Isabelle Huppert Quotes

If a director can find the exact combination between the written word as a guideline and improvisational input from his actors, I think that's where you'll find the most successful work being done.

My job, as an actor, is to give the director options. You can only hope that the takes that you thought were the best were chosen. But, then again, if I don't watch it, I'll never know.

When I direct - everything I've directed has had improv in it, because I think there's something special in a performance the first time it's said out loud that's hard to recreate.

Sukumar comes from a very different school of working style. He never shoots with set dialogues and scenes. Most of it is improvised on the spot. He'd tell me, 'Rakul, if this is your character, how would you behave? Show me.'

Really good director sometimes will kind of see what the actors are doing and then get in there. Because there's the realization that you have to find it a little bit and then kind of clump around and sniff it out.

I don't think that any scene [in Pineapple Express] is word for word how you'd find it in the script. Some of it was much more loose than others. The last scene with me, Danny [McBride] and James [Franko] in the diner - there was never even a script for that scene. Usually we write something, but for that scene we literally wrote nothing.

I don't have a style. I wouldn't say I have a style as a writer, either. I know people have said "This is what he does," but when I'm writing, I don't think about that. I don't think about a style.

I always try to stick to the script because I want to respect the writers, and I want to respect the director. But if the director and my fellow actors are okay with me playing with it a little bit, then I definitely want to play with it.

If it were all in the script, why make the film?

A film is a director's vision... there is, however, much input an actor or actress can have.

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 was very glad later when I was directing that I wasn't in the hands of a cinematographer and hoping that he would do it well. I would know what he was doing, and we could discuss how that scene would look.

You hear stories about directors using manipulation to get actors to do certain things, but I think when you're working with professional actors, it's all about trust. They can do anything you want, it's just a matter of them understanding what you're looking for, and the reason why.

All you're trying to do in an improvisation is get as much material as possible for the editing room.

The producers who wanted me to do it liked me and trusted me, and more than one scene was only one take, because I'd plan ahead what I thought would be appropriate for that scene-so one take was enough.

I think every actor would probably say that it's always a collaboration. And if you ask directors, they'll tell you that they expect the actors to bring something. They don't want to be thinking for everybody.

Some directors work from day to day. I work from moment to moment.

With Fincher, you can take chances and try things. And what happens is that any pretension and preparation you've done, all the square, intellectual work, you can't keep that up for 40 takes. It breaks down, and new things start popping up. This, for me, is the most exciting thing about film-making.

Many times I'll improvise it, which isn't done a lot in movies or commercials. But a lot of my commercials are improvised.

'Curb' is 100 percent improvised, which is wild. I'd never done anything like that.

A lot of directors will do a certain amount of storyboarding and pre-vis, and yet when they get on the set, everything starts to change, and they have new ideas.

At Second City and improvising at iO, you're creating a character in an instant. All of a sudden, you're creating this history and this past for your character, and you're discovering it while you're doing it, and that's part of the fun of it.

I really believe in trying to fulfil what my director wants, what I can do to make that scene better.

It is the director's vision, and as actors, we are just extensions of that.

Both 'Udaan' and 'Lootera' were largely rehearsed. With 'Trapped,' I left room for improvisation.