Directing Actors Quotes

“In real life, as I mentioned in the first chapter, people don’t try to have feelings, and frequently they try not to have them.”
― Judith Weston, Directing Actors

“Sometimes I hear people say about characters, “She doesn’t have much of a sense of humor,” or “He isn’t very smart.” A character who is what society calls “slow” is not trying to be slow, so an actor who tries to show us intellectual slowness is condescending to the character and playing a result (society’s judgment of him). What such a person (character) is usually doing (his objective) is to struggle to keep up. An actor should never show us that a character is “slow,” but always involve himself with how the character copes with the cards fate has dealt him.”
― Judith Weston, Directing Actors

“It is especially important to cross out (or at least approach with serious skepticism) the parentheticals: “pause,” “beat,” and “she takes a moment.” All these kinds of stage directions are adjectives, adverbs, indications of transitions or psychological explanations, or emotional maps (“He cannot look away”; “She makes a decision”). They are not playable. What the writer has done by putting in these abbreviated emotional guideposts is to take a stab at providing the characters’ subtext. This is useful to the producers, executives, distributors, and agents who read a lot of screenplays—dozens per week—and need such time-saving devices. It”
― Judith Weston, Directing Actors

“Meryl Streep disclosed in an interview with Gene Siskel that for every role she gives herself a secret, something which her character would not want others to know, and which she herself conceals from her co-stars; in “Kramer vs. Kramer” her secret was that she never had loved her husband.”
― Judith Weston, Directing Actors

“Just talk and listen.” My own teacher Jean Shelton used to say this to us until we were tired of hearing it. Sidney Lumet uses this expression as well. Talk to a person. Listen to a person. Be a person, not a character. Listening is the most important element of performance. It is the most important thing a director should be looking for. Some of the things I say in this book are controversial, but this is not. Every good director and every good actor agree on this point. Even if they don’t always do it, they know they should.”
― Judith Weston, Directing Actors

“This is why many people find performances of Shakespeare incomprehensible, because the actors are playing the poetry instead of letting the lines mean something and playing the situation.”
― Judith Weston, Directing Actors

“I think that if you have a talent for acting, it is the talent for listening.” — Morgan Freeman”
― Judith Weston, Directing Actors

“The best actors are children and dogs because they’re not acting at all.” — Helen Mirren”
― Judith Weston, Directing Actors