Director-Actor Quotes

I view the whole thing as a collaboration. As an actor, I always found that to be the most freeing thing, when the director would collaborate with you, so that together you'd come up with something exponentially better.

I have to say from an actor's perspective, to work with a director who has been an actor through most of their career is a pleasure. They generally have a very deep understanding of the process of what you're doing, of how you are building and exploring the character.

Think of Frank Capra and Preston Sturges. They used the same actors over and over again.

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.

When you get to work with a good director, an actor's job gets reduced to half.

Sometimes what you lose in the time it takes to let an actor do something that you don't like as a director, you gain in not shutting them down creatively by telling them their idea sucks.

When you work with a great director, you can have a great partnership.

I'm very pragmatic in that I know there are very few greats in anything. I got lucky just to have gotten two of the real great filmmakers very early on. Better to have had them than to not have had them. I've been really fortunate. That's the key relationship on a movie: the director and the actor. Of course, you can't compare the experiences. When you're in your early 20s, you're a very different person. It was a very exciting time, and my whole world was changing. Now I'm looking back, and hoping I can still offer something. Still do good work.

There's something about actors - not stars, but actors - if they have the character, and someone is pushing and shoving them to be the best they can be, they enjoy that.

When you get confidence from your director, as an actor, it is all a matter of how your director says, 'This is how much I can get out of 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 an actor's director.

Most actors are pretty adaptable because we work with so many directors.

Look, a lot of directors were actors, even if they were unsuccessful actors which I think is helpful. I think it's a really helpful thing for a director to have experienced that. It helps you know how to talk to actors and how to get what you need from them.

In the life of a director - these days in particular - when it really does take so long to do a movie, with a few exceptions, actors may never work with a director again, even if they're great friends.

Having a connection and chemistry with a director is really key.

A good working relationship between an actor and the director is very important. It takes a while to build a comfort zone because filmmaking is a long process so it is important to connect with people you work with.

The dance that happens, between actor and director, is a very delicate thing...it's why people tend to work together on many films over and over.

It's developing a relationship with actors that makes it work.

It [the scene] can be something given to you and you go, "Ah this is a good idea, I can work with this." Sometimes it cuts right across your instinct and that's when I might resist. Even if the director might be insistent, I think it's very important to say, "Look, I'm not feeling this. I'll try to make it work but I got to let you know."

I've worked with Steven Spielberg three times. I'm proud to say that I'm one of those actors that continues to get hired by the same directors.

You spend enough time on set as an actor and it's great when a director was at some point an actor or understands acting. They're able to finesse performances out of you that a lot directors can't get.

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.

That's how I am as a director - if somebody does a really good take, I can't help it, I'm not even aware of it. Actors really, really need positive reinforcement.

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