Directing actors

The way I work with the actors, I usually like to spend some time with them, to talk with them. I need to see how they feel about everything, how they feel about life and what they like, what they love, what they hate. And I also like to listen to their story. And during the conversation, I would like to watch their face, their eyes, and try to find out the special quality from them. And then to figure out to use a...

58:14 · jump to transcript →

I think the actors is the most important thing in a movie. They are the soul of the movie. So I respect them a lot, and also work with the actors with love. I see everyone as a part of my family. I see them as a friend. Sometimes I see them as my own children. So since you have so much love on them, then you will know how to take good care of them.

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The way I work with the actors, you know,

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Well, this is very interesting. When we started planning this, my brother Doug is a Navy SEAL, and I brought him in to work with the actors and train them with guns and get them sort of used to the correct handling of guns to the point where it was second nature. And you'll see that Ryan is exceptional in his gun handling. The bit on the ear, it was earlier, where he touches Nikki in the ear. Right. That's a great touch, and that was Ryan's idea.

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bad directing. It's not anybody else's. It's bad writing and it's bad directing. The actors were struggling so hard with the scene and there were so many things going on subtextually and I had worked so hard to explain to them all the mechanics of what the scene really meant that nobody knew what the hell we were doing anymore. And this is a scene that's been sort of stuck in your craw for, what, nine years now? Oh, this is written in another script a long time ago.

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Juliet and Dylan the night before and took all of Dylan's research and all of Juliet's research and all of my research. You can't get two obstetricians to agree on anything that happens during childbirth. And I sat down with the actors and said, Juliet, you're in labor. Tell me what you're feeling. Dylan, you're a doctor. Tell me what you're going to do.

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And if you can't make out the actors, then you can be pretty sure it's stunt drivers. But so much of the picture was shot with the actors actually driving, James or Warren, camera inside the car or just looking in either the driver window or the passenger window. And many times, if the angle allowed it, I was...

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composition and work with the actors within the space? Well, it was an interesting choice. I think part of it was economic because it was two perfs instead of four, so we were getting twice as much on every roll of film. So, you know, it was cheaper to shoot. But I think, you know, that long, thin...

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Tom Tykwer

familiar with the Italian and on top of that I had a director from Italy called Alessandro Fabrizi who is himself a theatre and film director and who worked with me in all the dialogues endlessly and also of course helped me in working with the actors, the Italian actors, understanding what you can do with language in the Italian and how you can improve

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Tom Tykwer

you cut things out, you put them back in, you reconsider, you even reimagine dialogues. There's a lot of dialogue that was even written only in the editing process and that was put into the film for like six months after shooting by doing additional sound recordings with the actors. Really tiny things, but also major things that gave the film

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The thing that was so important, and I think Catherine can agree with me on that, is it certainly set us in a mindset of what these men must have gone through and the conditions they lived in, and that kind of helped us visually, hopefully, apply some of that to the picture. And thematically, and certainly with all the work with the actors and the characters and having some sense of the stamina and rigor that these men had.

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the reactor, how to then stage the scene and mechanically what the logic was. I find when I approach anything I have to have some kind of logic in hand. It has to feel somehow real and otherwise it's very difficult to block something and therefore shoot it and work with the actors and so there has to be kind of a groundwork and since

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James Mangold

does amazing work, and I think part of what makes her work so amazing is it's not selfish, meaning it's not show-offy only for herself, but that she has a real partnership with the actors and myself and Kathy, finding answers that work for the actors. I think that very often people don't understand what an incredibly critical role costume design is in the development of character for actors. Part of it has to do with the chronology of how a movie happens.

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James Mangold

Three quarters of this film is handheld, and it's very hard to hold a widescreen frame, especially as close as we are sometimes, and keep these compositions with the kind of integrity that they have. Also, the kind of handheld work that I prefer isn't so shaky that it's kind of in your face or reminding you all the time that it's handheld. It just has a kind of intimacy to it. You feel the camera is right in there with the actors instead of locked down on something.

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And here is where, right around in here is where that shot occurred originally. Exactly. Where they did that bit of action. And this is one of the scenes where Mitchum pitched in and helped Lawton direct the actors. The kids. The kids. He showed Sally Jane Bruce how sharp the knife was before the dinner scene that's coming up. So she would be very conscious of it. Yes, that's right.

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somewhat know-it-all guys made me feel like the jocks in college or something. So I felt very much like an outsider and, you know, tended to take more of the part of the actors and be more involved with the actors. I remember once I was sitting in the bathroom of the stage where we were shooting and I was, you know, hidden in the toilet and

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This was also a very controversial sequence, as we'll see. We had a lot of problems with the ratings board. But you didn't have any problems with the actors shooting these scenes, did you? No, she was very cooperative. As I said, there's a scene in the moment where shadows go on the wall in various positions. And...

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And being a reporter in a war zone, many said, is something of an aphrodisiac. You are under such stress and you don't know what will happen. So at this moment coming up, all our conversation with the actors was about, at this moment, if Albert had been aware of Holly, at this moment... The first shots were fired about ten seconds ago. He'd have her. She was...

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based on some discussions that I had with the actors. One of which, it came up, they said, well, what about Raymond? Does he ever change his clothes, his underwear, or whatever? And you want to at least present the idea that Charlie is somewhat concerned about him. So we talked about the fact that he gave him some underwear as an idea that began to stimulate this...

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I think you're going to feel more of a threat knowing that it's on set, it's being lit, it's with the actors as opposed to seeing so many movies where it's in effects. Physical effects are usually a little bit scarier. I've seen wonderful CGI designs that were meant to be horror films, but you end up saying, what's a wonderful CGI creature there? It's just gorgeous. There's something about adding the physical effect that just makes it creepy.

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So it was very natural to them. It gave a natural, almost documentary feel. On the documentary thing, there's a lot of emotion, a lot of power, and I wanted it to seem as raw and real as that, but that goes back to Kazan and Cassavetes. Kazan started doing it a lot by utilizing people that were actually there in the scenes, or from that world, mixed in with the actors. East of Eden on the waterfront, you can see that. Just look at East of Eden in widescreen color in a theater.

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How long does it take to shoot something like this? This takes quite a while. I mean, I don't know exactly, but I would say this whole takeover, probably like a week and a half. Yeah. Altogether, we shot in the, I think it's like 75 shooting days or so, not counting all the second unit work, of course, and not counting all the model work. It's more like the typical principal photography first unit with the actors and the director and so on, but in the 70s.

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I love this shot because it's a simple effect. The ball is on the hand at the beginning of the shot, we do just a pan, and it works. I remember, Sigourney Weaver didn't believe me. She told me "Jean-Pierre, it doesn't work. It's so silly, so weird." I said "Believe me, I am sure." But I was pretty worried about this shot. And it works. There's a shot that you could claim, Pitof, as a digital shot, except it's real. When she throws that ball? It's amazing. This shot was supposed to be digital. What Jean-Pierre wanted is to make an impossible throw. Sigourney did it for real. This shot is real. Look at that. How many takes? I think it was six takes. - Six takes. Yeah. I was here when we shot that, and I feel in her eyes that something was weird. And she made it. Wow. - I had a little problem with Sigourney. The ball is going out of the frame and then back in the frame. I said "Sigourney, I'll fix that and I'll make a perfect path." So you feel the impression that the ball is always in the frame - like this ass - and... That's a silicone butt that we made. That's my favorite shot. I love this part of the film. And... Tell the story of this shot, Hervé. That's one of the famous Jean-Pierre Jeunet's favorite scenes, where somebody's putting polish on his shoes. When I got the rushes, I said to Jean-Pierre: "Well, you remember you did already that scene before." And you just didn't realize it. You didn't remember. The design of the wheels, something Eric Allard had developed way back, right after Short Circuit. Each wheel, instead of treads, they had ball bearings that would roll independently, so it could turn and maneuver. I think he had it patented, and I think NASA was using the design as well. This is a stupid idea. When you arrive in the States the first thing you see is the TV, because you don't sleep. And what do you see on TV? This kind of show. This miniature was not very big. This was pretty small - three meters diameter. That's nine feet to you non-metric folk. And this - you composited Aliens. Exactly. That's miniature and greenscreen. A very composite shot. Was a lot of passes to have the light and the texture and the depth and the atmosphere. For the alien, obviously, it's man in suit. It's very difficult to shoot an alien with a man inside, because it looks like a man inside. You are obliged to shoot very close. Here's Tom Woodruff. - Here's Tom. You were talking about being on the set. Here's the deal for me: being on set in these suits, it's even more claustrophobic than being on set, because I'm literally... I've got some slots for my eyes and breathing, but there's no real interaction between what I'm doing and anybody else on set, in terms of talking or just getting a break. I can interact with the actors and they can respond during the course of the action, but then, once the shot is over, it's like total isolation. But people love you when you're in the suit, Tom. Brad Dourif was great here. It was creepier for me on my side of the glass than it was for him being on his side watching me. I like Brad Dourif in this film. Yeah, he's twisted. Wonderfully imaginative actor. Brad and that creature were dating for a few months right after they completed this scene. I love what Darius did - the slime. He put a lot of care into shooting these and designing the lighting. He, at times, would almost build a cage of fluorescence around the alien, so that you'd get a million little kicks off of the slime. so that you'd get a million little kicks off of the slime. He kept coming back to us and asking for thicker slime, because the stuff in the other movies was too runny. He wanted a quarter-inch build-up, so we went to a slime that was almost like gel. It really had a different look. It was a pleasure to work with Winona Ryder. I remember, sometimes I tried to direct her, and she told me: "Jean-Pierre, take it easy." "I have a lot of imagination. I'm going to give you some improvisation." Remember, at the editing room, everything worked, all the time. In this scene, Winona was feigning drunkenness so she could slip out. Since she's a robot, she can't be drunk. This is a nice shot with the 10mm. It was a very short corridor and it looks so huge. This is a matte painting from a French guy, Jean-Marie Vives. He worked on Delicatessen and City of Lost Children, too. It's fascinating how there's a hint of City of Lost Children in the look of the sets. That's what I love about style, ultimately it just permeates everything that somebody does. That's a clever idea. That's gotta be Jean-Pierre. Very Jean-Pierre. It's great. This set is pretty high, and we used it again at the end of the film in the chapel. The same set but horizontal. - Really? Yeah. - I didn't know. When Jean-Pierre started the movie, he spoke little English - he always had an interpreter with him - and by the end spoke better English than me. Than I. - You see? That's what I'm talking about. It's amazing, because he didn't speak a word of English when he started. Sigourney Weaver loves to have the director very close to her. She hates when the director is very far away behind the video. It was a very good relationship, because, I remember, after a take she looked at me and it was unnecessary to speak. Just one look and we knew if the take was perfect or not. It was unnecessary to speak about the take - just a look. This is a scene that's almost vaguely erotic between Ripley and Call, the two females discovering each other inside of that tube.

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To get to work with the actors that I worked with on the film will be a fine memory that, you know, can't ever be sort of taken away. And from the sort of, I guess, the ego career point of view, really, it was such an amazing opportunity and experience, really. I mean, it's such a solid film. It's one of those films that kind of no one can seem

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Taylor Hackford

We rehearsed this scene for about a week. It was the one, I must say... ...for Warner Bros., a great thing they did for me. And although we had our differences, I was able to get my vision on the screen. I have no excuses. So, I do thank them. There was a great thing here in that Warner Bros. allowed us... ...to come back from New York. We built this set in Los Angeles. I had a week to prepare the set, to light it and to rehearse with the actors. Al, Keanu and Connie and myself, worked there alone... ...and really kind of built this scene. Tony Gilroy was there also, pardon me. It is not an easy scene to do when you realize it's basically a monologue. How do you keep it moving? How do you keep it visual? And it's basically a confrontation. And again, as I said... ...I want the devil to be confronting us. We all take credit for the things that we do in life that are good. When it's a good decision, "I made that decision. I'll take credit for that." But when they're wrong, we look for people to blame. That's exactly what Keanu is doing here, and Al won't have any of it. Milton is basically saying to him, "Hey. You made every decision yourself. "In fact, I told you not to. I said take care of your wife." I mean, I love the argument. And this is what we were trying to do. I give a lot of credit to my collaborative partner, Tony Gilroy, on this project... ...because this piece was a script that existed with a lot of special effects... ...and not many ideas, and it wasn't worth making. And every Hollywood star turned it down. Al Pacino turned it down five times. What we did with this script, from a page one rewrite... ...is try to give it some ideas, try to make it about free will. Not make it a special effects piece, a ghoul piece, a monster piece... ...but make it about something. Not just about lawyers... ...because lawyers are convenient and they happen to be a major target... ...and I think are the most pragmatic of all professions. However, all professionals find themselves in a position to blame... ...or be able to use their corporate entity, their boss, their organization... ...their professional oath as a screen against having to confront... ...moral realities, personal choices. If you can say "My personal, professional oath," pardon me, not my... "My professional oath says that I'm absolved from responsibility... "...because I have to represent my client to the best of my ability." Or, "My corporation says I need to do this, pollute this lake, and I'm doing it." It absolves you of your personal, moral responsibility. What this whole scene is about is confronting your own hypocrisy... ...and saying your ambition, your own vanity, in a world that's fiber-optically... ...interconnected to satisfy our every eager impulse, "You," meaning, "You humans"... ...as Milton says, "are exactly... "I've succeeded beyond my wildest dreams just by letting you do what you want. "You're so selfish. You're so self-involved." So that's what this scene is about. Kevin realizes that it's true... ...he was responsible for Mary Ann's demise... ...and when he does, he falls apart. Now watch Milton. He starts picking him up. He starts trying to say: "Hey, you know, think of it in a positive way. You have to think of yourself. "She wasn't up to you. Here's a woman who is. She's fantastic. "She happens to be your sister, but so what? She's beautiful. "She's smart. She's intelligent. You know, there's something more for you." And I think at this point, when confronted with the fact that he knows it's the devil... ...and now what Milton is gonna do, is talk about... You know, remember, Keanu is half and half. He's half Judy Ivey. He's half Al Pacino. He's half Alice Lomax. He's half John Milton. He's half God and half the devil, and this is relating to a lot of us. We all have our good side, our bad side. In this particular instance, this next sequence is, I think, really interesting... ...because Al Pacino is basically talking about his father. He's talking about his former boss. He's his own boss now. But if you think of Lucifer, the fallen angel... ...the brightest, the most honored and the most... ...you know, he was God's favorite... ...being thrown out of heaven because of ego, because he didn't want to take orders. That's what Pacino's doing here. Look. He's angry. He's losing control.

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E. Elias Merhige

The interesting thing here is that I asked, it had been raining for hours and hours when we were shooting, and I had asked my production designers and art director's assistant to go down and ask a farmer for some grass. And you see this area here that they're all walking on. Instead of grass, they put down all horse manure. And while I was rehearsing with the actors, I was trying to figure out what smelled so bad.

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Jonathan Lynn

One of the reasons films take so long to make is because directors spend a part of the day standing around scratching their heads, wondering where to put the camera next. It's a big help if you've worked it out in advance. It's hard to work it out in advance if you don't rehearse with the actors in advance. Because you're limiting their input, you're limiting their ideas and their talent.

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We were first approaching this that you wanted to show Frodo less grim. You didn't want to start on him. Yeah, this was one of the scenes we shot as a pick-up scene with the actors coming back during the course of the editing and doing some extra shooting. And this was one of the scenes we actually shot, although we didn't use it in the movie eventually. But it was done to try to see a little bit more of a lighter side to Frodo and Sam before the story got too grim. It does succeed in that. I'm pleased to have it back because...

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Len Wiseman

I don't think I'm gonna have an experience like this again. I mean, it did feel like, you know, a family... ...and that it was a bit like making a student film... ...where everybody was really passionate. Everybody was. It was like everybody's first... It was my first time playing a part like that... ...and Speedman's, and Brad's first time stunt coordinating. Wasn't it? Yeah, and first time, I think, doing second-unit directing as well. lt was a first time for a lot of people. I think Bruton Jones, my production designer... ...who I had worked with on videos and commercials and things... ...fight there, had not done a feature. And, you know, it was Danny's first... Danny McBride's first screenplay. And it was the first time for a lot of people. It was really special, and it was really, really great. Thank you for being so nice then... ...and such an asshole now that you've gone all Hollywood on me. No, I had, really... Just the support and everything that I had from everybody.... And like I've told you, it's because when you have... ...from the actors and everybody... ...when they're trying to make the best project... ...and they're really as passionate as you... ... you can kind of just put yourself in this bubble with the actors... ...and it helps take away the stress and nightmares you're dealing with... ...with the studio and the schedule and all that stuff. And it was such a great help. Forrest. So everybody, thanks again... ...to all of the 12 of you who are listening to this track... ...and we will see you again. We'll probably see you on Easter... ...because that's probably Mom Wiseman, right? Yes. Thanks, guys. We'll see you again. - Bye.

2:05:41 · jump to transcript →

He worked with the actors as well so that there is that continuity of performance. Another challenge was to

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We were up here... 12 days, I think. I think it was 12 days. How long were you there, Brad? Additional five, I think. And this whole sequence is a combination of, you know, first and second unit put together, and I was there with the actors, and we're doing the... establishing the sequence, and Brad went in, and there's a lot of the... a lot of the battle sequence stuff and such. Now, I was very...

3:27 · jump to transcript →

This sequence with the old couple was shot by Danny Boyle, who helped during three days in the second unit. And it's so funny because Danny was working very hard and he had an accident, a little accident. He was injured in the shoulder, shooting this mini sequence with the old couple and Jacob in the hatch, in the escape hatch, in this precise moment. I think this was because all the people involved in this movie, we were working so hard and so fast to get that feeling about the infection - that the infection is so dangerous and... Literally, we were running with the actors and the infected to transmit that this is a big danger for these people. We were running, literally, because this sequence was shot in only three days. That's a very tiny schedule. It was very generous from Danny to help us in this part of the sequence.

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