actors Quotes

I like actors who are themselves. I know in America you like actors who change their nose or wear a lot of wigs, and they like to take pretty girls and make them super ugly.

I like to think in camera, but at the last minute the most important thing is that there is something happening between the actors. But good actors can have a lot of scenes going around them but sometimes it sort of helps the performance because it takes their mind off of who they are supposed to be.

I love stage actors. The pool of world class actors that have done theater [is big], there's a higher opportunity of grabbing somebody from that pool.

Never let your actors go before they are satisfied with a scene.

Actors want to work. Give them characters they want to play, or a story they want to tell, and hopefully the budget will follow.

I think that certain directors are better at choosing actors that match well with each other. And I have feelings about actors and who I think I'd work well with better moreso than others.

I prefer to take actors and put them in real settings and real locations and real situations rather than create artificial locations that serve the characters. It's just much easier when you are walking down the street with your actors to do that in a real street that's still open with people on it, rather than to close it off and bring in extras.

I try to keep feeling what's going on and try to use the camera, the actors and the design to enhance those feelings. There's something really emotionally direct and honest about how I put the material with the images. You hope that the strength of mise-en-scene comes from an honesty towards the material. You also hire really well.

When I auditioned actors I never make them act. I choose a long symphony, then I tell them to sit down and I play the symphony for them. Then I sit and I look at them. I always pick a piece of music that has up and downs, very dramatic parts, very quiet parts and really sensitive parts so that it can produce different emotions.

If you fill your time as a director talking about lights and technique with the crew then it's frightening for the actors to be left alone. Somebody has to keep them safe from the mess that is the machinery.

I'm not one to dwell on rehearsal or preparation. I like to just go out and do it. Of course, that doesn't mean actors are free to do whatever they like, they're always being directed.

I'm a complete control freak. We worked a lot on the pace and where to put the silences. We choreographed the gestures and movements. We had a lot of rehearsals and a lot of takes. Also, there's something special that comes out of those two actors: he's water and she's fire.

You can't plan your character arc - you have a vague idea, maybe, but I'm constantly surprised. Sometimes actors in films will play the ending of the movie, or even the middle, and you know where it's going - as an audience member you can read the actor.

Great actors who I want to work with-have such a misconception of who I am because of all the things that get said about me.

I wanted to just surround myself with people who I think are better than I am, whether they're actors or directors or producers, so that I could learn from them.

I'm always surprised that certain actors have Twitter accounts. I guess they use it in a way that works for them. But I'd rather that people had less access to my personal life. If I could keep it that way, I'd be a happy lady.

Most actors don't know what they're going to do next, so you get into this thing where you have to force yourself to have another life outside of acting. And then, as soon as you start something in this sort of normal life that you're trying to live, you get a job. So you have this constant struggle because you want to be able to commit to things and to finish things in your life, but then you also want to be able to act.

I think it's worse for actors, though, because people have to choose you. As a director, I get to choose the actors, but most of the time, actors have to be chosen in order to work.

My favorite actors are actors who are enigmatic and mysterious and never make the obvious choice in terms of the projects they do or who they work with or their craft. But I think that the less I know about an actor, the more chance I have of allowing their own persona to kind of slip away so I can get completely lost in the character they're playing, and the more that people think they know about your personal life, the more difficult it becomes to preserve that.

I've got a lot to learn, and I'm very blessed to work with such talented actors. I'm nowhere near my goal. It's all about applying yourself and taking time to work and train.

I admire actors for their infinite patience. That's why they need all those trailers and all their crowd of people who pamper them. But it is a drag to get up sometimes at 4:30 in the morning and get into makeup, and wait forever until they call you onto the set.

There are a lot of things that dancers can do that actors cannot and actors can do that dancers cannot.

We're actors, we have to do what we have to do, and you have to be really solid within yourself.

I would love to be able to get behind the camera and direct actors. I think that would be a lot of fun.

Well, actors get very frustrated with giving control to other people. They have their own ideas and wants for their characters. Warren Beatty once told me that he thought actors ended up directing out of frustration. If you have a strong sense of how to communicate a film, you should direct. The problem is that it is a huge commitment. I'd rather direct a play than a film due to the time. A movie can tie you up for a year or more.

There are so many brilliant, trained actors of color in America. If you just think about it, every year in the spring Julliard and NYU and Yale and hundreds of schools across the country graduate classes of trained actors, and in those classes are actors of color. So to say that there aren't enough actors of color is factually inaccurate.

Trust is hard to get from actors, and for me to give to actors.

I'm not tough when it comes to people criticizing the people that I protect, and those are the actors. It makes them scared to do it again for another director.

I don't work with fear, and I don't work with actors that are fearful.

Musicians ultimately are who they are, they aren't actors, so as a clipmaker you have a responsibility to protect them.