A Quote by Christopher Meledandri
You have to start with the notion that you pick the actor who's going to embody the role, the best person that you can find. If you don't start with that then it sort of defies the whole purpose of trying to make the best film that you can make.
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Composing is to think. It is to have your mind trying to find what is the best sound that the movie is going for: the best melody, the best texture, the best structure and dramaturgic arc for the film. Then you discuss that with the director. He's the leader. He's the one showing you the path to follow to find the soul of the film.
When you start to find balance, then you start to ask more important questions, like, 'Who am I really?' That's when you start seeing that every single person around you is a human being just doing the best that they can.
When you start out as an actor, you read a script thinking of it at its best. But that's not usually the case in general, and usually what you have to do is you have to read a script and think of it at its worst. You read it going, "OK, how bad could this be?" first and foremost. You cannot make a good film out of a bad script. You can make a bad film out of a good script, but you can't make a good film out of a bad script.
You start out with big dreams and I mean, big dreams artistically. You want to work with the greatest living directors, make a great movie. I wanted to make a great love story, I wanted to make a great epic and then you realize that the truth of it is that it's so hard to make a great film. It's hard to get a great role. Those big expectations change to realism pretty quickly. But what's never changed is my desire to work with great directors and to find projects that push me out of my comfort zone and keep me alive. I still don't think I've done my best work
There's nobody you can point to in the world that doesn't make a mistake. The best players, the best business people, the best coaches. So one thing is not going to make or break a person.
I used to go to the Church of the Harvest, right off Adams and La Brea. There was a pastor there who had the best big choir and the best band. He would start praying, and the music would start playing and just make people feel so good, you could break out of whatever you were going through. Soft music can have that effect, too.
I have a list as long as my arm but I find those lists sort of self-defeating because you start to name and then after [the interviewer] leaves the room you go 'Ah, I forgot this person or that person.' So I just don't do it anymore. Hopefully if you make work that people like, they'll get in contact with you.
I'm a physical actor in that I start with a physical sketch of the character. I find it easier to find inspiration from the outside in. If I find the character's tensions and the way he carries himself or looks, that's going to affect how I talk. So that's how I start to create that person.
The tendency of the casual mind is to pick out or stumble upon a sample which supports or defies its prejudices, and then to make it the representative of a whole class.
Having small children, you start thinking about how everything in your life revolves around doing the best you can for this little being, trying to make a good life for that person.
With a franchise movie, it's got to turn the wheels of the industry, and the studio has to have them. So you start with a release date. They say we're going to make a new 'Bourne' film, and it comes out summer of X. Then they start on a script, and invariably, the script is not ready in time.
Once you start compromising, once you start trying to keep cost lower, this is not luxury. Luxury is wanting the best and using the best materials with which to do that.
Everybody grows up and they have to make decisions, and they try and make the best decisions that they know how to. It's taken them their whole lives to finally step out and start making their own decisions.
I don't see myself as one type of actor. When you get one role, you start to get cast in that role for awhile because that's what people have seen you do, and have hopefully seen you do it successfully. And so, it becomes an easier thing to see you as, for casting directors and directors, and they start to think of you as that particular person or type of character. But, for me, I'm just an actor, first and foremost. The actors I respect are the real character actors, who are the real chameleon actors that completely change from role to role.
But where was I to start? The world is so vast, I shall start with the country I knew best, my own. But my country is so very large. I had better start with my town. But my town, too, is large. I had best start with my street. No, my home. No, my family. Never mind, I shall start with myself.
When you're just starting out in the TV business, you don't know anything at all, and you think you're doing a better job than everyone else around you, and you just sort of presume that you're not getting the credit you deserve. And then when you start to get better, the pressure is extraordinary, and then you start to second-guess everything you do, and when people start looking to you for answers, for insight and for analysis and guidance, you start to wonder if you are the right person - even when you have all the information.
