Actor Direction Quotes

'She's Gotta Have It' and 'School Daze,' I really didn't know what I was doing. And the biggest indicator of that was the acting. 'Do the Right Thing' was like the first film where I really felt comfortable working with actors.

I would encourage you as a screenwriter to trust your story and don't make notes for the actors or don't make notes for the reader.

I don't usually direct actors in the classic sense of that word. Instead, I try to remind the characters before the shoot what's going on in a very simple way. I then watch them, their inventions as actors, approving or not approving what they're doing.

You work with every actor differently. It's like if you're a mother, if you have children, some children need more discipline. Other children, you back off of a little bit and let them be. It's the same way with actors. Some actors need a lot of hand holding. Other actors like to be let be, and you let them go.

I don't use film in the way that the great auteurs do. I use film, the camera, to record as effectively and as perceptive as I am able what I want to say through the actors.

You're following your track, the story, your only plan, your map for the audience, and all the other stuff is, like, the fun stuff: the costumes, the locations, the set-dressing and the actors. They can all be variable as you like if you stick - however roughly - to the path.

I suppose they call me a woman's director because there were all these movie queens in the old days, and I directed most of them. But I also directed Jack Barrymore and Ronald Colman and James Stewart, to name a few.

For example, the character of Claire in In Dreams wasn't imagined enough by me. Annette Bening is a great actress, and she gave a great performance, but because I hadn't fully written it essentially the character wasn't finished.

I didn't go to film school. My Grampa always says just watch a lot of movies. He didn't go to film school; he went to theatre school. It's interesting to learn about the technical side of it, but I think it's more important to learn about writing and working with actors.

I think one of the worst notes I think I've ever received was Ang Lee on 'Brokeback Mountain.' He came in on coverage, and he was like, 'More, more handsome.' I was like, 'I'll try that.'

I choose my actors well and get to know the quirks of their personalities - and, most of all, I share humor with them. Then I keep my eyes open when they rehearse and perform, because you never know where the next stimulation comes from.

Great actors are so easy to direct. It's like they're big 747s that you just have to move left and right, and I don't really need to direct. I need to put them in the right costume, with the right haircut, in the right location, and with the right actor to act with. And then my job is almost done, with a great script, obviously.

Coaching a football player is the same as directing an actor. The guy has to follow orders and be able to perform skillfully.

With the films I've done, I've written on them, I've acted in some of them. And even ones I haven't acted in, I've acted them out just to be sure another actor can do them.

I think it's important that a director be able to know his characters inside and out.

When I gave a direction to an actor in the show, I know their whole journey better than a guest director could know it.

I think working with actors is a little bit how a chef would work with a potato or a piece of meat. You have to kind of have a look at the potato or the piece of meat and see what kind of possibilities are in the ingredient. I know I'm using the wrong metaphor. I think my job is to see what potato is there and from there, just work under their conditions.

As I got more confident, I was able to let actors improvise, and do long takes. It's 10%, 5% you learn and experience. The rest you just have or you don't have.

Don't worry about telling your actor what to do.

Actors always feel more comfortable when there's an actor directing, in terms of vocabulary and breaking down a scene.

I did have a lot of years watching and appreciating dance and theater and all of those kind of things, and it has informed the way that I work with actors and the way I approach things.

Well you know, Woody doesn't rehearse, as opposed to my own method of directing where I really work with actors around a round table for weeks, examining the values of the material, so his technique is very 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.

Raft told me how to walk with him in a scene: We'd start off in a long shot normal, and about the time we got together in a close-up, I'd be bending my knees so I'd be shorter.

I would love to work with Ron Howard. I think he is brilliant. I love the stories that he chooses. Theyre always very personal and intense. He loves a lot of emotion, and hes so well equipped to pull all of that out of the actors. I really love that kind of thing and I think thats what movies should be about.