Karyn Kusama Quotes

Once in a while you start having second thoughts, then you read a letter from someone that lifts your spirits so much - it really makes a huge difference. I love reading them.

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.

Usually I'm frustrated when I look at my films and I don't believe that I've made a real transformation beyond my usual sets of gestures and expressions. I still have this nagging feeling that it's me, that I didn't create a unique character.

As much as I can act, I don't have anything in me that yearns to be an actor - that sense of needing to be onstage, in costume, in character; that is utterly not interesting to me.

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.

Many times I've sat with a camera and another actor and seen all their fears and insecurities and struggles. You want to support them and help them as much as you can.

I know there are different kinds of actors, but I tend to have less effective relationships with actors who have a very private process - who really need to do lots of internal work, so that I become merely a witness until they're ready to share.

I like challenging parts, something I haven't done yet, something that scares me. There's just a feeling I get when I read a script that I love, I feel an attachment to it, a yearning to play that character.

Early on, someone had told me, 'You know, the camera can always tell when you're lying.' And, Jesus, that intimidated me. 'The camera can always tell? How am I going to do this?' Until one day I thought, 'Wait a minute, acting is lying. Acting is all about lying.'

Some actors, I think, want to feel that they are as creative as the writer. And the answer is, frankly, they're not.

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

It took me a long time to realize that you have to have a bit of an interlanguage with actors. You have to give them something that they can act with.

I always thought I was a pretty terrible actor.

When you turn up for work, especially with looking down the barrel of a show, you're hoping the person you're acting opposite of is going to be on your kind of crazy wavelength.

Know your lines; otherwise, have an open mind because you want to get lost in the moment. When you have talented actors and directors to work with, then it's pretty easy to do.

Because I trained in theater, I always leave a film shoot feeling like I haven't done anything, like I just sat in front of the camera and whispered, essentially.

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.

A lot of directors straight out of film school are very technically minded, but they don't have an understanding of actors or how to talk to them.

Established actors will challenge you if they don't agree with the way you are taking it, and you have to argue it. But with a younger cast, they are more likely to wonder whether what they are doing is okay instead of trying to second guess the director. That helps push you.

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

I'm not a very good actor.

When you're first reading the script and thinking about playing the part, it's slightly daunting. It's easy to question, 'Is an audience going to like me? And is that my job?'

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.

I've spent most of my life trying to make actors comfortable, which I think is 90 percent of getting a good performance.