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Watch Now – Actors Roundtable (Morgan Freeman, Nic Cage, Chris Waltz, Colin Firth, Others Talk The Craft As Art)
Interesting exchange between Morgan Freeman, Nic Cage, Chris Waltz, Colin Firth, Stanley Tucci and Peter Saarsgard – all actors in high-profile films this year who might be up for awards. They discuss acting as art, handling arrogant directors, and if they need conflict/discomfort on set to provoke their performances. Watch below in 3 parts:
PART 1 Part II PART III 15 comments to Watch Now – Actors Roundtable (Morgan Freeman, Nic Cage, Chris Waltz, Colin Firth, Others Talk The Craft As Art) |
  
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As intelligent as he sounds, you would think that Nic Cage would be a better actor. His smarts don’t always come through in his roles. Maybe he’d make a better director?
Possibly. I think I once previously read about his interest in directing. I’ve heard it said that actors secretly want to be directors, and directors secretly want to be actors. Not sure how true that is though.
Great post – thanks! TRUST is the key in this type of collaborative project. I agree that it is arrogant for either writers, actors or directors to believe that their singular vision is THE way a story should be told. Respect for what each person brings to the table is crucial to creating art. If a script is followed to the letter, I’d argue that that is not art – it’s like listening to a bad audio book – nothing but words. The magic happens during the process that evolves from these particular writers, actors and directors agreeing to come together to create.
As for Nic Cage, he thinks too much! He is a skilled actor but you can tell from watching him in the clips above that he is, more often than not, stuck in his head. He needs to develop his intuition, then trust it.
This is typical. I’ve sat in on so many discussions like this that for a while I really began to despise actors.
Actors love to perform, it’s what they do, but they don’t want to accept what that means a lot of the time. I’ve listened to actors talk this way about film and stage directors and it come down to them wanting to be in control. It’s like any other job where the employees see someone who is in charge and they feel like they are smarter or can do a better job so they become very critical of the person who is telling them what to do.
It’s been my experience that if you let actors make creative decisions that the director should be making it just results in them trying to create more screen time for themselves and more close-ups of those facial expressions that they’ve been working on for so long. They love being seen and often feel as though they can carry an entire story on their own. I once took an acting class from a very well known stage actor and I listened to this person give the other aspiring thespians tips on how to hijack a story and leave the director helpless. Apparently it’s not out of the ordinary for experienced actors to meet privately and plan out how they will hamstring the director if they don’t like how things are going.
They talk about arrogant directors and then proceed to talk about how they should simply be allowed to make their own creative decision because they are so great at what they do. I believe that the director should always be open to input from the cast and crew, but the ultimate decision should be left to the director.
Yup! The director, like the CEO of a company, or a coach of a professional sports team, takes much of the credit in success, and the blame in failure. So, in the end he/she has final say on just about every aspect of production.
I agree that the director is the HNIC… but what do you do if you’re the actor and the director is truly getting in the way of you doing your job, and they’re too arrogant to see it?! And don’t confuse it, Tambay, actors certainly get blamed for bad performances!!!! Even though good directors don’t often get due credit for pulling great performances out of actors…
You’d have to define “getting in the way” of the actor doing their job.
It also obviously depends on the individual situation; for example, if the star of the film is of a higher industry stature than the director, like a veteran actor working with a novice director, or a lesser known director, then, in those instances, I can see the actor calling the shots, especially if the director is intimidated.
But, in general, the director is the captain of the ship. If he/she is an arrogant prick, I’m certain word will get around amongst actors that he/she is hard to work with, which will in turn sully that particular director’s rep, because fewer performers will want to work with him/her; unless of course, they’re cranking out blockbusters or masterpieces, then, in those instances, actors will be more willing to give themselves over to the director. For example, Lars Von Trier is known to be quite hard on his actresses, and very stubborn, yet, many still opt to work with him.
So, as I see it, the director rules his set, which includes the actors. Like any other leader, he should be open to hearing opinions from others; but the final decision on any aspect of production, including performances, should lie with him/her.
In my experience CEO’s don’t know much about the daily goings on . . . they are simply looking at the bottom line.
There needs to be a happy medium . . . a collaboration. All this talk about actors wanting to do what they want to do . . . that’s disrespectful. Actors prepare for their roles . . . they were hired for a reason . . . usually their choices. Good directors honor that . . . and shape and mold. You can’t do that by being a tyrant. The CEO hires the best people to do their jobs . . . they set up the overall plan . . . and they allow the people they hired to do their jobs . . . and they keep managing things to keep things on task.
Once again, the appointed leader, whether a coach, CEO, director, whatever, is responsible for the ship. If it sinks, he/she sinks with it. If the company is losing money, the CEO usually gets fired, not the people working under him/her; if a team is losing, the coach gets fired, not the players. He/she is the one who has to answer to the public, or the board, or shareholders, not the people he/she hires.
Of course, as I said, he/she should be open to hearing opinions from those he/she hired, but, ultimately, it’s his/her show – not the employees, not the football players, not the actors. The director has a vision, assuming it’s that kind of affair, and he/she has to ensure that they are getting what they want from the other players – the DP, the sound person, the editor, and the actors. It’s a collaboration, but not entirely. There’s still very much a hierarchy.
There are exceptions to this rule, but generally, this is the rule.
The Director is like a juggler in the method to the madness, good,bad or indifferent, he/she should always be open for brutally honest critiques, tactically firm but more impotantly be the fulcrum point to actor.
A director hires actors so that he or she can direct them. A director is not simply a manger or juggler.
It is not out of the ordinary for actors, editors, DP’s, producers, etc., to use whatever power they have to pull the film in a certain direction. The person with the most power to do this from a creative standpoint is the editor. Depending on the situation the producer can influence everyone, but it’s the creative vision of the director that turns all of that energy into a coherent cinematic story.
An actor on a film set is not some lone artist painting on a canvas to satisfy their own creative needs. They are doing work for hire and there are parameters that they need to work within because someone has hired them in order to execute someone else’s vision. There are bad directors, but that comes with the territory. It’s not up to the actor to decide what direction a production needs to go in at that point.
How the actors performance will be interpreted is largely up to the editor and director. They can prepare all they want, but they don’t know what going to end up on the cutting room floor, or what what will come before or after that reaction shot. Some actors have had their entire performance removed from the final cut. If actors don’t like this they need to stick to the stage.
@ Qadree, while i agree with your fundamental points, but i still hold reservations on completely playing the ‘Monopolizer Card’,even though i’m a cineaste/auteur. it’s true editors/directors/producers monopolized the control buttons,i am unbridled sometimes too, but when it comes to surreptitously perpetrating ‘pompous’ attitutes that might hinder the ‘Egalitarian Process’,then that’s where we part the murky waters,it’s not always about goin mike tyson on a hapless actor, when they might be stuck in a blue funk,unless of course if they just orbiting in this grey area with indicisiveness, but what i get from you , is some kind of unyielding Director’s Plutocracy?,even in that pyramid sitaution, we should always be “flexible” because that other way, well? that’s some staight up George Raft shit, for real. its funny because late great underrated stage/film actors-Canada Lee and William Marshall(Blacula-star trak fame)were both understudies to the Great Cosmopolitan Actor/Everyman -Paul Robeson, both advocated active engagements with the “host” director weather it be on stage or the far and few between films they made.On numerous occassions they push the “ID” of the performance and/or its trancendence, whereas in the malstrom of creativity,both the director and actor reach a ’summit’ that’s why we have rehersals, to be able to mode/struggle/break neo-colonial strangleholds on westernized ‘methods’,We Africans! the REHERSAL can perform the exorcisms from these psychological captors which inhibits alot of these bloated,inflated,aggitated egos(ie;actors)and/or pompous apolital,ahistorical wanna be auteurs(directors) so Qadree, if what you suggest, that the director completely two fist or ‘owned’ the organic process, then tell me, what’s in the potency of your earlier scribe?, whereas that one renegade actor you watch toyed with the idea of ‘hi-jacking’ the story if he dont get his way with the Director,its THERE i agree with you, wholeheardedly, it’s almost like a split personaility procedual `ala W.e.B.Dubois, but dont get me wrong, i have in the past,Dictated the Action with Extreme Prejudice and Administered Bull Horn Dictator’s Cut! on the Set!,because i have been on sets where shit like that unfolded and the diconbogulated director looking like he just lost his best friend, but i like to think , that its a little different for us black folk and those dynamics still plague a many communal surround weather on a film set or stage, being that there’s so few roles in hollywierd, it’s even more abysmal now, so if i read you correctly we directors are “devoid of light mind” and we can run all kind of game,especally if some poot butt thespian what to pontificate on my filmmic canvas, i tell them, in fact i have done it in the past, if they want to hold my “set” hostage? because they’re in the ‘moment’without a valid reason or plummett me with vaque platitutes as my production begins to wane, i’ve told him, he can always go carve or sculpt government cheese.
It’s not about “owning” the process, it’s about directing it. They don’t call the director the director for nothing.
Morgan Freeman talks about looking the director in the face and saying “I’m not going to do it.” They talk about how the director saying action doesn’t mean you have to do anything, yet they think the director is the one getting in the way.
I think people are Morgan Freeman can justify resiting a director from a business standpoint because the producers will be more willing to fire a director than they would a Morgan Freeman. Major stars have to protect their brand/image and they will resist a director if they think their image might suffer from doing what the director says. Whenever you hear industry types talking a bout artistry, artistic differences, etc., they are usually just trying to lend artistic credibility to what are essentially business decisions.
Tomatoes or Tomato’s?
Decisions,Decisions,Decisions, it aint about being a “sock puppet” its about the Contents inside the POTPOURRI @ THE MOLOTOV COCKTAIL PARTY over here, over there, everywhere we ARe Pan in the creative Process, that’s what manifest, i’m not feeling Bernie Madolf nor Adam Smith, we try to wage idealogical struggle with the material(Script,Theme, Interpetation)and hopefully try to create a Mosaic interwoven with trapestry of ALL our BENNETON COLORS, so to be held in captivity or worse purse strings pulled by some poot butt suit or studio hack in a corporate quadmire at the behest of a Bus. decision,huh? aint no happenings,broh those bottom feeders/dream robbers are all in bed with the final cut! peep what Maverick Directors like- sam fuller,Jean Luc Goddard,Jim jarmursh,haile gerima and Julie dash did:0 when you do,get back at me,its not all Ganja Smoke or Tinted Mirrors.