A Quote by Ebon Moss-Bachrach

As an actor, you have to give up all control to the director. He's the boss and has all the power. I'm a control freak, so that's really hard for me. Then when you see a film later, it can be infuriating, really disappointing. I've been very lucky, though, and so many of my early experiences were great.
As an actor, you have to give up all control to the director. He's the boss, and has all the power. I'm a control freak, so that's really hard for me.
As an actor you don't control the end result. Because you're a director, you get to control the end result. I think for us, we really have to show up and participate and give. And then let go.
I like owning my own narrative. It depends: I either give it all up, or I don't have any control. It's really hard to go halfway. Like with modeling, for example, I kind of give up all creative control, and that's just that. But when it comes to my own personal art, I'm very O.C.D. I see something a very certain way.
I'm very pragmatic in that I know there are very few greats in anything. I got lucky just to have gotten two of the real great filmmakers very early on. Better to have had them than to not have had them. I've been really fortunate. That's the key relationship on a movie: the director and the actor. Of course, you can't compare the experiences. When you're in your early 20s, you're a very different person. It was a very exciting time, and my whole world was changing. Now I'm looking back, and hoping I can still offer something. Still do good work.
Not many people are really that meticulous with what they do, I suppose, but I'm just a control freak and terribly afraid of failure or regret. I work very hard on these things.
You work so hard at something to make sure that it's very pure and very genuine and very steadfast to who you are, so creative control for me is a big one. Thankfully, I've been able to retain 98% of it which I never really expected, so I'm very grateful to be able to control what I can.
It is one of the few elements in the process that a director really, really can't control: an actor's performance. If you have a director that understands that, it's comforting to an actor. You're starting the relationship more as a collaborator, rather than as an employee or some kind of a soldier trying to execute something you don't organically feel.
You never know when you're taking a job, ever... but you try to take good scripts. That's all you can do as an actor - take the best thing available. Even then, it's not [really] in your control. Certainly not in film and TV, because there are so many other elements. You just have to take control of your own performance.
I never doubted that if I applied myself and tried to learn that I would good at it. I've had a lot of lucky turns, no doubt. But it's actually been a fairly direct line from control-freak, cartoon-obsessed kindergartner to control-freak, cartoon-obsessed executive producer.
The spiritual in my art is giving up control. My paintings are based on what I can do, and what I can do is not controlled. So I give up control, and that's the spiritual aspect of the work - taking what comes and relinquishing control. Although they look very controlled, they're really not, because it's all poured paint.
I'm not a control freak in that like I boss everybody around, but like a control freak and like, I like knowing exactly what I get to do that day and having a say.
I think I'm an actor. You can hire me. I can do a good job. But you also have to get lucky now and then. Every film-maker knows how hard it is to do a good film. You have to just make many, and see how lucky you get.
I realized early on that I was pretty good at organizing. A lot of it was about control. While my friends were out getting hammered at concerts, I was making money. I am a control freak.
Film is such a director's medium; you're really in their hands in terms of the real storytelling. As an actor, you can give a performance moment to moment and some of your takes will be used and some of them won't. I think there are great films you can make with bad performances, and vice versa. There are all combinations of those things. It's really down to the director what happens, I think, so that's why it's really good to work with very talented, bold directors.
There have been so many stories out there about me, so many untruths. I've always believed you can only control what you can control. I can control my attitude, my effort, my commitment to West Virginia. I can't control lies.
I don't usually see what I've done. I don't often watch the film or watch the show. It's really about that experience on-set and within the scene. Because later, when the film comes out or the show comes out it's the editor's realm or the director's realm. But that moment on set, that's that electricity between me and another actor, and that's really what excites me.
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