Nicholas Ray Quotes

A director just pushes them a little this way or that way.

Actors want to act. I think a lot of times what happens is that they're expected to bring it all. Probably because I'm a writer, I'm not telling them what to do. I just provide them with as much as I can.

Good directors can bring certain things out of you, with their intensity or gentleness or sensitivity or understanding. They can make an actor feel he can do no wrong.

Some actors give you what you want. Some you have to make do what you want.

Any part I do is a marriage of the words - what the playwright or producer or show runner's vision is - to how I would play it. It took me a while to get rid of 'Oh, they want it this way, so I'm going to do it how they want it.'

Honestly, one of my favorite things about a director is when they understand what an actor brings to their role.

I like working with actors who make choices. Whether they get their ideas from me or from themselves, I want them to own all the choices so I can take my hand out of it.

My job is really to... everyone is reading the script, and my job is to make sure we all interpret it in as much the same way as possible. And then I give them the freedom to sort of - to get their performance across and then make suggestions where things are not working and accentuate and push things where they really are working.

Actors want to be told what to do - they really do. But they also want to have an input and be recognized for that.

When you have the cast, the sets, the lights, an opera takes on its own life. I'm not one of those directors who marches in with a set of plans.

An actor's job is about putting across the author's intention; I don't think of myself on the same level as a creator.

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 knew that I could be more creative onstage, to state my own case and deliver my own interpretation of the role much more aggressively than in the recording studio.

It's different being a director. I suppose, especially if it's a story you've written and you feel compelled to tell, in some ways it's a lot easier than acting because you're orchestrating the piece. As an actor, sometimes you're trying to second-guess what people want.

I've had the opportunity to work with so many great directors. Different styles, as well, like Gus Van Sant. He just does the casting and the milieu and let's you do your thing, quietly. Bertolucci, who can talk to you about your internal world in quite a creative way or just say, 'Well, put your hand over here.'

The script of a play is not a finished product: It's a set of instructions.

I don't come in with any preconceived ideas, and although I will have done some preparation, I can go which way the director wants.

As an actor, you want a director who makes you feel comfortable in a place that you can really create and try a lot of different things.

As an actor, you buy into someone else's dream and make it your own, and you don't lose sight of that.

The Coens both give you direction, and then it's up to you to kind of figure out the music of what they're saying.

When you write a script, you hope that people will give it life beyond the script.

It's strange not to allow the actor some input and breathing room into what was written on the page - it is their job to make it come alive.

For me, what matters is who are you working with, what you are working on, and when all that fits naturally, I let it go. Then, I don't care if it is bold or if it needs me to be uninhibited. I just want the role that I am playing to come out the way it should.

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

People need to understand that whatever they see us saying on screen, we are not doing it on our own.