Christopher Nolan On Working With Actors
Posted on July 7, 2010 in Acting, Directing, Interviews | 3 Comments
Christopher Nolan discusses the virtues of being honest with Actors during an AFI Harold Lloyd Masters Seminar.
VIA: AFI
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3 Comments
I really like this approach – I’ve never been one to try to trick actors into something – that’s not giving them respect of their talents.
That said, there are ways to schedule things that lead to the correct performances… but yelling at people or scaring them… nah, that ain’t cool.
So far my directing experience has just been with Junior High Drama students and a few faculty members but this is the approach I have used from the beginning. It just seemed the right thing to do. NOTE: One teacher has real acting experience (NY stage and film) and was once even a SAG member. She holds a Master in directing and is actually quite a talented actor. Her temperament reminds me of Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard. So, here I am, a complete novice directing 13 year old sub-humanoids and Gloria Swanson all at once.
This was a really hard thing to do, especially with kids who’ve never acted. I had read some advice somewhere that its ok to be constructive, but to never act it out and show them how to do it, and that was very very difficult in my situation. Great advice though!