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.”1
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.
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John Badham is the critically acclaimed director of dozens of cinematic and television movies, including: Saturday Night Fever, WarGames, Point of No Return, The Stakeout, and Bird on a Wire.In April 2005, he became head of the directing program at Chapman University, where he continues to teach. His first book, I'll Be in My Trailer: The Creative Wars Between Actors and Directors, features some of the most helpful (and sometimes hard-learned) lessons of his 37-year career.
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(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.)
