Working with Actors Quotes

When they're good, I like working with new actors.

I love working with actors. I do.

Campbell [Scott] also directed me in a film with Hope Davis called Final. That was the first thing we did together, but I've known him for years.

As a director, I do very few takes, because I feel like you hire the right actor and they'll do the job right. And the directors that I've worked with and had the best luck with - Jason and [ Steven] Soderbergh and the Coen brothers - all have been that kind of director.

Earl Mills is probably the best role I've ever been given in a film. And it was a great experience to work with Halle [Berry] and Klaus Maria Brandauer, an Austrian actor who's a hero of mine. Martha Coolidge directed the movie [Introducing Dorothy Dandridge], giving me another shot, and it was an amazing experience.

Working with great actors - being part of something of that magnitude and not knowing the business and what the business entailed or any of that. I was so wet behind the ears, I didn't know anything. It's, like, you're watching movies, and then here you are in front of those people and working with them. It was pretty interesting.

I think it would be ridiculous to work with Tom Hardy. I hear some crazy things about him, and he's also really good.

My great joy in working on anything is stepping out in front of the camera and working with the actors.

I also want the chance to work with some of the best actors in the business, because that's where you can learn so much by just being on a set and getting a feel for how they approach their role and how they work with you.

I just love working with actors in general.

I started doing documentaries in the first place because of the war. I always wanted to do feature films, and I studied directing when the war started, so I was working with actors before, in film and in theater. So I think it's easy to work with actors when you have a script that is clear, when they know what and why they are doing it.

When I got into the movie business, working with actors was the one thing I was really weak at. I didn't know what to say to actors. They scared me and intimidated me. The actors that I've worked with who have had a lot of experience, or who I've even grown up watching as a kid, were really scary. I was like, "What am I going to say to this person?" But, I've matured. It's fun. I understand what actors do now.

I love working with actors, and it's great that I'm an actor myself. I know how I like to be directed and how I like to be talked to.

As far as working with actors, I feel very comfortable working in that aspect of directing.

I think casting is really important. Finding the right sensibility for the right part is an art in itself. If you're off there, you make it harder on yourself as a director. And it's fun to work that out with the actors. I don't think there's any magic to directing actors. It's very instinctual. Working with actors is really one of my favorite creative moments of the whole process, and the most fun, because it's collaborative. I spend a lot of time rehearsing. I'm very rehearsal-oriented, probably because I have some background in theater. I like knowing what will work beforehand.

I believe you can never stop growing and learning and I've been very fortunate to have been working since I was 10 or 11-years-old. I have learned so much throughout the years working with amazing directors and great actors as well. This was really a huge step for me because it's very different from anything that I've done before but I think the biggest difference here is that the cast we were surrounded by in this movie was unbelievable.

Just watching an actor in front you really provokes you in such a sudden, unexpected way. You can't ask for anything more from someone you're working with than that.

You never really know who you're going to be acting with, but that doesn't really matter. 99% of the actors I've worked with, and they number in the thousands, I've liked.

There's always an intellectual side to the films Ang Lee's doing and to the characters, and there's such a deep knowledge when you've worked with the actors that he's worked with, on stage in particular, but also in film.

Wasn't that a wonderful thing that I had a chance to work with more great actors, big stars, than just about anyone in the history of Hollywood? And some days I didn't know with whom I'd be standing face-to-face, and I was so impressed because they were all really wonderful people. And when you work with Burgess Meredith, Frank Gorshin, George Sanders as Mr. Freeze, it's a wonderful experience.

I think when you get the opportunity to work with someone like Lars Von Trier... I mean, Alexander Skarsgård, Charlotte Rampling, John Hurt, just to work with those actors, you take that opportunity when you get it.

It's true that I don't think I'd be a good director. If I were a director, I'd try to hire the best people I could and then leave them alone. I don't know much about cameras or lighting, so I'd make sure that I had a really good cameraman who understood lenses and lighting, and I say to him, "This is the scene we have to shoot and this is what I think it should be, you go do it." Same with actors. But really, very good directors who know everything do basically the same thing. They hire you and then they leave you alone.

Working with actors really depends on the actor. Most of the directors I've worked with don't really know how to speak to actors, actually; some of the best directors don't.

Drawing on the experience I have of now directing, to me, my one strength that I know is my ability to communicate with actors and therefore make characters really important.

I think with actors, if you just don't set about trying to crush their confidence immediately, you're usually OK.