A Quote by Eddie Marsan
I'm not one of these actors who can make a bad script good. Some actors, a script can be terrible, and they can bring something to it and make it really special. I can't.
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There are three things that are important for a film. Number one is story, number two is story, number three is story. Good actors can save a bad script and make it bearable, but good actors can't make a bad script good - they can just make it bearable.
I’ve never agreed with the conventional wisdom that ‘actors are great liars.’ If more people understood the acting process, the goals of good actors, the conventional wisdom would be ‘actors are terrible liars,’ because only bad actors lie on the job. The good ones hate fakery and avoid manufactured emotion at all costs. Any script is enough of a lie anyway. (What experience does any actor have with flying a spacecraft? Killing someone?) What’s called for, what actors are hired for, is to bring reality to the arbitrary.
You're always going to have ups and downs - if you look at the careers of a whole bunch of people I respect, some of them have good movies, some of them have bad movies. I remember Andrew Garfield said that the only power we really have as actors - or one of the main powers we have as actors - is our choices. We can make interesting choices, but as soon as you've made that choice, so much else is in play: the director, the script can change, the other actors. All you can do is try to make interesting choices and, once you're in it, just do the best you 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.
With a good script a good director can produce a masterpiece; with the same script a mediocre director can make a passable film. But with a bad script even a good director can’t possibly make a good film. For truly cinematic expression, the camera and the microphone must be able to cross both fire and water. That is what makes a real movie. The script must be something that has the power to do this.
A script is just a script. A good script can be a bad movie, so easily. It's the process that makes it good. You need a good script, don't get me wrong, but you need all those other things to make a good movie. You really do.
Obviously, once you're finished, you're like, "Okay, I have to make this a movie now, and I need people - bodies to play these parts, and actors to bring this thing beyond a script." But when I was writing it, I wasn't thinking of actors; I was really thinking about creating three-dimensional characters.
Most good actors you work with, they actually bring something to the creative process and to the script. They help shape the character with you. Whereas, some actors are so worried about their image and not about the character, it doesn't help the story.
All actors bring something unexpected to the role because they have to translate what's on the page and make a real character out of the black-and-white text that's there in the script.
When you try to be true to the script, changes occur. A script is there to show us a certain direction. But when you actually have the actors in and you start shooting the movie, you have the actor say a line and it doesn't sound right so you change it and make it different. It's the script that gives birth to these changes and the more you try to stay true to the script, the more that happens.
What I learned is that I should probably read a screenplay every once in a while before I said 'yes'. You could make bad film out of a good script, but you're never going to make a good film out of a bad script.
With a terrible script you hustle and try to make it better. But with a good script it can be trouble because you rest on your laurels, so to speak, you think it's going to translate easily.
It's much harder to act in a bad film than in a good one. A terrible script makes for very difficult acting. You can win an Academy Award for some of the easiest acting in your career, made possible by a brilliant script.
It's possible for me to make a bad movie out of a good script, but I can't make a good movie from a bad script.
I started out my career as a screenwriter and quickly discovered that adhering to a script isn't always the best way to make a film. You have to take into consideration the nuances of the characters and what the actors bring to their roles.
I could make a long list of writers and directors and actors I would love to work with, but the exciting thing for me is the unknown; getting an email through with a new script attached, or meeting someone who is trying to make something.
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