Sydney Pollack Quotes

Each actor, every single time you work with an actor, you have to come up with the language that's going to serve them. And that's what allows them to give the performance that you want to nurture inside of them and what you think they're capable of giving.

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.

I don't think it's necessary to be an actor to get great performances out of an actor. But I do think it helps me as a director because I know what I like as an actor, and I try to get that to the actors who I'm working with.

I try to really focus on the actors I'm working with and kind of read and respond to their behavior.

The majority of directors I've worked with didn't know how to talk to actors.

For me, all you want from your actor is for them to engage on a deeply emotional level with the material. If you feel like that happens, directing the actors is pretty much done at that point.

I would love to get great performances from actors as a director, because that's what I'm always looking for, a director that's going to help me go places I've never been before.

Good directors give short and specific instructions to their actors.

I know what actors fear, what they like; I know how to get things out of them and I listen to them better, since I've been there.

Whether I'm writing the script, or someone else writes the initial draft, I'm always an actor's director first. I always try to listen to them a lot and try to put their voices into their character.

There's something about actors - not stars, but actors - if they have the character, and someone is pushing and shoving them to be the best they can be, they enjoy that.

My background is really being a writer's actor - that seems to be the way I work best, bringing out the best of writing. There's a whole range of acting skills, and some people can be astonishing with very poor material. That's not me; my skill is essentially unlocking the writing.

I try to get the best performance an actor can give.

When it comes to casting, I've been so lucky. I've worked with unbelievable actors who make me look better than I am and take the written word and make it honest.

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.

They call David O. Russell the actor whisperer because he can get stuff out of actors that maybe some other directors can't.

As an actor, I had noticed very vividly that very few directors know how to direct actors because they haven't done it.

With most good scripts and good shows, they expect the actor to bring some of their ideas to the backstory of the character. It's always a good collaboration between the actor and the writer and the director to try stuff out during the process.

I am a director's actress in general - I depend a lot on them.

Directing is a whole series of things that would be awkward socially. But I love that. I love actors. Talking with them, touching, laughing, crying.

I'm a director's actor and go by what they say.

After all these years, I'm starting to learn what a good director does, and I know what a good one does with actors: help us navigate finer instincts, help us when we're wrong, encourage us when things are great.

Working with a great actor is really educational.

I only want to work with actors that really get it and make it work. I didn't want it to be a star-driven thing anymore.

As a filmmaker I find it much more rewarding to work with actors who are classically trained. It's about the work and only the work.