No reader wants to sit through the same scene four times in a row, unless they're radically different.
Sometimes fake laughing is hard once you've done a scene 18 times. I don't want to brag, but I have a reputation for being very, very good at that. It's funny finding what's challenging about acting as you go.
Every actor I think has got their own number of takes that they like, you know. Some actors like to go all day, you know on the one scene and some actors want to take two takes. I personally like four.
I've had scenes where I had to cry, and by the time I've cried for the 20th time, I'm exhausted.
I remember in Shallow Grave I remember a few times when we'd only have to do one take. But when you did have to do more than one, you'd build on the one you'd done.
You're an actor, you want to do a scene in class. But one of the things I've always had is I've always had a really good memory. So I would go and watch a movie and then I would see a scene in the movie and I go, hey I'd like to do that in class this Wednesday.
You see one scene shot 25 times in one day, which is totally fascinating, but while you're watching it, you're remembering, 'This is what I was thinking when I was writing that part of the book,' and so it brings it all back very gradually as you're working.
When you do a slasher film, you find yourself repeating the same kind of scene, then it becomes not very challenging and not very interesting.
Some directors don't say much. Michael Mann, for example. I remember on 'The Insider' he never had much to say. He would do a scene, just kind of nod, and then set it up to do it again. And you might do a scene 10 or 12 times or more, the same little 31-second bit. And you could tell he wasn't satisfied, but he wouldn't say much.
On 'Mad Men,' I have a bit of an advantage because I know who gets better as they repeat a scene and who's best at the beginning.
If the [actors] are working, and I have a dinner engagement, I don't do 20 takes. I do five takes and go home. I want to go to dinner.
When you're doing the same scene over and over, all day long, you need to keep your levels up for your own performance and for the other actors.
It's hard when you see a scene where it's raining, and we have the rain machine, and you see it for 5 minutes, but that scene takes all day to shoot, and you do it with rain, and the dry off, and go back and do it again.
I like to try the scene over and over, but given the confines of television, I don't have that option.
If you're doing an indie and you have time, sometimes you can do take after take after take, but if you're working in television on that filming schedule, you don't always have the time to do that. You learn very quickly, I think, how essential it is to come in with the strongest choice that you have.
If you have someone falling out of the boat, you'd have to drag the boat up the river and film the same scene ten times, every time, dragging the boat exactly where it was up the river.
