Acting Direction Quotes

I remember 'vulnerability' being an unattractive word for most of my life, and I resented it as a direction coming from a director just because it implied weakness so I get the job. But it is that humbling place that creates compassion.

It's never hard to cast kids; it's only ever hard to direct them.

Very rarely have I worked with a director where we've been at odds. And by the time you've actually talked to somebody and you have the job, there's something that they see in you that they want you to bring to the character. And the best director says very little to you, acting-wise. They usually just say, "Okay, here's the shot." It's their job to do all that stuff, and your job's to do the acting. So it's very rare that somebody will say, "Oh, no. I conceived this very differently".

I'm usually told to do a take where I do less with my face.

You got to get used to somebody, when you're acting or going through a scene, somebody yelling, "Do it a little louder!" OK, you do it a little louder.

If you're a great documentary filmmaker, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're a great narrative filmmaker. There are fantastic documentary filmmakers that can't direct actors. You don't have to do that in a documentary, if it's a real documentary.

And I realized that directing actors is really important because that's what ends up on screen.

Directors have a tendency to use their hands like orchestra conductors. They don't realize that the actor is looking at their faces, anyway.

I confessed to Mike [Cimino] a couple of days before we shot. I was like, "What am I doing here, Mike?" And Mike just looked at me, in that very directorial manor, took a long pause, and he said, "You know the game tag?" And I said, "Yeah." And he said, "Well, you're it." That was some of the best direction I think I've ever received.

The director's job is to know what emotional statement he wants a character to convey in his scene or his line, and to exercise taste and judgment in helping the actor give his best possible performance.

All of a sudden I got a call the night of the first time we were filming and they're like, "Terry, we made a mistake. We need you to be you. You're not a joke with these guys and you're not mousy, you're very aggressive. Now it just so happens that you're going through these things, but we need you to be more physical in your role."

Kissing scenes are never romantic or sexy. They're actually super technical, like, 'Move your head; you're blocking her light,' or, 'Stop looking like an idiot when you kiss her.'

Sometimes it only takes three words, so long as they're the right words, to direct an actor in the right way.

When we were doing Bullets over Broadway, he told me to be more fragile and I thought I was, but he saw it completely differently.

Woody Allen, when we did Vicky Cristina Barcelona, said to Rebecca Hall, "Do it one time happy, one time sad, and one time indifferent, as I won't know where you should be until I'm editing this, in terms of your emotions."

Every actor's different. It seems to me the older veterans, they don't need to hear as much. But younger actors need a little more feedback, a little more assurance, and that's fine.

It was really an experience, being my first time directing a movie. The scenes that I was in, Brooke really directed me all the time. And the scenes that both of us were in, Brooke directed those. Come to think of it, Brooke directed most of the scenes.

I'm not in front of the camera, they are. I encourage them; I build up as much of their confidence and ego as possible. They've got to take control; I can't act it out.

I was a director and dialogue and acting coach.

Good directing is about getting the performance to be just what's right for the movie.

All we did in Alabama was have a read through with the script, but there was, 'No, well, it needs more. You've got to do this, Albert. You've got to do that, Jessica.' It didn't feel like that at all.

For "The Intervention" I came up with a back-story and Clea [Duvall] was like, "No." And I was like, "I don't care."

All directors on all sets behave slightly differently depending on what the scene is. For example, if you are doing a love scene, which is intimate then the director is likely to be intimate. If you are doing a scene where everyone is mucking around and laughing then the director is likely to start with that. If you are playing a scene which us incredibly heavy and everyone getting killed then there are probably not many laughs on the set.

I think actors do need some hand holding to know what they are doing.

Usually on films, you get used to kind of being told, 'This is what you're going to wear, this is what you're going to hold, and remember, you're lucky to be here, and shut up.'