A Quote by Christian Bale
I've always believed that the director does whatever the hell he wants. That's what you sign on for as an actor - I can't stand it when you have actors who are trying to leverage directors into doing things they don't want to do.
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As actors, we have the opportunity to work with many directors. Directors only work with themselves and other actors. They never know what it is like to work with another director. So that relationship that one has with a director is entirely always the king.
There are directors, and I think this is true of all directors, it would be true if I was a director - If the actor didn't want to do what I was suggesting, I would let him do it his way, and then I would say to him, "Just give me one where you do what the director wants", and that, of course, is the take that's used.
I'm very old-school. I like a director to direct me. I like to be the actor. I'm not particularly fond of the hybrid writer-director, or actor-director. Writers, directors, actors are all such very different people. I think it's unusual that two of those people are in one human.
When you're a director, you have great respect for directors. I am really pretty loyal to any director that I am working for and I want to help them realize whatever story and mood and tone that they're trying to realize. As an actor, you really just are a cog - you are an important cog, but you are just a piece of the machine.
But that's not what an actor does. An actor finds things in the moment with a director and other actors that you don't have time to hand-draw or animate with a computer.
There was a choice of being a director who's more familiar with the technicality of doing a movie, like learning about the camera and filters and setup, or being a director who can actually talk to actors. And I always wanted to be an actor's director.
I feel whatever an actor does on screen is something the actor 'does,' and what the director can do is to tell, talk or instruct. So, all the credit for an actor's performance goes to the actor alone.
I remember when I worked with Fassbinder in Germany, actors wrote letters to him. But you see, a director wants to discover you himself. He doesn't want the actor to say, 'oh, I'd love to work with you' - the actor says that to other people, too.
I'd love to see the rushes but it's just not allowed because directors and also a lot of actors feel that if they see their work, and the director likes what they're doing, the actor might try to correct their mistakes.
It's advice I always give to directors when they're starting out: Take an acting class to really see what it feels like to be an actor. And I have always felt like one of my strengths as a director is that I share a language and a vocabulary with actors.
As an actor, you want to remain vulnerable. You don't want to always have all the answers and you want to be fine doing things in the moment with your fellow actors.
A good director creates a playground for actors, and lets them go. The trick for a good director is in casting properly, and creating the playroom, and then they'll get stuff that they don't expect, and can't even direct. All the audience wants to believe is that whatever is happening, it is happening for the first time. They want to see the people within the work exchanging dialogue and action in that moment. There are not a lot of actors that can do that.
You're in a movie, so you have to think about how something plays. It's not like you're thinking about how an audience is going to react. You're trying to present the story. You're trying to illuminate the lives of these people in the story. So I'm thinking about how my behavior as this character best illuminates what's going on with them in this moment in time. I always say it's sort of the director's job. People think that the directors direct actors. No. Really, what the director's doing is directing the audience's eye through the film.
I certainly would never overstep my bounds and make suggestions to a director. As an actor I'm trying to fit to the best of my abilities within the director's vision, and trying to find some happy rapport where we can both bring something to it that's fresh. Usually I've been lucky in working with directors who have trusted my instincts.
I think one of the things you have to be aware of as an actor is that if you come on the set and see the director standing there mouthing all the words while a scene is going on, that's usually a very bad sign because it means the director has already shot the scene in his head. He knows exactly the rhythm and the nuances that he wants delivered in the line and you're not going to dissuade him.
I would say that maybe directors who act as well are easier with actors. I'm not saying that all directors have this, but sometimes you'll come across a director who sort of looks at an actor a bit like a kind of untrained horse that's been let out of the stable, like they might buck him.
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