The Do’s & Don’ts of Successfully Directing Actors (Article/Tips)

Posted by John Badham on Jul 24, 2013 | 0 comments

by John Badham (& Craig Modderno)

[Note from the Editor: As we prepare for John Badham’s new book, John Badham on Directing, it seemed a great time to look at some advice from his last book, Creative Wars: I’ll be In My Trailer. When John Badham & Craig Modderno first wrote this piece for Michael Weise Productions, they didn’t have a specific budget group in mind for the audience. Instead, this piece comes straight from John Badham’s experience as a director and it rings just as true for the microfilmmaker with a $3000 budget as it does for the Hollywood director with a $300 million budget. However, these rules are perhaps most important to the microfilmmaker, because a microfilmmaker doesn’t have a studio sending someone to babysit him on his film and, if he screws the rules up, he doesn’t have the financial resources to recast it and shoot it again.]

DO make any actor feel at home, in auditions, in wardrobe or on the set.

There is no more important rule than this for a director. When we asked hundreds of actors what they want from a director the answer that comes back like a shot is “I want to feel comfortable on the set.”

Penelope Ann Miller: “If a director makes an actor feel insecure, they’re not going to do as well. If they feel belittled or patronized or ridiculed or judged in a negative way the actor just gets worse and worse.”

Tom Mankiewicz: “The first job of a director is creating an environment where actors can do their best work. Where they feel their Daddy’s there. That they’re safe, somebody has control and will protect them.”

Richard Dreyfuss: “You want to feel that you’re being welcomed, that you’re not being tolerated. You’re here because they like your work, and that’s why they’re talking to you.”

Gary Busey: “Directors have to remember that a lot of players who go in front of the camera are nervous, frightened, insecure, unconfident… When a director comes to you on a personal level with respect and courage and humor, there’s nothing that’s better for an actor, to hear than that.”

Kurtwood Smith: “When you come in, if the director is saying, ‘Hi, how are you? Welcome to the set.’ If he’s in a friendly, good mood, comes down and relaxes you, you feel ready to go to work. If you come on the set and he says, ‘Okay, yeah, yeah. Let’s just get this. Hurry up.’ That’s not a good way to start work. You’ll get better work from an actor if he’s relaxed and comfortable.”

Mel Gibson: “Try your hardest to make the actor look as good as possible. The better they look the better you’re going to look. If they’re any good, they’ll figure that out, too. Danny Glover and I got onto that real early. I saw what he was doing with the fumbling, and always being a step behind, and I played on that. I’d run around in circles and try to screw with him to make the guy look good. And he was making me look good. I love actors. You have empathy for them and you really want to make them look as good as possible.”

DON’T let your openness make you a doormat.

You decide what works and what to avoid. Don’t become some actor’s bitch. Of course you are interested in their opinion. However you have the ultimate responsibility for the movie. You have the overall picture in your mind and you have to decide if their idea works or not.

Richard Donner: “It was late at night and we’re ready to go and George Maharis says, ‘I want a hamburger.’ I said, ‘What do you mean you want a hamburger?’ He said, ‘I want a hamburger in this scene. I think I’m hungry.’ I said, ‘Gee. Can I give you a piece of cheese or something? Maybe the prop man…’ He said, ‘I want a hamburger.’ So we got the prop man to go over to the Universal kitchen, which was closed and go in the back and get meat and get a hamburger. We’re shooting other stuff obviously. Then we come back and we’ve got the hamburger and we go into the scene and we go to roll and we’re halfway through it and George took the hamburger and took this little pigeon bite. So I said, ‘Cut. George, what are you doing?’ He said, ‘What do you mean?’ ‘You said you were hungry. This character is down and out and a ballplayer. If you get a hamburger then you eat it. Take a bite. Take a big bite.’ He said, ‘I can’t. I can’t talk with food in my mouth.’ I said, ‘Yes, you can. That’s the character. That’s what you wanted and that’s what you’re going to do.’ He said, ‘I’m not going to do it.’ I said, ‘You’ve got the fucking hamburger.’ And he goes like this and he hits the wall next to me and his hand went through the wall of the set. I looked at him and I went at him with my fist but I missed him on purpose. And I went through the wall with it too. And we stood there and looked at it as his hand is just coming out and he started to laugh. He said, ‘Give me the hamburger. Give me the hamburger.’ So we did the hamburger. But I had broken a bone in my hand and didn’t know it. And I couldn’t let on. I’m getting ice when nobody’s looking. But it was a confrontation. He wanted that hamburger and damnit we got it for him and he was going to eat it. It’s the way you work with actors. He could have not eaten it and then I would have really felt stupid. He had something for his scene that worked for him – then go with it. They’re tough. actors are tough.”

DO learn to behave with confidence.

Indecisiveness is the Waterloo of the director. If actors are going to climb up in the rigging for you they need to trust you won’t let them fall. You are the captain of the ship. You don’t have to answer a question right away, but the longer you wait, the more likely it is that someone else on the set will jump in and fill the vacuum. When a director is indecisive, everybody starts feeling like the ship is drifting with no one at the helm.

Peter Hunt: “The minute one actor thinks you don’t know what you’re doing, or that he has a good point and you won’t listen, it starts anarchy. Actors are terribly insecure in that way. It spreads like a disease across the set. And you can’t cure the disease by yelling. If actors believe you understand the film, you understand their part, and you have a point of view, they’re terrific. Even the supposedly difficult actors.”

Martin Sheen: “If a director is not confident, it spreads like a virus on a set. If one or two of the players start badmouthing the maestro, the whole production is in trouble, because it shows a lack of confidence. And it isn’t a question of being able to confront somebody on a set. Just like you can’t do it in life. If somebody has a lack of confidence, you don’t associate with him or her, because you know that you’re going to get hurt. If you have a lack of confidence in your pilot, you don’t want to get on the plane. And it’s the same with a director.”

Kurtwood Smith: “The best way to have confidence in your own acting is to have confidence in your director. Peter Weir is a wonderful director who you have great confidence in. He’s really watching and paying attention to what you’re doing. You have to feel that the director is looking at you and paying attention to what you’re doing. A lot of directors don’t pay attention to what you’re doing, especially in television.”

DON’T be afraid to say, “I don’t know. Let’s figure it out.”

Contradiction alert! I just said, “Don’t be indecisive.” Yes, I am contradicting myself and no, I’m not contradicting myself. The President of the United States cannot possibly know all the answers to the issues he confronts every day. That doesn’t mean he is a waffling wimp. If he acts with confidence and asks for help working out a problem, his staff will work with him to solve it. Otherwise chaos ensues. Recognize that there is a big difference between being indecisive all the time and occasionally saying “I don’t know, let’s figure it out.” A vacillating director is waffling, adrift, and unsure. A confident director doesn’t give up the position of leadership, he is asking for input and will make the final decision.

Oliver Stone: “Sometimes I’ll go up to the actor and I’ll say, ‘I don’t know, just do it again. I don’t know what to say to you.’ But he knows I’ve thought about it and I’m lost. I’m not afraid to tell anybody that I don’t know and that I can’t follow it. Or sometimes I’ll just say, ‘Look, I really like it. I’m very happy with it. I think we can live with it. But I think this…’”

Stephen Collins: “I love it when a director honestly says, ‘I don’t know.’ I think that’s one of the hardest things for a director to say, given the pressures of filmmaking when the director says, ‘Gee, I don’t know. Let’s talk about this.’ Let’s think. Then I love it when it’s okay not to know, and it’s really okay for a director not to know, but most directors don’t have the — they’re just not built to say that in front of other people.”

Jeremy Kagan: “You really do have to know what you want, or you have to be incredibly open and say, I don’t know what I want, so that the actor gets that.“

DO explain scenes using active verbs.

This is one of the most difficult concepts for all directors, actors, writers, and producers to put into practice. It is so tricky that a large section [in my book] is devoted to it. Briefly, it all comes down to James Woods’ bawdy description:

James Woods: “Whenever I have a problem I say, ’Tell me the story again of this scene, just this scene.’ She says ‘Well, she’s been abused by her stepfather.’ ‘Don’t give me all that intellectual crap, just tell me what’s going on in the scene. You’re coming in to get your money from the guy. He’s not giving it to you, so you try to b… him to get it.’ ‘Well, I wouldn’t say that.’ ‘But you’re seducing him to get the money, right? So seduce him already, what’s the problem?’”

DON’T intellectualize scenes.

Acting is about behavior. It is not about cosmic themes, it is not about deep meanings. It is about behavior. It may be The Matrix or it may be a Moliere comedy. But it is always about behavior. It’s about what we do.

Actors love to intellectualize. directors love to intellectualize. It is a total waste of time and we all do it.

First thing: Boil the acting moment down to a verb, an active verb e.g., seduce, not a passive one, e.g. be. A verb, what we do, is actable. Philosophical musings are useless.

In my Directing Fundamentals class at Chapman University one of my students presented a scene from sex, lies and videotape. It was good but unfocused. The rest of the class then made intellectual suggestions about the terrible childhood of the character, the state of the world, the dramatic thrust of the scene, the mindset of the characters, and so on for 15 minutes.

I finally stopped the student directors and asked, “Yes, but what are the characters doing in this scene?” They looked at me as though they understood and then went right back to asking the same intellectual questions.

Finally, I turned to the actors and asked them, “What have we said that you can use when playing this scene again?” The actress thought and then said “Nothing, really.” And the actor said “Not much of anything”. I asked them, “How about if I tell you that the married woman wants to have sex with her lover and the man wants to find out why she told her sister about them?” Both actors nodded affirmatively. “I can play that,” they said.

Now when they played the scene they were focused on what they were trying to do, not on unplayable intellectual dribble. Much more on this later.

DO encourage the writers to cross out “emotional stage directions.”

What the writer doesn’t know is that most actors take stage directions very literally… too literally. If the writer says “angrily,” actors will do angry like you’ve never seen angry. Only instead of being a specific anger it will be a clichéd, generalized anger. It works the same for crying, jealousy, or any emotions. Trust the actor to figure what the emotion is for himself, and see a much more interesting result. And if not, if all else fails, you can always be a lazy slob and just tell them to do it “angrily.”

DON’T make the cast say the exact words in the script if they really can’t make them work.

If it’s Shakespeare, or any great writer, of course we’ve got to respect the words as written. You want them to try to say the words as written in your screenplay. Often, nothing is wrong with the dialogue, it’s just that the actor is too lazy to figure out how to say it believably. But if after a sincere effort they can’t make it work it would be dumb to make them say something that sounds terrible. But don’t you write it. Make the actor come up with a new line. Or at least try to. Making them struggle to think of a new line is a quick cure for complaining.

Oliver Stone: “The script is not a bible to me. It’s a process. I think it’s dangerous to be too rigid about the script. Shooting has to be fluid. So I always start by rehearsing with the actors. Ideally, we’ve already rehearsed that scene before we even go into production. And because the actors have a memory of it, it usually leads to something new.”

Robert Forster: “You don’t want to hear from a director, ‘Say the words exactly as they are written.’ It does a terrible thing to the actor. It forces the actor to remember the exact words rather than the meaning of the scene. I’m not talking about big changes. Just a word or phrase change helps an actor roll the thought out of his mouth.”

DO make actors answer their own questions

Remember how a shrink looks at you when you ask, “What should I do about my Mother?” Without taking a beat she comes back with “What do you think you should do?” She’s not torturing you, even though it feels like it. She’s saying, “You already know the answer, just dig inside yourself and find it.”

It works the same with actors. They want your help and approval with some matter. You can give a quick answer. But if you make them work it out themselves, that answer belongs to them. They own it because they thought of it. And possession is nine-tenths, etc. etc. If it disagrees with what you want to do, you can discuss it and work it out so you are both happy.

DON’T ever, ever, ever give line readings.

JB: “How do you really piss an actor off?”
Mark Rydell: “Give them a line reading.”

If you want a Robotic Response from an inexperienced actor, try ignoring this Don’t. They will become a drone and give you the phoniest line reading since “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” A really skilled actor will probably be offended but at the same time can decode your terrible line reading and make it work.

The right way to correct a bad reading is to ask the actor two things: 1) What does your character want in the scene and 2) how does your character feel about this moment in the scene. You may have to have them improvise the situation to find their way.

DO put directions in the form of questions.

Instead of saying to an actor, “This next time, move to the door, then turn and say your line,” phrase it as a question: “What would happen if you walked to the door and then turned and said your line?”

Why do this? It’s simple. Nobody likes being ordered about, especially when they are part of a creative process.

Of course you would get a really weird look if you said to the dolly grip, “What would happen if we were to lay 40 feet of track say, uh, over here?” The dolly grip wants and needs specific instructions. The actor on the other hand is a partner in the creative process. If you don’t believe this, try giving orders and watch their resentment and argumentativeness simmer and boil over.

DON’T call out inane things like “OK, give me lots of energy!” or “Have fun with it!”

Stephen Collins: “I have found at least 90% of the time when a director wants more energy, what he’s reacting to is a lack of point of view in the scene. Something’s wrong with either the way the scene’s written or being acted, or the way it’s been directed that’s causing the actors to hang back and not commit to it. It’s never about energy. Energy is what happens to actors when they are specific and do have a point of view. It’s used as a kind of catch all by directors who know something’s wrong but don’t know what it is. Chances are after you tell them ‘More Energy’ the same problem will be there, only it will just be louder.”

DO talk to every actor after every take.

Even if all you do is walk past them and pat them on the shoulder, they are reassured.

Get out! Do what? Every take? No way, you say.

Way.

When an actor finishes a take, she wants feedback. How did I do? she wants to know. If you’re going to do it again, for whatever reason, the actor needs to hear a reason. You may not want to tell them the actual reason but you must say something. Directors who just say,” Let’s go again” and roll camera, only create confusion among the cast.

It doesn’t need to take a lot of time. In the TV series Blind Justice, we were under the same time pressure as every other series. Nevertheless, after every take I would walk quickly over to each one of the cast and just give them a nod, a touch on the arm, or some other attaboy. Took only seconds. Then I go to the actors who need help and give them appropriate direction. Now some actors know they are on a good track and others who are given direction know what they need to do. There is always a bit of adjusting and messing around by the crew in between takes. Take advantage of that short time and keep the cast in the loop.

DON’T be afraid to say when a performance isn’t good.

The cast wants to hear from you. But find positive ways to phrase your comments. It’s a fine line to walk. You can tell an actor anything if you’ve gained their trust and they know you are supportive of them. Never insult them, or denigrate them in front of the crew or anywhere. You will lose them forever.

Oliver Stone: “Too many directors say, ‘That’s great, that’s great, that’s great’ to where it doesn’t mean anything. What does the actor believe? He doesn’t believe anything if the actor is always told, ‘You’re great.’ ‘It’s good, but…’ is a horrible way to start a conversation. I will go right to the point if I can. First of all, I look at the take and really think about it. I might wait three minutes or four minutes. So everybody’s shuffling around and the actor wants to hear what you thought. Then I go to them and I say, ‘You did this, and I think this is what you did and I think this is what you’re trying to do. However… this is what I think we should be doing. I’m not sure. I want you to tell me.’ And then we start a debate and that becomes a little bit of a debate. That’s fine, because I’m exploring it with him.”

Jeremy Kagan: “A well-known actor said to me, you’ve got to be able to tell me that I stink. Because if you don’t, I will stink. I need to be criticized, or I get lazy. This is an actor who knows himself and is saying, ‘Direct me this way.’ I often do say to certain actors when I’m meeting them; tell me what works with you. We haven’t worked together. Tell me what helps.”

Betty Thomas: “I worked with Kathy Bates once in Late Shift, and the first day of shooting I kept saying, ‘Oh, that’s good.’ Because how could it not be good with Kathy Bates? You know it’s good. It was good, but it wasn’t the character that she was supposed to be. Her character was based on a real person who was bombastic and rageful. And I never thought it would be so restrained and nice. I was trying to think. ‘Can I change everything? And I let it go for a whole day and that night I was destroyed at my weakness for not saying to Kathy, ‘This has to be different.’ So the next morning I just went right to her and I said, ‘Kathy,’ and she said, ‘It’s not working, is it. What should I do?’ I said, ‘You have to go for it. You have to go crazy. You have to let her hang out, or this will never, ever work.’ She said, ‘I knew that was true. I knew it. You’re totally right. Let’s go back. Let’s do it.’ And then she did the scene again and it was spectacular. Since then I’ve tried not to be so affected by great actors or big celebrities.”

DO phrase your comments to your actors positively.

“For God’s sake honey, you’re too slow, pick up your cues!” That’s negative in tone and a result-oriented direction. Try something like “What if you tried this next take as if you really have to go to the bathroom now?” or “Try it as though you’re about to miss your flight.” With a little practice it’s so easy to be positive most of the time.

DON’T do extra takes without giving the actors a good reason.

If all an actor hears is “Let’s do it again” they think they screwed up. It could have been a sound problem or a camera operator’s mistake. But the actor will always think it’s about them if you don’t tell them. If the camera misses a mark, then tell the actors they were okay but you had a technical problem. (Don’t bust the camera operator’s chops in front of everyone.)

Michael Caine told Craig Modderno in a Hollywood Life interview in 2005:

“The thing I hate to hear from a director is ‘Let’s do it again.’ By take three I’m going downhill. I put all my energy into the early takes — otherwise my fellow actors and the crew get bored with me.”

Get it right the first time and get on with it was Sinatra’s motto. Clint Eastwood, who directs himself, is the same way. He’s been performing over forty years and knows what he is going to do. If you’re acting opposite him you better be good on take one, because he will often print it and move to the next shot. If Warren Beatty is the star you can do 50 takes before he’s happy. Not so with Clint.

Clint was making a film with a young director who always wanted to do lots and lots of takes. Clint tried to work with this for a week or so but he was so used to directing himself and moving very fast that he grew increasingly frustrated. Still he held his tongue in an effort to be respectful of his director. One day in a scene the number of takes had gotten up to 12 or 13. After take 13 the director called Cut. He called out, “Clint, that was perfect… this next time let’s do it more….” But he never got to finish the sentence. Clint was already heading to his trailer. The last words the director heard were, “Kid, perfect is as good as I get.”

Dennis Haysbert: “If that was perfect, why do you want one more? Let’s not just shoot the hell out of it. And drain everybody to death. I’ll give you another one, but, I mean, I’ve heard that perfect word. What does that leave for you to do? Now, better.”

DO be specific about what your actor did right.

After a take, never say “That was great!” It’s too vague, too general. Say something like “When you turned at the door and said your line I really believed you.” That’s specific. An actor will never forget that comment.

DON’T lie to your actors.

Ed Asner: “What do I want from a director? To be honest. I had a prominent director say, ‘I want you to do the scene this way.’ He treats me like an idiot! I said ‘I can’t do it that way, because we’re on page 65 now and on page 50 I did this, this and this.’ He says, ‘Oh great, I see what you mean’. When I saw the picture he had recut the scene to be his way. How can you trust somebody when they’re two-faced?”

Judge Reinhold: ”The actor should never feel he’s being manipulated. The director should be creating a trusting environment for you and making you comfortable. If you HAVE to manipulate them, let them know it afterwards and tell them why. Otherwise they’ll figure it out on their own and never trust you again.”

DON’T hide behind the video-assist monitor.

The video assist monitor is a convenient place for directors to hide. But the actor is performing for you, not some mythical audience in the future. You want to give him appreciation now, not in the future. The very best place to do that is right beside the camera where they can see you. If you have to look at the video assist, then do it during the rehearsal and playback. The cinematographer can watch the monitor for camera mistakes.

DO discuss nudity and any other very special or unusual needs before you cast someone.

Few things are guaranteed in life. This is one of them. When you have nudity in a scene it won’t be a fun day. Women are uncomfortable with it. Men are uncomfortable with it. Transsexuals are uncomfortable with it. Even a porn star becomes more modest than Queen Elizabeth.

David Ward: “You can be sure you’re going to have two very uptight actors, who want to know exactly what you’re going to do. How much you’re going to show. Most actors really don’t like to do sex scenes. Most directors don’t either, because it’s hard to do them in a way that’s really sexy and it’s hard to do them in a way that’s original.”

Martha Coolidge: “I took the actors into my confidence, turned the video monitor around — they were both very nervous about it — showed them their picture and said, ‘This is choreography. Love scenes are not real.’ Young actors frequently fear that it’s going to be real sex, and what they’re going to have to do. And you turn around and tell them ‘no,’ if you don’t want to do something or you don’t want something seen, we’re going to stage it so the camera can’t see it. “

Even shooting partial nudity, in underwear or bathing suits can be a problem. People hide a lot they don’t like about their bodies under their clothes. If a scene calls for them to be in their underwear they can get really uptight about showing whatever “it” is. In one movie I wanted an actress to wear cutoff jeans. No way said she. The costume designer whispered to me that the actress hated her legs. That ended that. I am not making somebody wear something they are uncomfortable with.

There is only one way to handle any degree of nudity and/or onscreen sex: Discuss it with the actor frankly and up front. Do this before you hire them, while you still have leverage. If you are going to have resistance better to know it now. Never wait till the last minute. You will have a train wreck.

Go through the scenes with the actor. Tell them what you are planning, how it will be seen onscreen. Get story boards drawn so they can see what you mean exactly.

Jan de Bont: “In Basic Instinct that one famous shot set the whole relationship. Sharon Stone didn’t want to do it originally. I had to shoot the shot myself. I said, ‘Sharon, you really have to spread your legs a little more, otherwise it’s not going to work. I have to see something.’ She said, ‘But I don’t want to see it.’ I said, ‘Don’t worry about it too much. In this scene, we have to get a sense that you’re not wearing anything, otherwise the whole scene, we might as well throw away.’ That was a matter of just creating a trust with her… Of course she was aware of the fact that it did, because the camera’s between your legs, and there’s light there. You’re not filming shoes.”

JB: “Didn’t I read somewhere she claimed she was tricked?”

Jan de Bont: “Wait a second, that’s impossible.”

There are strict Screen Actors Guild rules, which protect actors from having to do any nudity that hasn’t been previously discussed with them and agreed to in writing.

When you finally do shoot a nude scene/sex scene only have a skeleton crew on the set. But watch out. Suddenly crews that haven’t been on the set in days make up bogus reasons why they have to be there. Don’t forget to look up in the rafters. Overweight crew suddenly have to climb 90 steps up to the fly floor to check an electrical connection…. and they’re just the Teamsters.

DON’T have intimate relations with anybody in your cast, or crew.

In fact, why not just drink Drano instead.

John Frankenheimer: “For a male director to think it’s a good idea to have an affair with the female lead is a disaster. In the first place, there are no secrets on a movie set. Everybody knows it, including the leading male actor who feels totally left out of it and feels resentful and who becomes terribly hostile. Usually the affair is over before the movie is over which makes it very, very difficult. I think any type of sexual involvement with any actor working for you is totally wrong.’

The same thing goes for two actors working together.

James Woods: “The worst thing you can do is screw your costar. Because now you’ve got to listen to her tell you how to play the scene the next day over the pillow. ‘Honey, you know in that scene tomorrow? Would you mind if I just took a little longer pause and have a moment,’ and all that crap that actors want to do. And now, of course, you’re pussy-whipped, so you’re going to have to listen to this crap.”

DO thank your actors and crew at the end of every shooting day for their work.

At the end of the day a director is often frantically focused on tomorrow’s work. The actor is left with little to do but brood. Having finished their work for the day they need active appreciation from you. Never think you don’t have to say anything because they were just doing their job.

Elia Kazan: “I often praise an actor openly. They’re hanging on you. They can’t see themselves. So when they deserve praise I always articulate it. I don’t believe in playing cool. One beautiful thing about actors is that they’re so exposed. They’re not being criticized only for their behavior, but for their legs and breasts, for their double chin; their whole being is exposed to criticism. How can you not embrace them and how can you feel anything but gratitude toward these people.”

Finally — DO NOT ALLOW ANYONE TO TALK TO THE ACTORS ABOUT THEIR PERFORMANCES!

This is the proverbial line in the sand. This is where performances get screwed up and confused time after time after time. Getting a performance right is tough enough without having help from everyone standing about on the set.

On a student film everybody is a director. Literally. They all work on each other’s films as grips, electricians, and cinematographers and know that’s the price of getting a crew for their own film. In other words they watch the filming not as a grip trying to do the best grip job possible but as a director who is there to help the director du jour with all their “helpful observations.” One award-winning young filmmaker, Stacey Kattman, observed that the set of a student film is such an egalitarian environment that one often can see the script supervisor or an AD piping in with “Gee that was funny when you picked up the toothbrush.” Though this may sound harmless, actors are so sensitive to criticism or praise that their whole performance easily can be drastically changed by one casual comment. And the director is standing there, wondering what happened.

Even assuming that everyone means well and isn’t out to sabotage the director, it makes no difference. Only the director can control the flow of input to the actor so that they hear a consistent message. Your onset kibitzer may have exactly the right note to help the actor but will not phrase it the same way as the director. The result is often a confused actor who goes off on the wrong tangent and the director doesn’t know why.

On a professional set the crew is well trained to leave the performances to the director. Even if the actor asks the script supervisor or makeup, “How was that?” the answer will be a polite version of “talk to the director.” Failure to follow this protocol is justification for getting their ass chewed.

Often, the trouble comes from the producers. They feel perfectly free to wade into any situation and hand out comments like M&Ms at Halloween. This is especially epidemic on half-hour comedy shows where the writers are all producers. They have no hesitation in running up to any actor and telling them how to read lines, how to stand, how to smile, whatever. Only the toughest directors will stand up to them and say “I’ll pass on any notes you have to the actors, only please let me do it so we give them a consistent message.” If not said with the greatest tact and diplomacy these remarks can cost that director his next job on the show. The producers are there every week and the director is only there once in a while so it is understandable that they may understand the show and the characters better than the “guest director.” However, the guest director is likely to understand how to convey to the actor what the producers want much better than they.

Of course there are exceptions. A stunt coordinator should always talk to the actor about the details of any stunt they are involved with, even if they are only doing a close-up and the stuntman is doing the actual stunt.

(This article has been reprinted with the permission of Michael Weise Productions from John Badham and Craig Modderno's book, I'll Be In My Trailer: The Creative War Between Actors & Directors. Copyright © 2006, Michael Weise Productions, Inc.)