James Watkins Quotes

I have realised I am a director's actor.

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.

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 am totally a director's actor.

I am completely a director's actor. If the director gives me the liberty and freedom, then I give my inputs. Otherwise, I just follow instructions.

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.

Actors aren't stupid, mostly, and if there's a sensibility and an aesthetic that a director's going for, if you're aware of that too, you can do things to help that.

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.

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

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.

Being an actor really, really strengthens me as a director. There's just a certain type of understanding that comes from having been there and knowing how much is really being asked of actors that helps me.

Jack Bender is a real actor's director. Because he was an actor, and because he directed theater, he really enjoys that process.

I've seen what a difference a good director can make to an actor's performance.

Some directors hardly talk to the actors at all.

In choosing any role, I ask the same questions: what kind of part is it? is the role challenging? does the director have a vision? is the story moving? etc.

I'm very old-school. I like a director to direct me. I like to be the actor.

I do think that's so much a part of what being a director is - in working with actors - to really try and be sensitive to what each actor needs to get to where he wants to be.

Arnaud Desplechin invented me as an actor. I never imagined I'd be acting in movies.

As a director, I also get to sit and watch actors and learn from them in a way that I don't get to do when I'm just acting.

I know there are different kinds of actors, but I tend to have less effective relationships with actors who have a very private process - who really need to do lots of internal work, so that I become merely a witness until they're ready to share.

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.

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

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

The best way to learn how to work with actors is to have had experience of trying to act yourself - it will teach you humility if nothing else.

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