Michelangelo Antonioni Quotes

There are directors, and I think this is true of all directors, it would be true if I was a director - If the actor didn't want to do what I was suggesting, I would let him do it his way, and then I would say to him, "Just give me one where you do what the director wants", and that, of course, is the take that's used.

Sometimes, I even recite the role to the actor if it's not clear. And I beg them not to imitate me, because I'm not a good actor.

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

With Kubrick and most film directors, they are in complete control, but one can influence them.

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

Before I do episodes of 'The Good Wife,' I talk to the director and say, 'I'm trusting you to let me know if it's too much! I won't be offended.' So I put myself in their hands, and most of the time they let me do my thing, but sometimes they'll say, 'Let's try this.'

As actors, we need to do our parts exactly the way they have visualised it, because if we don't, we have to keep doing it many times over.

I have realised I am a director's actor.

The best and most talented directors - and I think it goes for people too - are the most confident in giving room to their actors and trusting them.

I work with intuition. With interpreters. I have my own method. I know exactly what I want from actors. Sometimes, I even recite the role to the actor if it's not clear.

Working with [Robert] De Niro taught me a lot about being an actor's director.

The actor shouldn't edit themselves or be anxious. And the actors that I admire are always the ones who are inventive and their imaginative life in free-willing. It's a director's job to go, "No here, don't do that, go there."

In theater, you're in charge of your performance, and at the end of the day you're the one who gets credit because you're in front of the audience doing it, and in film and TV it's the director who gets to decide when to cut to you on a line, which take he uses.

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.

I have an association that director means total authority. Director means they will never let you down. Director means just trust them and fulfill their vision, and know that the story will be told in its best incarnation.

I generally don't involve myself in giving the actors some tips on acting. At the same time, I don't do that with the director.

At best, I think of a director as a magnet. You get all the metal fillings in all the individual actors and crew, and get those filings moving toward your magnetic direction.

You want to give the director what they want, and you don't always know exactly how it goes, so you want to try it a few different ways. You have to be flexible; you have to be in collaboration with the director; you have to be versatile. But you also want to be protective of what you really believe in and how you feel it should be portrayed.

I'm very patient and always willing to try things but I have some resistance as well because I have my own vision. I have resistance sometimes because I see a director who's freaking out and wants to have control and they sometimes anticipate about what I'm going to be doing or not.

Movies cost so much that studios really try to impose their personality over yours. A lot of times, you can get swallowed up in that and end up making movies that are indistinguishable from anybody else's. One of the things I've always tried to do is to inject myself as much as possible into the movie, so I feel like it's mine. But that also comes from what you choose to do and what you choose not to do. There are certain projects I could have said yes to, and I know exactly how they would have turned out: exactly the way they turned out when someone else did them.

Even on my films, I always collaborate with the actors. That's a given. I think you need that. You need the actors to feel as much ownership of the performance and the direction of the story as you do, to get the most out of everyone's potential.

When I'm acting, I'm in the director's hands. I'm very happy to be. I like to be focused on what I'm doing.

As a first-time director, you cannot have final cut. But as a producer, you can have final cut.

I learned a lot from Clint [Eastwood], who's an extremely economic director. I learned a lot from Michael Winterbottom, who really gave a lot of trust in the actors and allowed them to live in the space instead of trying to manipulate and make it too set and too staged. Working with [Robert] De Niro taught me a lot of being an actors' director and what that is. I've learned a lot from pretty much everybody. Hopefully I've picked up something from everybody I've worked with.

Movies are certainly a director's medium, so getting the opportunity to work with really good directors is everything to me.