Alan Cumming Quotes

An actor can be as talented as another, but if he doesn't stick to what the director's intentions are, it all falls down. I adore working with actors.

My greatest strength as an actor is that I follow my director's brief completely. The film is always the director's visual baby.

I have realised I am a director's actor.

I've acted with all types, I've directed all types. What you want to understand, as a director, is what actors have to offer. They'll get at it however they get at it. If you can understand that, you can get your work done.

I love actors, both my parents were actors, and the work with actors is the most enjoyable part of making a film. It's important that they feel protected and are confident they won't be betrayed. When you create that atmosphere of trust, it's in the bag - the actors will do everything to satisfy you.

Most actors go, 'I read the script and fell in love with it'; I fall in love with the directors.

Working with actors who are directors is magnificent. Because they understand the art form intimately, and they know exactly how everything works.

I am a director's actress in general - I depend a lot on them.

I love actors, and I love the casting process. It's funny, like, some writers don't like actors because, I think, they are the faces of the show, and so you feel sort of secondary, but I love actors because they elevate the material; they make it better.

It's part of the job of the actor to torture the director.

As an actor, you're always at the service of somebody else's vision. In a play, it's more of the director's vision, and he or she's got their hands on you all the way up to opening night, and if it's a film, there are even more people.

I think what makes a good actor's director is somebody who understands what I'm doing and is respectful of it, but who also has a vision and is directing me toward their vision in a way that feels productive.

Established actors will challenge you if they don't agree with the way you are taking it, and you have to argue it. But with a younger cast, they are more likely to wonder whether what they are doing is okay instead of trying to second guess the director. That helps push you.

Any director who's also acted understands the fact that every person has a different process and has to be approached differently.

If there's one thing that I know how to do, it's talk to actors. From what I have experienced working with so many different directors in so many different things, a lot of them don't really know how to talk to us.

I'm a director's actor and go by what they say.

I'm a director's actor, and I surrender myself to the vision and the process. I think nothing else matters then.

My job, as an actor, is to give the director options. You can only hope that the takes that you thought were the best were chosen. But, then again, if I don't watch it, I'll never know.

Being an actor helps me direct a little bit, when I do that, which I haven't been able to do that much, but I plan to in the future. There are a lot of reasons for that, but certainly because I feel like you know how to talk to actors, and you know what they need from you if you've been one yourself.

Actors, I think, are all the same. Both Korean actors and American actors are all very sensitive people, and they are all curious to know what the director thinks of them and how they are evaluated, and they try to satisfy the director. And they like it if you listen carefully to their opinions and accept them.

A film is a director's vision... there is, however, much input an actor or actress can have.

I'm really a director's actor. I rely heavily on a director.

Good actors, especially when they know their character, will come in and either tell you in advance that they have an idea, or in the middle of the rehearsal or the scene they'll let it loose and you go, 'Ah that's great.'

The best thing an actor can be is flexible, because all directors are different and all actors are different.

It took me a long time to realize that you have to have a bit of an interlanguage with actors. You have to give them something that they can act with.