A Quote by David Mamet

My tendency as an actor was to correct people, was to say, 'What if we tried it this way, what about if we tried that way?' That's terrible habit for an actor, but that's a good habit for director. So I became a director.

David Mamet

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About Actor Became Correct Director Good Habit His Way People Say Tendency Terrible Tried Way

Quote Author

David Mamet
American - Dramatist
Born: November 30, 1947

When there's an actor involved, the actor's talking to the director or the director's talking to the actor. But when there are not those two people interacting, it's all one person in your own mind, you have to be so extra-clear about what you need.

Cherien Dabis

When an actor plays a scene exactly the way a director orders, it isn't acting. It's following instructions. Anyone with the physical qualifications can do that. So the director's task is just that – to direct, to point the way. Then the actor takes over. And he must be allowed the space, the freedom to express himself in the role. Without that space, an actor is no more than an unthinking robot with a chest-full of push-buttons.

James Dean

You can be playing a line some way and the director wants you to change that, or you can disagree. But I always think that the creative conversation between director and actor is what leads to good work.

Ewan McGregor

Work with good directors. Without them your play is doomed. At the time of my first play, I thought a good director was someone who liked my play. I was rudely awakened from that fantasy when he directed it as if he loathed it. . . . Work with good actors. A good actor hears the way you (and no one else) write. A good actor makes rewrites easy. A good actor tells you things about your play you didn't know.

Terrence McNally

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.

Melissa Leo

You can say something that can really help and actor and you can say something that can really get in the way of an actor's performance, kind of cut them off from their instincts and really get into their heads. And every actor's different. Every actor requires something different. Being an actor, for me, was the greatest training to be a writer and director.

Josh Radnor

When I meet a good actor, I would like to be a director. When I meet a good director, I would like to be an actor. When there is a good script, I would like to be both a director and an actor. The switch is very natural, not intentional.

Jiang Wen

I do think it's a very good way to describe what a great actor does. You're both acknowledging the authority of the director and the necessity of the actor to push back and find their own voice.

Noah Baumbach

An actor puts himself in the hands of a director. And the director's first responsibility, obviously, is to tell the story, but the smallest thing that's not true reads on the screen. So if a director sees that an actor is not believable, he needs to help him become believable.

Tobin Bell

With a director it's all about the work; I'd work with a great director over - you know, I'm not the kind of actor who that doesn't go, 'I want to play this role.' It's more like, 'I want to work with this director,' regardless of what the role is because if it's a good director, you'll probably find a good role because it's a decent film. But a mediocre director will always make a mediocre movie.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers

Acting became important. It became an art that belonged to the actor, not to the director or producer, or the man whose money had bought the studio. It was an art that transformed you into somebody else, that increased your life and mind. I had always loved acting and tried hard to learn it. But with Michael Chekhov, acting became more than a profession to me. It became a sort of religion.

Marilyn Monroe

I hope that in another way we can move the need to say, instead of being a Black director, or a woman director, or a French director that I'm just a director.

Kari Skogland

There are some scenes that you have to lose in order to win something at the end. A good director will keep pointing you that way, but it is also your job as an actor to understand that there are scenes that you do, particularly when you are the lead, where other people get to come in and steal and you have to let them. I understand that but a good director always reminds you where those moments are.

George Clooney

I love the variety of films. In theater, you go into a room and the director runs the room, so you all work to his or her method. On film, if an actor or an actress is in for a day or two, the director has to get out of that actor what they need, so they have to change and adapt to that actor's technique.

Eddie Redmayne

My attitude as an actor, because I'm a stage actor, is whatever the director tells you to do, you try it. You don't resist what a director is giving you.