24 Bad Behaviour (Part2)

Bad behaviour on set most often erupts, not when things are going well, but at the worst moments when the director and production staff are least able to cope with it. Many times, when faced with imminent disaster, when the schedule is bearing down and just about everything that could go wrong has done just that, I would come across an actor beaming all over his face, who would ask me something like, “ Everything going to your liking?” Once or twice I thought that they were being sardonic, but then I realised that they were solely concerned with their own performance and were blinkered to everything else. Often they had prepared for weeks, if not months, for their moment before the camera and if they did not think that they were going to get their due share of time and attention, that is when trouble would erupt. So, when the crew are pulling together in a desperate effort to get the show in the can that is just when actors start to get difficult and raise problems that had never occurred before. It is then that they start cracking jokes, fooling around, corpsing. If everyone-else is getting up tight, they, for sure, will be hanging loose.

It is always the director who, come what may, must take responsibility for completing the schedule, but it would be wrong to think that the actors’ spite is primarily aimed in his direction. In fact, quite the opposite: it is often deliberately hidden from the director and it is the production manager, the first assistant and the lesser members of the crew who get the brunt of their ire. Of course, sooner or later reports work their way back; these I have often found hard to believe — at least, at first. However, on some occasions I have unintentionally witnessed more than enough to convince me.

For some stars it seems that no inflated salary, pampering, or roster of perks is sufficient to quell their disgruntlement. Michael Caine is one of the few actors to have spoken out about this:

“During the filming of The Magus, I had a confrontation not so much with Anthony Quinn as with Quinn's kowtowers. Every day we'd get a bulletin from one of his minions: "Tony's in a great mood today"; or "Watch out, Tony's in a terrible mood today." One day I said: "Has he ever asked what mood I'm in?" The minion said, "Why should he?”(5)

I once found myself, similarly, on a production held to ransom by the leading actor. Everyday messages would go out as to his mood. These were never given direct to me but I usually found out about them from  my assistants. On one of his black days I was following our star at a distance across a narrow boardwalk which had been erected across a boggy field from base camp to the actual location. The previous day I had seen him giving court during lunch-break to a whole bunch of stagehands, extras and the like, all laughing uproariously at his jokes. Today, one of them coming from the opposite direction greeted him with a beaming smile, to which in reply he hissed, “Get out of my way,” and ploughed straight on forcing him off the boardwalk into the mud. I stopped to help him back on but our star did not so much as afford him a glance back.

Often the actors who are the worse behaved are those who bear a grudge that they have been passed by or accorded less star status than they think they deserve. One such middle-aged actor with whom I was working on a TV series was called to the set for a short two-handed scene with a frail old man who had been one of those recurring faces in British films stretching way back. I positioned him opposite the only window, and our “star” to one side of it. The basic lighting had been set with, naturally, the key light streaming in through the window. Immediately, our principal looked round at the rig, pointed to where the guest actor was standing and announced that was where he wanted to  be. The old man immediately gave way, saying that he would be more than happy to swap sides with him — which made it all the more embarrassing, not just for me, but for everyone on set who knew exactly what was going on. Why did this over-paid and pampered actor find it necessary to behave in such a rude and unprofessional manner? It was unnecessary and utterly inappropriate.

It has sometimes been suggested that acting is fundamentally an undignified way to earn a living and that is why actors become so obsessed with status, quibbling about minor perks and imagined sleights. But this is not just a case of being difficult with those in power. War can break out among the cast if one actor feels that another is getting more attention, or more time, than they deserve. Particularly if they feel that actor is not of their calibre, or not giving them the respect that is their due. Again, Michael Caine has spoken out about this:

“The sort of dirty tricks such actors employ are fairly transparent, really. As in theatre, there is the Upstager: he keeps moving backward a few steps so that the other actors have to turn their backs to the camera to relate to him. Then there's the Scene-Stealer: he's the chap who will put in a little move of the hands or turn of the head during your tense moment and steal focus. The Staller does a slightly more subtle manoeuvre: he slows down the tempo that was set at rehearsal, extends pauses, talks more hesitantly and generally prolongs the time that the camera is on him, thereby hogging the scene.”(5) 

These ploys, however, are nothing compared to some of the ones that have been employed on my sets. Perhaps the worse was by an actress during a semi-nude love scene with an actor whom, for whatever reason, she loathed. At the end of every take she would turn away from the camera and mimic vomiting over the side of the bed. In another pairing it was the actor who was out to nobble the actress. During an intense emotional scene, when the camera was focused on her, he would stare at her mouth, her ear, her nose, and then, at the height of her impassioned outpouring, roll his eyes to heaven. After the “cut”, when confronted by the furious actress, he looked around to the crew with an astonished expression of hurt innocence, and then patted her on the shoulder and in a paternal voice reassured her that if she just relaxed and had confidence in herself he was sure her performance would turn out fine.

There have been occasions, when the ego-hyping and self-consolation of particular actors has gone from being a laugh, to what, in any other context, would be considered criminal behaviour. At the end of a shoot custom-made costume jewellery or period ornaments have gone missing, or whole boxes of expensive cosmetics disappeared from the makeup trailer. Sometimes these things are not even done surreptitiously, but carried off in a quite blatant manner. I walked onto one set in process of being dismantled to find the prop boys huddled in a state of some concern. When I questioned them they nervously told me that the star had just walked in with his driver, picked up all the parts of an audio system, piled them into the drivers arms, and then told him to go and put them in the boot of his car. They were worried that they would be held responsible for the loss and wondered if, perhaps, the producer had given the star permission to take it away. Of course, he had not; but he had no problem believing the prop boys’ story and so they were not held to blame. Why would such well-paid and privileged individuals indulge in this petty thievery? One can only assume that they have a monstrous sense of entitlement. Or else need to prove something to themselves.

Needless to say, not all actors behave in this way or anything remotely similar. They could not afford to risk their name even if they had the inclination. Nevertheless, it seems that there is a climate around the profession that fosters an amused admiration, rather than a shocked condemnation, for those who can and do get away with it. Charles Marowitz has made an eloquent apology for this devil-may-care attitude.

“The actor uses his ego as unavoidably as the boxer uses his fists, and the hazards in each profession are equally as great. To an actor, ego is not only the tool of his trade but the prop of his life. Outside the ring, the boxer can stuff his fists into his pockets to keep them out of harm's way, but an actor's ego is always exposed, the constant object of blissful inflations and remorseful deflations.“ (24)

I don’t buy this. Inflated egos are not a requirement of great acting any more than city traders require reckless bravura — though, perhaps, both come as the consequence of the intense stresses of the occupation. In all these errant cases it is fantasy and not reality that calls the shots.

There is an old actors’ joke, which, in one form or another, goes something like this:

“An actor walks into a pub just after closing time and orders a large scotch. The barman promptly tells him that they are closed. Hearing this the actor draws himself up to his full height and asks the barman, “Do you know who I am?” He stares back at the actor for a moment and then turns to call to his co-worker — “‘Ere, Joe. We got a bloke here who doesn’t know who he is!”

One night, in the company of actors, I was amused to hear that prized leading question used in all seriousness. We had been filming for some time in the middle of nowhere and everyone had grown bored with the country hotel in which we were holed up. One day one of the cast discovered that in less than an hour’s drive away there was a starred restaurant. He took it on himself to organise an expedition and asked me if I would like to join them. I decided to take an evening off and go along.

Naturally, as this was a group of actors without the usual staff to chivvy them along, we were late getting away — very late. Our convoy of cars finally drove off down a maze of country lanes and were soon lost in the darkness. In those days before the sat-nav it was a case of reading maps and road signs by torchlight: an ambitious project that filled me with gloom. However, after a number of minor disputes and retracing our route several times, we finally arrived. But, as we all trooped in the headwaiter tapped his wristwatch and shrugged: the kitchen had closed. 

After a dumb-struck moment of disbelief, one of our number took the initiative and stepped forward. He was an actor who had played supporting characters in a number of popular TV series, so was a bit of a face, but not someone I would describe as a star. Looking the waiter straight in the eye he pronounced the magic phrase — “Do you know who I am?” The waiter starred back at him a complete blank. So, the actor, scratching his cheek with a fingertip began to murmur a long list of show titles. Suddenly the waiter made a quite apology and darted away. A few moments later he returned with the proprietor in tow.

The restauranteur earnestly scanned our faces and registered a blank; he did not recognise any of us either. But then an extraordinary thing happened. He suddenly jumped out of his stupor, shooed the waiter away as if he had committed a profound error, and began a deferential stream of apologies, amidst shouted orders that our table be prepared immediately. It was not a case of being overawed by fame, because I’m sure he did not have a clue who any of us were; rather it was a case of being overawed by the very idea of fame, the very possibility that famous people had come to his restaurant and not been recognised.

As we walked through to the island of tables covered in white cloths that had been assembled for us, our spirits bubbled up. For sure, the whole group got a kick out of this scam. The old trope had actually done the trick. Here we were and all eyes were on us; the whole place was now abuzz with who we might be. That night it became clear to me that everyone loves to indulge in the mythology of stardom but the ones who love it most of all are the stars and would-be stars themselves.

References

5. Caine, Michael, Acting In Film: an actor’s take on movie making, Applause Theatre Books, New York, 1997

24. Marowitz, Charles, The Method as Means: an acting survey, Herbert Jenkins, London, 1961

23 Bad Behaviour (Part1)

I have always found actors fun to be with. When they are good they are delightful company; open, bright, witty, generous ... But when they are bad ... An old adage among directors is that if you say you’ve never had problems with actors, you’re lying. Bad behaviour by actors, it would seem, goes with the territory. For the director it is an occupational hazard: you can bend over backwards to try to avoid it, but, sooner or later, it will unexpectedly rise up out of nowhere and leave you floored.

Actors can sometimes be breathtakingly pompous. They can also be astonishingly ungrateful. One minute they are pigging out on your food and drink, the next they are thinking twice about sharing their car with you or as good as ignoring you in the lift. They have a tendency to edit their lives the way they edit their credit lists whenever they fancy they might be getting a tad closer to their starry ambitions. I have come to the conclusion that all actors, whether they are on the dole or have their name in lights, secretly think they are still owed the acclaim that is their due. For most the constant rub of the mundane reality of their everyday lives against the glorious sturm und drang of their emotional lives keeps them permanently in a state of irritation, that is always bubbling just below the surface. In the movie Whithnail & I, a film about a jobbing actor without a job, this existential divide takes on such epic proportions that the title character, played by Richard E. Grant, soon became a real-life T-shirt hero — though, judging from audience numbers on the movie’s first release, I suspect, this following was pretty much confined to the insiders and wannabes of the profession.

One small-part actor, whom I met socially, reminded me of  the irrepressible Whithnail. He was a friend of a friend and so, despite his manic brio, I knew that, in truth, he was having a tough time surviving in the business. From then on whenever I had a small part for which the casting was not too critical I would put it his way. Until, after one such occasion, when he arrived on set and I went over to greet him, he stopped me in my tracks, drew me aside and whispered, “If I do this part for you this time I shall expect a better part next — a lot better.” It was apparent that in his mind it was him doing the favours and not me. To sack him on the spot, which I felt like doing, would have been out of proportion, but I made sure that I never employed him again. Obviously my help with paying his grocer bills meant less to him than his over-blown narcissistic pride.

In Whithnail & I there is just such a situation that chimes with this experience: Whithnail, who appears to be terminally unemployed, quips that he thinks his agent must be dead, and then goes on:

“Something's got to be done. We can't go on like this. I'm a trained actor reduced to the status of a bum. I mean look at us! Nothing that reasonable members of society demand as their rights! No fridges, no televisions, no phones. Much more of this and I'm going to apply for meals on wheels.”

And then, out of the blue, he gets a call from a director with work on offer but his reaction is, surprisingly, less than jubilant:

“Bastard asked me to understudy Constantine in The Seagull. I'm not going to understudy anyone, especially that little pimp. Anyway, I loath those Russian plays. Always full of women starring out of windows whining about ducks going to Moscow.”

Among the crew actors are sometimes referred to as, "the dummies", "the retards", "the aliens”, but, most often, simply as  "the children" — I've even heard actors, without rancour, refer to themselves that way. John Badham, whose credits include Saturday Night Fever, advising young directors on how to work with actors, goes so far as  to suggest they should study a book by Dr. Thomas Gordon, called P.E.T. — parent effectiveness training.(2) However, the most forthright and vicious attack on the behaviour of actors has come from, writer and director, David Mamet. After describing film people as “the salt of the earth”, he goes on to liken actors to a bunch of self-indulgent plutocrats who terrorise with their tantrums or fool around playing “heartless silly japes to lighten the mood”.(21)

For very many actors, I think there is a reversal of the usual mindset associated with going to work and that of going on holiday. Arriving on set, frequently on location, with a clearly defined character and role ahead is, for the actor, an escape from the diffused anxiety of everyday living. There will be a new build-up of tension as the moment approaches when they must step forth and deliver their performance; but, on their first arriving one senses among the actors a feeling of release. Sally Potter has suggested that, while most of us live in retreat from our own skin, actors must be full of themselves on set in order to be fully alive before the camera. Certainly, one can appreciate that a certain degree of brio is necessary to breakthrough the shyness barrier; but if these spirits once raised are not harnessed to the job in hand they can soon spill over and become malignant.

I have often overheard actors in huddles swapping stories of their colleagues outrageous behaviour in which they all seemed collectively to take an evil delight. However, it only gradually dawned on me that this was an attitude that could often be deliberately cultivated. I once worked with a young actor on the verge of stardom who spent much of his free time thumbing through lurid accounts of Hollywood high jinx. One day we were shooting a difficult hand-held tracking shot through streets and alleyways. Every time he messed up by not hitting marks or missing cues he would pull funny faces, make hooting noises, or otherwise play to the crowds. The shot was being executed by a veteran cameraman, who himself was something of a prima donna; after a number of repeats, he suddenly stopped, thrust his camera towards an assistant and retorted in a stentorian voice, “When you decide to behave like a professional call me.” And with that he stomped off. The actor suddenly looked like a little boy who had been rapped over the knuckles. With tears welling in his eyes he mumbled, as if in justification, “I thought I was meant to be the star around here.”

Since that time I have discovered that in Los Angeles there is a school of acting that goes beyond the well-worn practices of Method Acting to what it’s controversial guru, Eric Morris, calls Irreverent Acting. This approach might be summed up with the catchphrase — “irreverence to the material encourages reverence to the self.“ This comes down to the basic tenet that the actor must open himself to the moment-to-moment subconscious flow of experience and express his real feelings regardless of context and regardless of circumstance. 

“Accepting irreverence is accepting yourself, it is acknowledging that who you are, how you express yourself, and the way you experience the world are the most important things you have to contribute to the planet. It means having the courage not to run scared under the pressure of the take or an entrance onto the stage. It means standing your ground and allowing, permitting, accepting, and including all that you feel, and encouraging the expression of that.”(26)

He goes on to proudly relate how he encouraged an actress to honour her impulse and let out a blood-curdling scream in the middle of a scene much to the bewilderment of writers and directors in the audience. To me this all harks back to the long discredited 60s — “let it all hang out” — ideal of free expression. It flies in the face of the fact that any real character that is half-way to being a normal human-being comes complete with limitations and inhibitions. Indeed, in popular parlance this is just the  qualities that make up “character”, which results from having weathered the “slings and arrows of fortune.” In real life it is only at moments of trauma and psychological disorientation that raw experience, so beloved by The Method school, breaks through. 

It is not the director’s job to act as therapist or guru or acting coach — actors emotional blocks need to be dealt with but that is for them and them alone. Acting is not acting out and the portrayal of character is not simply a vehicle for the actor’s own self-expression. Liv Ullman has pertinently drawn this distinction.

Liv Ullman

"There are two ways of crying: one is that you allow your character to cry; but the other is that you get so moved by yourself that you cry. And then you are in deep trouble, because then you are into self-involvement. That's a danger for a lot of actors — their work becomes too much feeling — they cry their own tears and that isn't art.”(4)

Morris, who refers to himself as “a professional experiencer”, seems to conflate drama with psychodrama. Nowhere does the word self-indulgence enter into his system, or, indeed, humility. One exercise included in Irreverent Acting is called Feeling Special:

“If the actor gets in touch with being special and unique, he will be much more willing to take chances expressing his impulses. Since accepting irreverence as an approach to acting starts with the intellect, convincing ~ yourself that there isn't any alternative is a good starting place. As an inner monologue or out loud, express all the things that you feel are special, unique, and exciting about yourself.”(26)

 Surely this comes instinctively to all actors? It is just this that prompts them to take their first steps forward into the spotlight, is it not? And it is just this that needs to be checked and tempered by artistry. 

References

2. Badham, John & Modderno, Craig, I’ll Be In My Trailer: the creative wars between directors and actors, Michael Wiese Productions, Studio City, CA, 2006

4. Bates, Brian: The Way of the Actor: a path to knowledge and power, Shambala Publications, Boston, 1987

21. Mamet, David: Workers & Managers, The Threepenny Review, summer 2006

26. Morris, Eric, Irreverent Acting: a bold new statement on the craft of acting and individual talent, Ermor Enterprises, Los Angeles,1985

17 On Casting

The most spectacular entrance to a casting session that I ever witnessed was that of a good-looking young man just out of drama school. He burst through the door and came boldly forward, his hand outstretched, a winning smile on his face. But, before he reached us, the casting director asked if he would close the door behind him. His head turned back but his body continued on its forward trajectory — with a resulting spectacular pratfall. He rolled over on the carpet, scrambled to his feet, and looked around as if, for a moment, he did not know where he was. Then he started forward again, his hand outstretched towards me, but just before it met mine, he remembered the door, turned and ran back. As he turned back to face us once more, we all collapsed with laughter. If he could have repeated this on demand, and if we were casting a slapstick comedy, he would certainly have got the part; but I doubted he could, we weren’t, and I don’t remember his name.

Casting sessions are for the actor a test of character, cool, and charisma. They can be seen as a ritual of humiliation and disappointment or they can be seen as an invitation full of promise.  So much hangs on a twist of fate, or a quirk of mis-recognition. Some actors get upset that all their training and hard-won experience can be sidelined by a few minutes superficial chit-chat; but this is to misunderstand the purpose of these sessions. An actor’s technical skills and professional competence must be investigated separately — by watching DVDs, going to live performances, or seeking out recommendations. In some cases there may even be formal auditions or screen tests organised, but that comes later. The initial casting session is about the personality and presence of the actor himself.

One session that stands out in my mind was when I interviewed June Brown, who would, sooner after, go on to world renown as Dot Cotton in East Enders. She burst through the door, dressed to the nines, and carrying a clutch of glossy bags from fashion stores. By-passing the chair in front of the desk she plumped down on a sofa, kicked off her very high-heeled shoes, and curled up with her legs beneath her. As she lit up a cigarette she explained that she had been out shopping with her daughter, having a last fling, because she had seen the writing on the wall and knew her glamour days were over; from now on it was all going to be someone’s aunt or granny or the old spinster next door. I had to tell her that I was not casting any glamorous role. “I know, Darling,” she said and swung

her feet down to face me; “Tell me about it.” And, as I described
the character of a working class woman whose mentally retarded

June Brown in Rules of Justice

son and been falsely convicted of murder, I could see gentle waves of empathy flickering over her face. That she had shown me a flighty side that still hankered after a bit of fun made it all the more poignant. I knew then that she would be terrific in the role.

There are some directors — so I have been told — who go in for bizarre questions or provocative personal enquiries, or off-the-wall improvisations, but, more usually the meetings simply take the form of a job interview. However, it would be a mistake to put too much store by this, because there is rarely a specific competence that is being assessed, and, often, no very clear-cut criteria for the vacancy. Even the one-line description sent out to agents can often appear to be contradicted by the range of actors invited to interview. Many might conclude that the director does not know what he wants, and to a degree this may be true, because, while one might have an image in mind, invariably one sets out in the hope of a marvellous surprise and the original parameters can be overthrown in an instant. Casting is all part of the process of finding out what the piece is really going to be about.

Charles Marowitz outside The Openspace Theatre
Tottenham Court Road, London

I have rather flippantly described a casting session as being more like speed dating than a job interview; Charles Marowitz has given a more precise analogy.

“If auditions are a dilemma for the actor, imagine the situation from a director's standpoint. He is looking at the actor as if through a stereopticon slide--focusing his image of the role and his image of the performer to see if they can blend into one. He has his expectations, his preconceptions. He cannot be objective.”(23)

Nevertheless, the actor should never try to second guess the director. it can be annoying to sense that an actor is putting on a performance, adopting an accent or manner that does not quite fit, in an attempt to present himself as what he imagines the director wants. This can descend to an insulting level when an actor comes dressed for the part. I have had one young man appear in a pristine white suit in the middle of winter; another in a heavy roll neck sweater in the height of summer. Once I rashly told agents that I would hold an open casting for teenage punks. An extraordinary looking assortment of youth filed in wearing bin-liners and clothes held together with safety-pins, tripping over their bondage trousers, and drooling over rings hooked on their lips. As I was talking to one aspirant an electric blue rivulet wound its way out of his quiff and started coursing down his forehead. It reminded me of the blue candle wax dripping onto a plate of cold-cuts in Roger Corman’s

Mask of the Red Death. I was soon to discover that these kids were turning up early with large bags and then trouping into the toilets to change and put on makeup before coming in to see me. Full marks for effort, but as far as far as I was concerned, it was all just a smoke screen.

At a casting session one hopes to meet the actor, himself or herself, and not a projection of what they think you want, or their interpretation of the character. Frequently one just wants to tell young actors to be themselves; but, of course, that would be begging the question.  Mel Churcher has remarked:

“Over the years ... I’ve noticed a strange phenomenon. The interview that happens suddenly so you haven’t time to prepare, the one you're not bothered about, the one where you fall over or your zip breaks - these are the ones you get. Also the times when a steely resolve takes away your nerves and you think, “Right this one is mine.' Whereas the interviews where you try really hard to please and to give them what you think they want, those are often not successful.”(7)

To try too hard is the wrong approach; but to not try at all is even worse. The trick is not to be “outcome dependent”; or, in other words, don’t act as if your life depended on it! And, on the other hand, don’t act as if you are above it all and couldn’t give a shit!  What is required is that state of openness and equanimity that the Chinese call Wu Wei - of being at one with the Tao. 

A more down to earth guideline for the actor, and one that is easier to grasp, is simply to match status — to begin on the equal terms that is the basis of any creative relationship. That is, not to be obsequious to those to those with the power to hire, but not to try to lord it over them either. On occasion some actors may try to give the impression that the part is beneath them, some who try to turn the tables and act as if they are interviewing the director. And, then, there are those who consider themselves to be stars, and demand to be treated as such; who turn up in Saville Row suits and the like, and act as if they have just popped in for a friendly chat as they happened to be passing by.

Miranda Richardson

One young actress who knew just how to handle herself from the start, was Miranda Richardson. She came in to meet me neatly groomed, wearing a svelte trouser-suit. Though, at that time, she had done next to nothing, she already looked like a star, without being at all showy or contrived. I immediately liked her. She was very alive but very much under control. As we chatted I noticed a chunky white plastic watch on her wrist. She pressed it and a little robot figure sprang apart holding the watch face. As she set it on the desk she gave me a sideways look, as if inducting me into some esoteric cult. At that moment I knew she would be perfect for the role I was casting. Unfortunately, I discovered that she had already been put on hold by Mike Newell for the lead part in his movie, Dance with a Stranger;  and as soon as he heard of my interest he firmed up his offer.

Aware of the near-impossibility of foreign actors passing as English, I always tried to avoid the reverse situation. When a part called for another language I did my best to cast a native speaker. A script for Bulman presented me with a number of scenes where Russian characters spoke together. Though this was a prime time show, I insisted that these should be done in Russian with subtitles. In the days before the collapse of the Soviet Union Russian actors were hard to find in the UK. The Czech actor, George Pravda, was an excellent character actor, who had already appeared in the series as a KGB operative with divided loyalties. Previously he had only played in English but he was a fluent Russian speaker. And, as the KGB interrogator I was able to cast Alexei Jawdokimov who had previously played a tiny part for me in The Enigma Files. He was actually part of a Cossack dance troupe but proved himself a useful actor and went on to many subsequent roles. For the lead part of a woman assassin, however, I ran into problems. One day the casting director came up to me with a movie still of a very striking young woman emerging from a pool, her hair plastered to her head. She was Katia Tchenko; of Russian origin but living in Paris. I immediately said that I had to see her.

Katia Tchenko in Sins of Omission (Bulman)

On the day due for our meeting, her flight was delayed and, while we waited, several desperate phone calls were put through to our room, asking if she had yet arrived, and insisting that the moment she did we were to give her a message to ring a certain executive club. When Katia finally arrived, dressed the way all Parisian actresses dress for interview — in high heels, high fashion and sparkling with jewels — we duly passed her the message. She exhaled in exasperation and with a backhand flip and a shake of her head hissed in French, Russian, and, then English, NO. Was it French arrogance or Russian dogmatism? I did not know, but, I knew that it would work for the part. Further she had that distinct, but hard to pin-down, Russian look. 

After the preliminaries she was handed the pages of script which had been translated into Russian, while I spread open my dual language version; but after a few moments rifling through the pages she looked up aghast — What is this? I can’t read this! For my benefit the Russian had been rendered phonetically with the Latin alphabet. Foolishly, we had not comprehended that, for someone speaking French everyday, to then work out the English phonetic transcription and from that guess the Russian word that should be written in Cyrillic script was too much to expect of anyone. She put the pages aside and spoke to us for a few moments in Russian, but, unfortunately there was no-one there who could understand a word she said. Of course, it did not matter a jot that I had not heard her read — she had already demonstrated that she was right for the part.

Readings are like photos  — aids to the director’s imagination and memory. It is perhaps better to read straight off the page than to present an idiosyncratic self-directed interpretation. A reading alone will rarely determine whether an actor is hired or not, but it offers a chance for the director to get a feeling for the actor’s sensibility. Therefore, any personal connections the actor may have with the text, or the subject matter, even if only metaphorical, will be of considerable interest. On the other hand, generalised intellectual discussion is a trap that can lead both actor and director astray. On one occasion I became so engrossed in an argument that I allowed the session to run way over the allotted time-slot with other hopefuls left waiting outside the door. Later I learnt from the actress’s agent that she had left convinced that she had the part and was shattered when I turned her down. She was bright, but intellectual acumen is never proof of an actor’s rightness for the role in question.

An actor can rarely argue their way into a part unless an argumentative quality is just what the role requires. Generally a more subtle approach is needed. The casting interview is normally only ten to fifteen minutes long, and in that time the actor has the task of presenting him/herself as someone who could uniquely fulfil all the requirements of the role on offer. So, the best preparation is simply to imagine oneself in it — what follows from there is then wide open. The crippling problem that often arises for actors is that they become intent on controlling the impression they make which kills all spontaneity. 

In the classic book Impro, Keith Johnstone, calls anything unexpected that occurs to disrupt a routine an offer, which the players in that situation can either accept, or block. 

“I tell my actors never to think up an offer, but instead to assume that one has already been made. Grouch Marx understood this: a contestant at his quiz game froze so he took the man’s pulse and said, “Either this man’s dead or my watch has stopped.”(16)

For June the offer was the couch, for Miranda it was my interest in her watch, for Katia it was an unwanted message and a script she could not read.

A casting session can soon become a routine that repeats over and over. It is up to the actor to bring it to life.

References

7. Churcher, Mel, Acting For Film: truth 24 times a second, Virgin Books, London, 2003

16. Johnstone, Keith, Impro: improvisation and the theatre, Eyre Methuen, London, 1981

23, Marowitz, Charles, Directing The Action: acting and directing in the contemporary theatre, Applause Books, New York, 1991

16 Looking For Results

I only worked with Kate Nelligan for one long day. I had been asked by The Southbank Show to re-stage and film an extract from the David Hare play, Plenty, which had been a big hit at The National Theatre some years before. For this I was given the two stars of the original cast, Kate Nelligan and Stephen Moore. As they had performed the play to great acclaim over a lengthy run, and Kate’s performance had even been nominated for an Olivier Award, I assumed that they would both be very set in the way they wanted to do the scenes for me. I could not have been more wrong. It was a joy to discover that they were both wide open to direction and more than ready to hear what I had to say.

As the day wore on, Kate, in particular, I found quite fascinating as, over and over, she proved to be one of those rare actors who always surprise. She could play directions quite precisely yet the effect would be beyond anything that I had anticipated. Her behavioural language was so rich and nuanced that, whatever I asked her to do, she could quickly and easily make it appear fresh and original and uniquely her own.

Kate Nelligan, Stephen Moore in Plenty

By the time we wrapped, I was determined to work with Kate again, and told her so, but, such are the vagaries of the industry that, before an opportunity arose, she had left to work in New York, and from there returned to her native Canada. Prior to that, however, I had a scene reported to me from a BBC rehearsal room that made me laugh. Kate was working with a director known to be “actor centred”; after a series of gushing comments, I was told, she suddenly turned on him and snapped — “I know it’s bloody marvellous but is it RIGHT?”

A basic question and surely one any director should be able to answer without hesitation. Yet, in some quarters the idea has grown up that it is better for the director not to have any clear idea of where he wants to go — which is labelled directing for results. Instead, his role should be just to facilitate the actors’ process. Foremost among the theorists of this approach is Judith Weston, who, in her book The Film Director’s Intuition, gives the following advice:

“An alternate response to the actor's hypothetical "You mean you want it angry?" might be to ask, "What do you think? Do you think she's still trying to reason with him? Or has she had enough of his shenanigans and is ready to give him hell?" Here I turned the responsibility for her emotional life over to her - I have also translated her result-oriented formulation into verbs.”(39)

When I was first starting out in TV drama I tried this “Socratic Questioning” technique. The first couple of times the cast indulged me, before one of the old timers gave me a beady look and said, “Why don’t you tell us what you think first and then we’ll tell you what we think.” On reflection it seemed a perfectly reasonable request, and that was the method I adopted from then on. Further, in the above quote, as Weston herself proudly points out, she skews round a question about feeling to one about “actioning”. Although she addresses herself specifically to the film director, this is a technique more applicable to theatre than screen acting where the internal response invariably carries more weight than the exterior attack that prompts it.

Kate Nelligan in Plenty

Many actors are, of course, highly intelligent with a wide range of knowledge, and even those with little formal education, have more often than not spent a good part of their lives studying drama and scripts of all kinds. Of course, as a rule, they readily grasp what is intended by the writer and also that much is open to interpretation. It is the director’s role to provide that and then judge the actor’s results against this criteria. It is the actor’s role to be guardian of his own process in achieving that end. 

Mark Rydell, former actor and movie director (nominated for an Oscar for On Golden Pond) put it like this:

“I learned from an interview with a conductor I saw on television in Chicago. Guy interviewing him said, “I know this will sound stupid, but what does a conductor do? It looks like he’s waving a stick. They’re all playing the music, what does he do?” And the elderly conductor said, “I tell them how it’s going to go. That’s my job” ... And I never forgot that. Really what a director does is tell them all how it’s going to go.”(36)

Imagine the conductor of a symphony orchestra who told his musicians to just pick up their instruments, start playing, and see what happens ... Or started engaging in convoluted questioning as to how each player felt. Actors must be challenged: what they do by instinct is, by no means, the final word. To achieve this end they cannot stand back and judge themselves. They must shift from the dissociated, objective view of the piece as a whole, to the subjective view through their character’s eyes. It is the director who must remain on the outside as witness of what they do, a spur to greater achievement, and guardian of the result.

Only the director can know if what the actor offers up is right, because this is his job. The actor, Simon Abkarian, has summed it up to a tee:

“As an actor you invent things because of the vision of the director. No vision, no invention.” (29)

References:

29. Potter, Sally,  Naked Cinema: Working with Actors, Faber and Faber, London, 2014

36. Travis, Mark W., The Film Director’s Bag of Tricks: get what you want from writers and actors, Michael Wiese Productions, Studio City CA, 2011

39. Weston, Judith, The Film Director’s Intuition: script analysis and rehearsal techniques, Michael Wiese Productions, Studio City CA, 2003

14 Intent On The Present

I was shooting a Word War ll romantic comedy called Waiting for Dublin, and Andrew Keagan, had been flown in from California to play an American fighter pilot. Previously I had wrangled time to go through the script line-by-line with the principal cast and make any changes and adjustments that might be necessary. I had told the producers that this would save valuable time when it came to the shoot. I soon discovered, however, that Andrew considered these changes not to be definitive but just possible alternatives to be tried out when the time came. Some of his other alternatives he had shared with the rest of the cast, some he had not. Now he was changing the lines so often that it was not just the other members of the cast who were getting confused; he was confusing himself.

I was reminded of my early days at Granada when, in the bar of Manchester’s Film Exchange, I met an American girl who intrigued me. She had a zany, off-the-wall, manner reminiscent of Diane Keaton’s portrayal of Annie Hall in the film of that name. I soon discovered that she was a visiting actress who had  done a lot of work off-Broadway in New York and was very much a party to the “underground” theatre scene. Now she had scored a part in a play that was being produced at the studios. On the day of the recording I decided to drop by and watch from the control box. She was playing a young American, not so different from her real life self. and all seemed to going fine until, in the middle of her dialogue, she turned, walked across the set, and yanked open the door of a refrigerator. The interior was unlit and empty but for a few cardboard boxes. Suddenly there were shouts of CUT, and groans of exasperation. Immediately, the prop boys jumped up to protest to the floor manager — “We didn’t know she was going to do that. That wasn’t rehearsed.” The floor manager quietened them down before turning to ask the actress, “Why did you do that?” Mouth agape, eyes wide, she spread her hands in affronted innocence — “I was just trying to bring some life to this pile of shit!”

Coming out of the Beat movement of the 50s and the introduction of zen to the West there seemed to arise in America a mad desire to throw the preconceived to the winds and find spontaneity in the moment. At that time The Method approach to acting, taught by Lee Strasberg at The Actors’ Studio of New York held sway in that world. Among its alumni were Marlon Brando, James Dean, Paul Newman, Al Pacino and a galaxy of others. But now a number of Strasberg’s closest associates, notably Stella Adler and Sandford Meisner, broke away to develop their own system. Central to Strasberg’s Method was the practice of connecting to a character by drawing on personal emotions and memories, known as affective memory. Meisner believed this approach made actors focus too much on themselves and their past. He described acting as "...living truthfully under imaginary circumstances”, and encouraged actors to free themselves to react spontaneously by fully immersing themselves "in the moment”.(25)

Another who had similar differences with Strasberg was the actor and director, John Cassavetes. As a student, I had sat mesmerised through Cassavetes’ breakthrough first film, Shadows, which ended with a caption reading, THE FILM YOU HAVE JUST SEEN WAS AN IMPROVISATION. We now know that this was only partially true, but it was a key factor that rapidly lead improvisation to became the buzz word of the moment. The light-weight equipment that made this approach to film possible, had been developed during the war, but it was not until the late fifties, after refinements made by, Robert Drew, Richard Leacock and other pioneers of Direct Cinema that the new aesthetic possibilities were realised. Their breakthrough documentaries, such as Primary, were a revelation because, while they were centred around crisis situations which would have been the stuff of drama, the raw way that they were presented made all current acting look contrived and old-fashioned. It was that same confrontational, unvarnished, human reality, but under imaginary circumstances, that Cassavetes set out to recreate in the movies.

Whilst producing a collage of brilliant fragments, the first version of Shadows, did not amount to a satisfactory whole. For the second shoot, which produced over a quarter of the final running time of 81 minutes, Cassavetes resorted to a fully written script.(6) This revised version achieved world-wide success, including three BAFTA nominations, and so, for his follow up film, Faces, he started out with a draft script of 250 pages. However, during the course of the shoot, Cassavetes began accepting the “offers” made by his cast, modifying the movie as he went along, in order to incorporate diversions, intuitive mistakes, sudden impulses, unforeseen directions, etc. With the inevitable continuous reshooting of earlier material that this approach necessitated, the result was that the shoot, which Cassavetes largely financed himself by mortgaging his own house, went on for seven months. As he put it himself: “Faces became more than a film: it became a way of life ...” (37)

Clearly, this was not a viable way to go on making movies, but it enabled Cassavetes to discover how to script movies as if they were improvised. And, despite the fact that all his films from then on were pre-written, the idea of his films being improvised stuck. The surface effects of improvisation have been summed up, repetition, interruption, and hesitation,  but Cassavetes took it far beyond that. Firstly, he removed all setting up of scenes, (even though he had resorted to this in some of the written portions of Shadows), and then he removed all other forms of, what I have called, telling, but that he called editorialising. He then assembled his scenes, not in logical progression, moving from one dramatic idea to the next, but rather from emotional impulse to impulse that shifted, with sudden changes of tone and pace — through, what I call,  the feeling context — rather than pursuing any clear and simple line of motivation.

The cast of Trinity Tales : 

Francis Mathews, Paul Copley, Susan Littler, Colin Farell, 

John Stratton, Bill Maynard, Gaye Brown

One of my first forays into the BBC was to direct Alan Plater’s Trinity Tales at Pebble Mill Studios in Birmingham. Under David Rose’s stewardship, this outpost had become a hotbed of innovation, with drama commissions that would never have been approved by the London hierarchy. My show was certainly bright and original, with songs, jokes, plays within plays, pastiche and a quite raucous style of narration. But, I soon discovered that there was a parallel, but quite different form of experimental drama in production at the studios.

One day I was sat in the canteen reading scripts when I became aware of a dispute going on at the next table between a props department representative and some production staff. Apparently the director had demanded that a store cupboard be filled with every conceivable piece of household cleaning equipment. For a moment I wondered whether the kookie actress from Off-Broadway had resurfaced, but then I realised that this cornucopia of practical props was demanded, not just for recording, but for the whole of rehearsals. According to the union rules this meant that props operatives would have to be standing by for the whole of rehearsal period which seemed to be extended well beyond the norm. And, what is more, it was not clear whether any of this equipment would ever be used because there was no proper script — they were just improvising.

The director causing the stir was Mike Leigh, who had come from the theatre workshop movement and, via an independent film, was now attempting to extend this way of working into the tightly scheduled, union-controlled world of TV. To actually shoot in a free-wheeling manner would, at that time, have been out of the question, but Mike’s use of improvisation was restricted to devising the drama during the rehearsal period. The actors were encouraged to base their characters on a real person that they knew, which resulted in a range of characters not often seen on screen. It also lead to a deep identification between actor and role. However, in my opinion, the process of then transcribing these explorations into a fixed script, inevitably lead to a theatricalisation of the end product. 

Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Brenda Blethyn in Mike Leigh’s 

Secrets and Lies

Mike Leigh’s biggest early success, Abigail’s Party, was, in fact, derived from a theatre production and relied heavily on Alison Steadman’s wicked mimicry of a garrulous social climber. By extending his work into television and film he was able, on occasion, to focus on less articulate characters, as he had in his breakthrough film, Bleak Moments, but rules for composing the drama, which he laid down, limited narrative surprises, and restricted the final form the work could take. The most successful of his later works, Secrets and Lies, relies on the essentially theatrical ingredients of trauma, confrontation and confessional monologues. There is nothing of the febrile present moment uncertainty that Cassavetes set out to capture, or the fleeting images of time that belong exclusively to the cinema.

The focus on the present moment in American acting had largely come about in reaction to what they called, The English Style of Acting, which was about the polished delivery of a text. Meisner likened the text to a canoe afloat on a raging river. The river was emotion, which was what concerned him first and foremost. “Punctuation is emotional, not grammatical,”(25) are words with which he once summed it up. I would certainly agree that the emotional pulse of the actor is more important than marks on a page, but there are things that have to be said. Emotion may be a propulsive force carrying the text forward or it may be a counter force against it being spoken, but an actor cannot give himself to embodying that emotion if he is messing with the words. By striving for spontaneity he locks himself out of the present moment and is no longer all there.

It is ironic that Sandford Meisner is best known for The Repetition Exercise in which two actors repeat to each other the same observation, over and over, until there is a  felt impulse to change it. The point is not that the line is being repeated but that each time it should be said as if for the first time, in response to circumstances. Unfortunately, this has resulted in some young American actors wanting to do the very opposite and never say the same words twice. Often this can result in a mumbled mush of unnecessary grace words — all those ums and ahs and well okays — jarring substitutions and clumsy circumlocutions. It was amusing then to come across the following quote from Julie Christie:

“I can get distracted by the other actor doing something ...  They might be coming up with their own word for something in the script, but if it doesn't make sense and it doesn't carry things through it is distracting. If they keep saying the wrong word that can subconsciously affect your attention.” (29)

Acting truthfully means getting out of your own way and allowing imaginary circumstances to become real in the same way that an hypnotic suggestion can become real for the one in a trance. This is a level of belief beyond the rational mind, beyond words. 

References

6. Carney, Ray, Shadows: BFI Film Classics, BFI Publishing, London, 2001

25. Meisner, Sanford & Longwell, Dennis, Sanford Meisner On Acting, Random House, New York, 1987

29. Potter, Sally,  Naked Cinema: Working with Actors, Faber and Faber, London, 2014 

37. Ventura, Michael, Cassavetes Directs: John Cassavetes and the Making of Love Streams, Kamera Books, Harpenden 2007

13 The Superstar and the Pro

I was in talks with Channel 4 to direct a Bollywood co-production which would be shot largely in Mumbai. I was, of course, thrilled by the prospect, but the six-part mini-series hit a major problem before it had begun. The whole story revolved around a young Glaswegian cop of Indian origin who was taken along as an assistant by an English detective inspector on a trip to trace a drugs trail back to its source in India. At a late stage, the producers started to wonder who could play this part and, after an extensive search, discovered that there was no-one; no actor of the right age and ethnic origin who could also deliver the impossibly difficult Glasgow accent. Their only hope was a soul singer, named Shan Khan. Shan Kahn with Deepak Tijori in Bombay Blue Shan had trained in Glasgow as an actor but had since played only one small part in a BBC local drama. The producers asked me if I would meet him and decide whether I thought he would be capable of carrying the series. They told me that if the  answer was positive they would finance a crash course for me, working with a small crew, to take him through the basics of acting on camera before I went out to set up in Mumbai. I had on a number of occasions been struck by how unprepared for professional work young actors were when they came out of drama school. Even such simple things as waiting after the clapper board for the director’s action before beginning. Certainly, I felt there were many things that I could teach in a week. When I met Shan I found him bright, sensitive, and one-hunded-per-cent eager to commit. In fact, he seemed like a natural for the part, and so we shook hands and I went back to devise the syllabus for what, with a touch of irony, I would call The Superstar Screen-acting Academy. syllabus of The Superstar Screen-acting Academy We hired a rehearsal room for a week. Paul Gavin, the series director of photography, was free and eager to get in on the action; he brought camera, lights and a few of his regular crew. I decided that we would work long mornings, as is quite usual in TV rehearsals, and that everything would be recorded. At the end of each session Shan would be given the tapes to review at home as well as prepare for the next day’s work. We started off going through the basics that every professional picks up over the years, but, at least at that time, no-one seemed to teach — hitting marks, finding the light, working with camera movements, the eye-line flash, eye-lines to one eye, eye-lines within the matt-box, and so on. It was important that from day one Shan would be able to walk out onto the set and act as if he knew exactly what to expect and what needed to be done. As the week progressed we got on to more advanced topics. I was eager to give Shan the benefit of the long days and nights I had spent in the cutting rooms. There are extremely few actors who ever get a grasp of the process and importance of editing because to drop into a cutting room for a few minutes, or even a few hours, will teach you nothing much. It is only by sitting through the long, and often tedious, process of an edit that you will come to understand the reasons why one take is chosen over another, why a cut is made at one point rather than another, and all the problems that arise when assembling and shaping an actor’s performance. So we ran through explosive starts, the difference between cues and impulse points, how to give edit points and become pivotal to a scene by head-turn, change of eye-line, and so on. We did some present sense awareness exercises which lead the way into working on an interior stream of consciousness, which I called, Dreaming on Camera. To bring the Superstar Academy to a close I came to making more direct links with music; rhythm, pace, counterpoint, tone and underlying emotion. The next time I saw Shan was in Mumbai where he was treated by the Bollywood crew with the deference accorded a star. I do not know whether there had ever before been a whole drama series, a relatively expensive international coproduction to boot, revolving around a novice actor who had hardly ever appeared on screen before; but, if there had, I did not know of it. Shan not only had to be on set almost every day, but to perform as equal along side the veteran English actor, Donald Sumpter, a number of Bollywood film stars, and, the highest earning actor in Indian TV, Shekhar Suman.  Shan Kahn with Shekhar Suman in Bombay Blue Inevitably, Shekhar would arrive, before his call time, asleep in the back of his car, having come direct from another shoot. His assistant would then come and collect his pages for the day and check any special requirements for makeup and wardrobe. At a precise interval before Shekhar was due on set, he would be woken and handed the pages. At that point he would know nothing at all of what he was scheduled to do that day, and, quite possibly, not even where he was. When I first heard of this routine I was furious, but the truth was that he gave me nothing about which I could complain. By the time Shekhar appeared on set he would be line perfect, and have a sure grasp of exactly what the scene was about. He listened attentively, took direction without argument, always hit his marks, found the lens ... In short, he acted with a professionalism that would put most British and American actors to shame. As for Shan? He coped magnificently, despite disparaging remarks from some other members of the cast when they discovered that he had done nothing much before. He had graduated from The Superstar Academy with honours, and I was satisfied that in a week I had given him a fair grounding in how to approach the work and behave on set. What I had not prepared him for was the relentless schedules, the jarring start-stop rhythm, the self-regarding bitchiness, the curious loneliness of the actor’s life. [Shan is now making his way as a screenwriter and director and recently saw the release of his first film, Honour.]