Director-Actor Collaboration Quotes

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

What I love in working on film is just working with actors. It's one thing to write scenes alone over a keyboard and to imagine the actions and reactions in your head, but it's a completely other thing to hear actors speaking your words, to see their bodies bringing the fullness of emotion, need, desire and pain to life right in front of you. It's amazing.

I would love to do a period film and work with Shyam Benegal.

The '80s were a time of technical wonder in filmmaking; unfortunately, some colleges didn't integrate their film and theater departments - so you had actors who were afraid of the camera, and directors who couldn't talk to the actors.

I have been fortunate that 'Pink' has been that film which gave my career a push. I owe a lot to Shoojit Sircar for having faith in me and my co-stars Taapsee Pannu and Amitabh Bachchan sir.

I have to say from an actor's perspective, to work with a director who has been an actor through most of their career is a pleasure. They generally have a very deep understanding of the process of what you're doing, of how you are building and exploring the character.

When I worked with Chevy Chase, Michael Ritchie would say, "Just ad lib and try to break me up. Just insult me. Anything." When we were doing his close-up, or when my back was to the camera, I would come up with jokes or quips or anything, to get a real reaction out of him. He was smart enough to know that was gold. So it was great fun working with him and Michael, and getting to see how the two worked together. I think Fletch and Clark Griswold were Chevy's two best roles. He's so incredibly talented and still vastly underused.

I was picked by Pradeep Sarkar for a huge campaign called 'Bharat Nirman' and he infused a lot of confidence in me and from thereon my journey started.

If I am to be remembered for anything I have done in this profession, I would like it to be for the four films in which I directed Spencer Tracy.

As a director, I do very few takes, because I feel like you hire the right actor and they'll do the job right. And the directors that I've worked with and had the best luck with - Jason and [ Steven] Soderbergh and the Coen brothers - all have been that kind of director.

Could I see him acting as Warren Beatty directed, and what would that be like? When you see him as those characters, once you get to know him, there is so much of him in them. In fact, I saw so much of him in them that it made me laugh.

When you work with an actor, it's cool because they know what it's like to be directed themselves. Jodie directed a scene with me and Taylor that was when she starts talking to me again in prison and it's our first actual confrontation that we have, where some stuff comes out.

I read the script and try not to bring anything personal into it. I make notes, talk to the director and we decide what kinds of shades should be in the character.

The thing I love about acting is that it's got nothing to do with me; it's about bringing forth a director's vision. It's like a release. I'm glad it's come back into my life.

Many times, when a director reads a script and wants somebody who says 'Far out', then they let me do what I want with it and that's usually more interesting for an actor.

I really enjoy the process of making movies. The only thing that really concerns me is working with great directors and actors, and that is fun and exciting.

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".

It's interesting for me to do the commentary with the actors because, as a director, you're so in your own world that you see it from your perspective, your issues and what you were trying to do, and then it's really very fun to hear their perspective on how it was to do a particular scene or how they felt, and sometimes, I didn't even know that, at the time.

I've worked with some of the great cinematographers. So I'm always watching what they do and I'm watching how the director composes his shots, just because I find it interesting as an actor; you're trying to help them out as well.

Trying to make something as tricky as 'Room' really believable is extremely hard, and it largely rests with that relationship between the actors and the director, and the director and the crew.

After seeing my performance in director T.V. Chandran's 'Aadum Koothu,' Cheran was impressed and immediately cast me in 'Maya Kannadi.'

Also a good director and good dialogue. That's very important because you're bringing the words to life. So it's very important for an actor to have good dialogue.

I was very fortunate in having David Fincher, the director come to me. Now I've seen the finished product, I feel that every bit of the nine months we spent on the film was worth it.

I've been very fortunate to work with a lot of directors who understand that actors need to feel empowered in order to really do their job.

When you work with directors who really love actors, who love their contribution, it feels amazing. But sometimes when you work with directors, you feel like you're in the way.