Karan Singh Grover Quotes

I like a lot of takes. I just go on until the actors get it right.

Once we got the scene down, we were told to improv.

Some actors come to the set ready to do their parts a certain way.

On film, when you're driving home from the set, you realize what you should have done, but it's too late. When you're taking the subway home from your play, you realize what you did wrong, and you go back the next night and you do it better, or you screw it up again in a different way. It's a different thing altogether.

I like to have the actors do their thing. And then brief them what to do differently in take two.

I don't even consider directing Burt. I just say, 'Hey, Burt, the camera's here. Read the joke and let's get onto the next shot.'

I'm an actor's director.

You can't act for the editing. You just go in and do the scene the way you think is right.

In theater, you get to rehearse several weeks, you memorize everything, and by the time you open, you know what the play is. In film, it's almost the opposite. You do your work on your own and maybe have a couple of minutes to rehearse. When the camera rolls, you generally don't know what's going to happen.

Auditioning and actually acting on a set are two different things. When you audition, you're in a room and you don't have anything to play with and you don't have anything physically in the room. Whereas on set, you have direction, you have costumes, and you have other actors to work with. It's a completely different thing.

On my first TV job I didn't have a clue. They'd tell me to hit my mark and I had no idea what they meant. You just pick it up. And ultimately, all it's really about is pretending to be someone else.

You can't act for the editing. You have to leave that to him. So you just go in and do the scene the way you think is right or whatever you're directed to do, and leave the rest of that technical stuff up to the director.

When the scenes are written really great, we as actors try not to mess them up by getting in the way.

Actors know, with me they aren't going to be allowed to rehearse a scene for a couple of hours and then get away with doing 25 takes before we get it right. So they come with their full bag of tricks.

Actors always have opinions.

I try to create an environment where, when we step onto the set, we're all in character.

I'd had the theater background for so long that I know that world inside out; I just didn't know the pace of how a TV set works, like how a show shoots.

I always think that the deal, once I do the script, sort of the experience I go through writing, which is everything you can imagine, but I always think it's the one thing I can do when I'm directing is say is that it's all about the actors, that I can say, 'We're all here to serve the actors.'

Layers are not difficult for me. You have the luxury of takes, so if you feel like, say, you did not take in the fact that your aunt is across the way in one take, you do it again and try to add that piece.

That's how I like to do it with actors, have them really go for it and I'll tell them when it's too much. It's always easier to bring it back then to push it further.

I was delighted to have lines when they came - learning lines for film isn't a problem, but television is a little different, because we shot those shows the whole way through.

As a director, it is important to understand the actor's process.

As soon as you get two actors in a room and they're locking eyes, they're doing a scene.

When you're doing a play that's fully produced, you have the benefit of rehearsing for four or five weeks, so you really get to live in the skin of the character for much longer than when you first start doing a character on TV.

When you're an actor working in the theater, you would never say anything to the writer, never alter the dialogue, never dream to ask for changes.