck teaches her own technique, which builds on Stanislavsky’s teachings with insights into behavioral science and psychology. To create vivid characters actors can embody, students learn to focus on what motivates human behavior in order to be “real” in a scene, rather than “acting it out.”