Frank Capra Quotes

As a director, it became important to hear that specific role read by that specific actor, and you hear the chemistry, or you don't hear the chemistry. So I'm not so bothered by the audition process anymore; in fact, I use it. It's a time for the actor to actually get to the know the director and the producers a little bit, too.

You just start going through that process of trying to put together a cast that works. I don't know that I can explain it in a way that you can go, 'Oh.' It's a little bit like saying, 'How would he be with him? How does that feel?'

As the director, to have the opportunity to work with actors of the calibre of David Oyelewo is just fantastic and special.

As a director, I have to feel realism from actors, and they can't be plastic. The words for me are secondary, but the chemistry between the actors is most important. However, you have to go by the script because it's related to production, otherwise you will not finish your project.

I think a good director casts a film so that the actors bring a lot to the table.

More than ninety percent of directing a picture is the right casting

The TV industry works in this crazy system where everybody's trying to get the same actors at the same time.

When I see an amazing play or movie, it inspires me as an actress and a filmmaker.

Each actor is a very different person, and each one has to be directed very differently.

Nothing is worse for me, as an actor, than when I walk on a set and the director goes, "Okay, you're going to be standing here, the other person is going to be standing here, and you're going to move to there and then do the scene." That doesn't help actors.

Sometimes what you lose in the time it takes to let an actor do something that you don't like as a director, you gain in not shutting them down creatively by telling them their idea sucks.

You know, there are a lot of directors, like Clint Eastwood (on Changeling) is one where he casts you and you know in many ways that's enough for him and so, you go, ok, well, he saw something. Ok, what is it that he saw? What is it that I brought to this and why am I right for this and not trying to double-guess it and get in your own way and get psyched out, 'cause he trusts so much.

There are five stages in the life of an actor: Who's Mary Astor? Get me Mary Astor. Get me a Mary Astor type. Get me a young Mary Astor. Who's Mary Astor?

As an actor - like an artist - you have to ask, "Why do I choose a certain moment to play something a certain way?" It's organic to who we are.

An actor's career relies on a lot of luck. Being in the right place at the right time.

And I realized that directing actors is really important because that's what ends up on screen.

I had no idea that, when you audition for television or movies, you go to a big building - like, an office building - and you walk in the room, and everybody, I assumed, was smarter than me and better than me, and there's actors you recognize. I once fainted at an audition.

Making a movie is casting a spell.

I wanted to watch the women interacting with [Warren Beatty], which takes he chose, and how the actresses were reacting in scenes with him.

When you work with an actor, it's cool because they know what it's like to be directed themselves. Jodie directed a scene with me and Taylor that was when she starts talking to me again in prison and it's our first actual confrontation that we have, where some stuff comes out.

Basically, actors arrive in a bubble. They have a little sealed bubble around them and it's basically [comprised of] their agents, their last film, their next film, their press agent, and their per diems - all these things, they cocoon themselves with and you have to puncture that bubble on each of them to make them be in your film.

There's always an intellectual side to the films Ang Lee's doing and to the characters, and there's such a deep knowledge when you've worked with the actors that he's worked with, on stage in particular, but also in film.

The best thing you can do with actors is collaborate with them. My job is to inspire them to give their best. And they're only inspired if they feel they are part of the creative process, otherwise they'll shut down. So my goal is always to ask people what they would like to do before I even say my opinion. I usually don't know anything until I see it. I'm a fetish filmmaker - I make films based on what I want to see.

Working with any actor is like working with a monkey.

I've had the chance to work with some really good filmmakers. It's put me in a situation where I've been surrounded by great actors, and for me it's been a lot about standing in the background and watching people work.