James Cameron Quotes

Actors aren't stupid, mostly, and if there's a sensibility and an aesthetic that a director's going for, if you're aware of that too, you can do things to help that.

I'm really a director's actor. I rely heavily on a director.

I think what makes a good actor's director is somebody who understands what I'm doing and is respectful of it, but who also has a vision and is directing me toward their vision in a way that feels productive.

Any director who's also acted understands the fact that every person has a different process and has to be approached differently.

Alan Ball, he's good at challenging his actors, I'll say that.

Jack Bender is a real actor's director. Because he was an actor, and because he directed theater, he really enjoys that process.

If there's one thing that I know how to do, it's talk to actors. From what I have experienced working with so many different directors in so many different things, a lot of them don't really know how to talk to us.

Each actor, every single time you work with an actor, you have to come up with the language that's going to serve them. And that's what allows them to give the performance that you want to nurture inside of them and what you think they're capable of giving.

The way that I deal with actors as a director is I just talk to them forever before we even arrive on set.

Mike Leigh taught me about making choices - as an actor, you choose between being honest and clever, and with Mike, it's always about being honest. I learned how to behave on a film set from Jim Broadbent. He was a great example of someone with a fantastic career who kept his feet on the ground.

My mentor Jon Simmons introduced me to the Stanislavski system, which is so heavy on back-story. So you write and write and write these back stories about a character and then you throw it away. So then on set, if it doesn't come, then you didn't do your work.

I don't really prepare for each role the same way.

You know, I just tend to do the scene that I'm given, really. If it really needs it, then I'll go to them and ask 'What's she talking about? What's she referring to?' But often they don't know, or they do know and they're not going to tell me, so I've learned just to work with what I'm given.

I demanded two weeks of rehearsal because to me as an actor, that's the most important time.

I do think that's so much a part of what being a director is - in working with actors - to really try and be sensitive to what each actor needs to get to where he wants to be.

That is one of the reasons one enjoys acting. Now and again, you get scenes where you work with somebody really good and you have a good time trying to make it really work and really work well.

I learned my business in the theater and in television, particularly working with the actors. You can learn much more in the theater than directing a movie, because then you have no time when you are shooting a movie to really work with the actors. You have to learn this craft somewhere else.

As an actor, you really want to respect and honor the script. You want to try to be in the moment and you also realize that you're one part of a bigger picture and when they call action, you have your dance.

With any actor, if you know your character well enough, you'll know pretty much what he would say under any circumstance, or whatever situation might rear its head.

It's part of the job of the actor to torture the director.

Good actors, especially when they know their character, will come in and either tell you in advance that they have an idea, or in the middle of the rehearsal or the scene they'll let it loose and you go, 'Ah that's great.'

Part of an actor's job is to draw up a back story.

How do I act so well? What I do is I pretend to be the person I'm portraying in the film or play.

I'm interested in the acting and staging of specific emotions, and so I work with actors. It's a small proportion of what I do, but it's always what people seem to focus on.

Actors know how to talk to other actors in a way that sometimes other directors just don't.