All language subtitles for 21. Collaborating With Directors

Actors don't trust they don't need the

baggage. They think they need all the

bells and the whistles, you know. And

I've been victim of that because of my

own excess as well. I'm very grateful

when

some some I'm I'm grateful when I'm

directed.

I'm not grateful when someone's

intimidated and they're afraid to direct

me or they think they can't direct me

because I think actually that's one of

the

uh the most depressing things to have

witnessed about actors that you adore

and love is as they became more

well-known, as they got more fame, as

they got more, you know, credit and

money and all that stuff that they

became undirectable.

that they got to a point where they

thought nobody's ideas were as good as

theirs were.

And then their performances

start to get bigger and implode and

and they're not as sharp,

as brilliant, as clean, as clear as they

used to be.

Sam Mendes will be the first to talk

about the fact that when we started

Richard III in the theater, I had so

many devices and things and I mean it

was it was pretty ridiculous. You know,

he said he wanted 17 disabilities

instead of just like two. Um, and he had

to just keep whittling away every day at

getting getting rid of all these things

that I had brought. And you know,

essentially, if you want to break that

down, that was me putting a lot of

things in front of me to hide

playing the character. And I eventually

just had to play the character. I

eventually had to let all of that drop

and just pick one or two things that

were the disability as opposed to seven

or eight or 17 or whatever it was. Um,

the first time I worked with Fincher,

which was in a film called Seven, which

I think I shot all of 13 days on, but

that movie is, you know, held up and an

incredible, you know, almost cameo role.

You know, you have to try to remember

that by the time that character shows up

in that movie, the audience has been so

prepared

by everything Fincher did in that film

where the character never showed up. I

mean, you he just built that character

up to the point. I remember when saying

to David at one point, well, I suppose

if I don't drool in the back of the seat

here, I'm going to get away with this.

The audience was so terrified by this

character that all I really had to do

was show up and, you know, try to not

play it too over the top.

one, you know, he has a reputation of

doing lots and lots and lots and lots

and lots and lots of takes.

Some actors like it, some actors don't.

I don't mind it.

But I truly think what he's doing is

he's just beating the acting out of you.

is nothing against anybody, but actors

show up with a lot of stuff

and they worked at home and they've

worked in their trailer and they worked

with their coach and you know whatever.

They show up on set with a lot of stuff

and very often a lot of this stuff just

distances you from

the heart of it

and the clarity of it. And so David will

do a lot of takes to try to just wear

people down.

Just to wear them down to where suddenly

all of the affectations and all of the

ways in and all the handles and all the

parentheses and all the stuff that gets

added just goes away. And it's purely

the words and the intention.

And when it's that clear and that clean,

he'll move on.

In theater, we're all working together.

You all get it. You understand the tone.

In film,

you know, it's a whole section of movies

that you're not a part of, scenes you're

not in, characters you never meet.

And so, they could be in a completely

different film in terms of what they've

brought. So very often it is up to the

director

to have enough conversations with the

actors before they arrive on set that

everybody understands the world that's

trying to be created.

Otherwise it's incredibly easy to go off

track. Um you know you're lucky you know

there are some cases where I've done

films like Sam Mendes when we did

American Beauty. It was his first movie

and he decided that he was going to take

the best of theater and apply it to

film. So he fought for and got a two

week rehearsal period with the entire

company which is incredibly unusual. So

we literally rehearsed on sets that had

the lines drawn of where the where it

was all going to be in terms of

furniture and props and yada yada. We

rehearsed it like a play. He he it he

was obviously truncated in terms of the

time, but it was brilliant because by

the time we got to the set, we knew what

we were doing. We understood how we were

going to attack it and he had been able

to set the tone with the entire company.

Even in a comedy, even when you're

trying to reach something that that that

is funny, you still want it to be within

a particular world and make it feel like

it's the right world.

So, it isn't necessarily about

everything being clean and sharp. It's

very specific about certain kinds of

roles.

It's about wanting to be in the right

world.