I worked for Sam Peckinpah on quite a bit of action in his films, and he got excited once in a while.
People talk about the difference between working on stage and working on film. I think you could say that there are as many differences between working on low budget films and working on big budget films. You really are doing the same thing, but at the same time you're doing something vastly different as well.
There's never been a mathematical equation that says a good experience making a movie equates to a good movie, or a bad experience on a set is going to lead to a bad movie.
After 'Boy Meets World' ended, I didn't know if I was going to be lucky enough to work on a show with as many talented people and feel such a family comradery.
Having a director who is also an actor makes for that very relaxed way of working and it's empowering.
What's nice about what we have is when you enter the set, the world of film, it becomes this real cocoon, very different from all the publicity. That's the fun part.
When you're on a movie set and you are hopefully making a comedy, everyone's stifling their laughter. You're looking at the crew guys, hoping someone is making that face like, and not like, this is not working out, man.
These are rare moments in an actor's life, where you're put in an environment which is so natural, and you get natural performances.
I mean the joy of doing the 'Psych' thing I have to say, is that, you know, I'd met them beforehand, James Roday and Timothy Omundson specifically. I met Dule Hill when I got up there. But they're just, you know, a nice bunch of people.
Working with Jon Hamm was super-fun because he's a brilliant actor and he's very kind. I would hang around sets for scenes that I wasn't even in because I wanted to watch how he worked.
As a director, what matters is how you penetrate the soul of the person in front of the camera and let the actor blur the boundaries between the character and the person themselves. In order to achieve that, I try to make people feel at ease, to be mindless of problems and be skinless and give everything to the camera.
In general, working on a horror movie is no different than working on any movie. Turn the camera around and there's 20, 30 people standing around, eating doughnuts, smoking cigarettes between takes, working, like any other set.
I like the sensibility of Australian film a lot and the crews are fantastic. Great characters, wonderful people and no line between - I think in Hollywood they have this line between actors and crew a lot, and that just didn't exist, which I really appreciated.
When we're on set, we kind of joke around, and when we're rehearsing, we change up the scenes and make each other laugh. We lighten up the mood. The blooper reel is going to be amazing on 'New Moon.'
You have to be talentedly insecure in order to be a good actress. And then it's the director's job to make you more miserable and get a good take.
We know, in history, people are unable to put different elements together and create gold, yet it's what you're asking actors to do every day. You're asking them to relax enough with the confines and restrictions of the lights and the cameras, and you gotta hit this mark, to relax enough to create what seems wonderful and beautiful.
Actors are hard to photograph because they never want to reveal who they are. You don't know if you're getting a character from a Chekhov play or a Polanski film. It depends what mood they're in.
Working on TV can be quite insular.
I've spent most of my life trying to make actors comfortable, which I think is 90 percent of getting a good performance.
Every set has their own personalities and their own quirks. It's funny comparing starring in a show to going in and doing recurring work - there's already a rhythm that's been established, and people know each other so well. It's like being a guest in someone else's home.
Everyone at 'EastEnders' has been so welcoming.
I very much enjoyed doing 'Law & Order,' playing a killer - that was fun, and they had a family feel around the set, so it was a happy show to do even though the subject matter was quite the opposite.
The working hours are easy in films, while there is always an anxiety on television. So the energies are very different.
Our feeling is that the most important thing on a set is that actors have enough confidence to try different things. If there's stress or tension, they won't go out on a limb because they won't want to embarrass themselves if they don't feel completely comfortable.
'Drake and Josh' was strictly nine to five. We'd go in and know what we were doing, and 'Superhero Movie' was just nuttiness every day because there's a joke every ten seconds.
