William Wyler Quotes

I personally take cues directly from the script, then I like to surprise the other actors. But you must maintain control on a level and see how far you can go up, down or out emotionally. You have to balance the craft with spontaneity.

As a director, you have to know what actors are doing. You're the one telling them what to do. The actors' job is to come prepared to the set, but sometimes, if they're beginning actors or people who are non-actors, you have to teach them how to act.

Good directors give short and specific instructions to their actors.

As far as working with actors, I feel very comfortable working in that aspect of directing.

A director will always tell you, when you go in to do a scene, 'You go as big as you want, and I'll tell you when to come down.' And I found that on 'Shameless,' you can't follow that rule because they will never tell you to come down. So, I've had to find my own balance with when it makes sense to get this upset or angry.

Actors always feel more comfortable when there's an actor directing, in terms of vocabulary and breaking down a scene.

As a director, you see something in someone; you know it's there, you just got to go get it. You do that with any actor. That's your job.

For me, all you want from your actor is for them to engage on a deeply emotional level with the material. If you feel like that happens, directing the actors is pretty much done at that point.

After all these years, I'm starting to learn what a good director does, and I know what a good one does with actors: help us navigate finer instincts, help us when we're wrong, encourage us when things are great.

I don't think it's necessary to be an actor to get great performances out of an actor. But I do think it helps me as a director because I know what I like as an actor, and I try to get that to the actors who I'm working with.

When I'm working, I don't wake up and say, 'OK, time to go be intense.' I just look at whatever scenes we're working on that day and break them down - just real intense everyday work.

I don't usually direct actors in the classic sense of that word. Instead, I try to remind the characters before the shoot what's going on in a very simple way. I then watch them, their inventions as actors, approving or not approving what they're doing.

My department is to get actors to do stuff.

My experience has been that actors always want to be directed.

As an actor, I had noticed very vividly that very few directors know how to direct actors because they haven't done it.

For me, I just like to be as fun as possible, but I do like to bring a lot to a character. Given the script or the show, I know my boundaries, limits, and how far I can go with it.

My strength is with actors. I think I'm good at working with them to get the best performances, at seeing what it is that they have and that the story needs.

I've spent most of my life trying to make actors comfortable, which I think is 90 percent of getting a good performance.

You have to run, an awful lot, on instinct. Even on 'Veep,' it's not like you get weeks of rehearsal to break out what's going on in the scenes.

Sometimes you can just have a dialogue with an actor beforehand and shape the performance then, but other actors need more guidance on the set.

The idea of acting on the first 'Halloween', it didn't really apply to my eventual work, working with actors.

I want to play characters that are real, that have depth in them.

Preparing for roles sounds so academic, doesn't it? It feels as if you are preparing for an examination! In a creative medium, the preparation is of an entirely different kind, and for me, the ideas flow from the script itself.

Janet Carroll and Robert Pine, Chris Pine's dad, were in my first play, and they were so astonishingly good, I felt it raised my game instantly.

I don't know what directing actors is all about apart from just casting well and then shaping their performances a bit, you know.