to go outside her normal, quiet comfort zone. She was afraid of looking stupid or foolish. Even though that big scene of her going nuts was several days away, I had to start working harder to gain her trust. I told her several times on several occasions that my job was to make her look as good as possible. If she looked stupid, it would make all of us look stupid, it would make the episode stupid. I promised her I would not allow that to happen. If she went “over the top,” we would not use that take. However, she needed to feel free to go over the top, knowing that I would protect her both on the set and in the edit bay.
I told her about Jack Nicholson’s work shooting The Witches of Eastwick, in which he played the Devil. He would do five or six or more takes on every scene, getting bigger and bigger and more over the top until he exhausted his choices. Then he and the director, George Miller, would look at the work and decide what worked and what didn’t. They both believed that exploring the role of this fantastical character this way was the only way to find the right level for the character. The terrific results speak for themselves.
On the day we shot the crucial scene in Psych, I kept encouraging the actress to let her inhibitions go, that I would protect her from embarrassment. The writer, who had been worried sick about her being too bland in the scene, was standing beside me sweating bullets as we rolled the cameras. When the scene got to the part where she goes nuts, we all held our collective breath.
Suddenly, she let loose with a scream that even woke the Teamsters. Her body seemed to levitate off the bed, and Sean and Gus, who were twice her size, couldn’t hold her down.
That’s what we needed! We did it several more times from different angles, and I praised her after every take and encouraged her to try anything different that she felt like. By the end, she was hoarse, sore, exhausted, sweaty, and glowing. She said she never felt so free acting before. The writer, the producers, and USA Network were themselves over the top in praising her work. I have to thank Mark Rydell for his blunt advice, invaluable in this situation:
Mark Rydell: I like to tell them that it’s okay to fuck up. Fucking up is just fine. Don’t worry about it. Just don’t come unprepared. Don’t come not knowing anything. Other than that, you can fuck up all you want.
SUMMARY
1. Actors often distrust directors they don’t know. It’s the director’s job to gain the trust of all the actors, not just Number One on the call sheet.
2. Every actor is quite different from every other actor and has to be treated differently. There is no one-size-fits-all solution for working with actors. The director must adapt to what works best for each actor.
3. Get to know your cast and crew. Learn their names before you shoot. Showing that you care about them will encourage them to work harder to achieve the goals of the film.
4. Directors need to be present at auditions. Otherwise, they only learn part of what the actor can do.
5. Use auditions as mini rehearsals. Work with auditioning actors to see what both they and the scene are capable of. Actors are much more receptive to ideas before they get the job.
6. Often, actors who are not right for the film have terrific ideas about the scenes. Experiment in the casting session with anyone if inspiration strikes.
7. Encourage actors you are interested in to talk about themselves personally. You can learn more from this than from their carefully crafted — and always truthful — resumés.
8. When an actor is cast, make contact ASAP, on the phone if not in person. Tell the actor how glad you are to be working with them.
9. Ask the actor before shooting if they have questions about the dialogue or the character, the wardrobe, their hair, anything. Don’t wait until the day of shooting.
10. Rehearsal before shooting is an invaluable tool for ironing out problems and finding creative approaches to the film.
11. Never stage scenes without the actors present. You will be sorry.
12. Arrive at set earlier than crew call. Begin your day in the makeup trailer with the actors. Discuss the day’s work with them and make sure that everyone feels comfortable. Troubleshoot now, not on the set.
13. Keep an open mind when hearing actors’ ideas for any scene. It’s part of building trust, as well as encouraging creativity. You don’t have to agree to their ideas; you do have to listen openly.
14. Let actors find staging with minimal help from you. Take advantage of their creative imagination.
15. Let your actors know you are looking out for them. Create an environment where they feel safe to experiment, knowing you will make them look good, and you will reap the benefits of wonderful performances.
16. “It’s okay to fail” is a calming mantra for an actor. Relaxation is a key precursor to creativity. Assure your actors you are there to catch them if they go over or under the top.
4 Laurence Tirard, Movie Maker’s Master Class (New York: Faber and Faber), 148.
5 Jeff Young. Kazan (New Market Press: New York, 1999), 130.
6 Young, Kazan, 72.
Chapter 2
Mistake #2: Know-It-Alls Rule
On the set of my first movie, The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings1 (what a title!), I was working with Richard Pryor, Billy Dee Williams, and the amazing James Earl Jones. For 1976, it was a medium-budget film about Negro league baseball that took place in the 1930s, so it was also a period picture, which meant period set design, costumes, automobiles, trucks, and buses.
One morning, in the 100° heat of the Georgia sun in July with the humidity bubbling at 90%, Billy Dee Williams, who was playing the pitcher, steamed up to me with an idea about what he could say to the batter, James Earl Jones, at the plate. Nothing much was scripted, but Billy Dee said he thought these two were very competitive in a friendly way. What if they were to “play the dozens,” or hurl funny insults at one another? Jokes on the level of “Yo mama is so fat… ” was what he had in mind. They could make fun of each other’s age or athletic ability or family traits.
My very first instinct on hearing this was to think that we didn’t have time to stand around and make up a bunch of silly insults. We barely had time to shoot the scene as written. The first-time, paranoid feature director in me was thinking, “This is how it starts — they try to take the picture away from you a little bit at a time. Don’t do it. Stand up to them.”
Donald Petrie: I’ve often seen where the first-time director on set wants everyone to know that they know what they’re doing and they’re in charge. So when someone tries to give them a little friendly advice, they reply, “I know what I’m doing, no, no!” They become these little Hitlers, and if they do well, great, and if they don’t, nobody’s gonna help them. You don’t have any friends there on the set.
So there I was, director on the spot, all alone. Rob Cohen, the producer, was not yet on the set. I had a negative attitude because I was scared of people wanting to “ruin” it. “I don’t think we can do that,” I said. “We don’t have the writers here. What would we say, anyway?”
I
