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?’”
