Original subtitles

- How do you know that you've gotten the best performance

from your talent?

What makes an actor's performance great

essentially boils down to two things.

The actor must be emotionally connected to their character.

All of that time you spent

breaking down the character's personality traits,

background, and how the character fits

into the greater world of your story

will ideally pay off in your talent's performance.

They need to understand where their lines are coming from.

And two, great performances consist of honest reactions.

Their performance needs to feel genuine.

No matter how fantastical

the circumstances of their character or the scene,

it must be believable.

Acting teacher Sanford Meisner said,

"Acting is behaving truthfully

"under imaginary circumstances."

Here's an example of what I feel is a great performance

from a film I directed called Of Dice and Men.

The character Brandon isn't a gamer,

but finally understands why people game,

and realizes that their friend

who is enlisting in the military

will treasure those moments with his friends.

Initially when the actor Greg and I

discussed the character and scene,

I wasn't convinced it would be an emotional scene for him.

But with Greg's input, we came to the understanding

that this was an epiphany for his character,

and it was critical

that he have a deeper emotional connection.

- You know that vase

that used to sit on our mantelpiece in our living room?

- [Man] The pink one?

- Yeah, yeah yeah.

It used to hold my grandmother's ashes.

- Used to?

- Last game of the season, three years ago.

- [Man] What?

- I picked it up and chucked it at the wall,

as hard as I could.

Because football matters to me a lot.

But gaming, it's just,

it's wizards and fairies and unicorns

and just all this stuff that just doesn't,

it's just not me, you know?

But football and gaming have something in common.

They're both utterly and completely pointless,

and they matter.

So Linda comes downstairs,

she finds me covered in ashes

because this guy in like, funny clothes

falls forward those two extra feet.

And she doesn't get it.

I mean, why should she?

It's just totally irrational behavior.

But she gets me.

I mean, I look at my wife on the other side of the table

and I see her pretending to be a dwarf,

cleric, whatever, and...

To be honest with you,

when it comes right down to it

I have no idea what that's about.

But I love to watch her play.

And Jason enlisting...

Well, he's going.

And we get to watch him go and not understand why,

not really.

But I do know this.

I mean, I can guarantee you

there are going to be nights when...

He's there in Iraq

and just thinking about playing with you guys.

This could be what gets him through.