On-Set Direction Quotes

When I started acting, I did many films without even an idea of what the script was about. The film would start, and then we would discover what we were expected to do on the sets. Those days have changed.

I think it's so hard to get really, really strong parts where the actress can act. It's rare.

I always like being a director in terms of giving acting notes and punching up on the fly.

I don't think it's necessary to be an actor to get great performances out of an actor. But I do think it helps me as a director because I know what I like as an actor, and I try to get that to the actors who I'm working with.

I learned one thing from De Niro: He taught me to listen. Nobody says anything strictly from the script. It's improvised. It was the best piece of advice I have ever gotten in my life. It has helped me through the past thirty years.

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.

I mark a script like an exam, and I try not to do anything under 50 per cent. Similarly with the part. And also film is a peculiar thing, parts don't necessarily read in script form anything like as well as they can do when it comes to materialising.

I've had the opportunity to work with so many great directors. Different styles, as well, like Gus Van Sant. He just does the casting and the milieu and let's you do your thing, quietly. Bertolucci, who can talk to you about your internal world in quite a creative way or just say, 'Well, put your hand over here.'

If you don't like my work in 'The Affair,' that's fine, but I'll stand by the work because I felt that everything that went on camera was what I intended to go on camera.

When I was on 'Xena,' I remember the sound guy and the director at some point being like, you have to make sounds when you fight, and I was like, what are you talking about? You're never going to use it. But they hounded me for a good couple of hours, and basically it was, you need to act, you can't just perform the moves.

I was mainly a stage actor. I found film acting mechanical, because it was so technical - there was so much technique with the lamps and the movements of the camera.

Directors have been trying to get me to do comedy for a long time, ever since 'One Eight Seven.'

With TV, you have so much to get done during the day that you don't really have a lot of time to feel your way through it. I know before I walk on the set exactly what I'm going to do. With film you can kind of find your way in it a little more, play with it some.

Rarely in film acting do you get to do a scene for very long.

We have amazing stunt performers and in Miguel Sapochnik, a director who's so good at spending hours and hours and hours on every shot beforehand, so that he knows exactly what he wants when he gets to the battlefield on the day. We only shoot ten-hour days, so you have to pack a lot into those ten hours.

My grooming as an actor took place after working with top directors like Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Gulzar, BR Chopra and Shakti Samantha.

It's very rare you get a director who's that invested in the actors. So yeah, when 'Little Fish' came around, there wasn't much negotiation!

I don't know much of direction even after acting in so many movies. In fact, I still don't understand some simple things.

As an actor you have to deliver what the director wants.

Casting is 65 percent of directing.

Great actors help. Every project is different. Sometimes it's completely open, and I've been able to cast who I've wanted. And then sometimes people want a certain kind of actor.

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

A lot of directors in television have come up through the technical ranks. They have all the technical skills in the world. They're not all that familiar with actors.

With Altman, he does discuss everything with you, but then leaves you to it and gives you full rein and lets you improvise and create a character while the camera is rolling.

I'm very old-school. I like a director to direct me. I like to be the actor.