A Quote by Gale Harold

You are preparing yourself for a scene, and the most important thing is to remain emotionally available and remain in the moment with your scene partner. You don't want to let your own self-consciousness block the flow of creativity that's coming out so that you can act and react, and play what the scene is all about.
Most actors work on a scene, I try to find out who the character is. So when a scene or a moment comes, I react the way she would react.
People used to say if you really want to crack it you have really got to go to America. But with the Internet and the scene how it is... Americans are coming here more and more. They are looking at what we are doing. I think it's important that we all remain here, that we stay here and keep this scene thriving.
My editor and I remain very disciplined. It's just sometimes when you're making a film, you get into the cutting room and you see a scene that's slowing you down in a certain section, but if you remove that scene then, emotionally or story-wise, another scene a half-hour later won't have the same impact. You just get stuck with it.
I don't want to give any lines to anybody because otherwise they come out like bricks from their mouths. The important thing is the meaning of the scene, not the words you use, and I prefer that you find your own words to express the scene.
If you feel like you're doing terrible in a scene, that usually means that you're not listening because you're too preoccupied with yourself... you're not listening to your scene partner. If you listen, you're naturally going to get that response that the camera's going to pick up because you just react.
I love actors and I understand what has to happen within a scene. Any scene is an acting scene and actors never act alone, so there has to be an interchange. If it's a dialog scene, if it's a love scene, it doesn't matter because you need to establish a situation.
The acting background helped a lot when I started writing. I was training for it. In acting class they teach you about the stakes in a scene (and) what motivates characters. When you bring a scene to class - as an actor with your scene partner - you have to do everything. There's no producer, set decorator or anything like that. You and you partner have to do everything and that's kind of like facing the blank page as a writer.
I always look at the motives behind each scene. You can play that out tonally with how you express yourself or you can do that with your physical expression, your physical presence. So I always think about what physical presence I want to embody in each scene.
It's no good in a scene to have one actor lie down because the scene says it's the other actor's moment. Each actor has to believe that with extra will, the outcome of a scene can be different. An actor can win the scene if he exerts the most powerful will in that moment.
Don't start a scene where two people are talking about jumping out of a plane. Start the scene having already jumped. If you are scared, look into your partner's eyes. You will feel better.
I moved to Chicago in the early 1990s and I studied improvisation there. I learned some rules that I try to apply still today: Listen. Say yes. Live in the moment. Make sure you play with people who have your back. Make big choices early and often. Don't start a scene where two people are talking about jumping out of a plane. Start the scene having already jumped. If you're scared, look into your partner's eyes — you will feel better.
have a much harder time writing stories than novels. I need the expansiveness of a novel and the propulsive energy it provides. When I think about scene - and when I teach scene writing - I'm thinking about questions. What questions are raised by a scene? What questions are answered? What questions persist from scene to scene to scene?
When you're doing a play and you're afraid of a scene, that's the scene you should embrace, because that's the scene that will tell you something about the play.
I know it sounds silly, but in auditions for film or TV, the words aren't as important - you need to get into the character and have the gist of the scene. But in theater, if you don't do it word for word, then you throw off your scene partner.
What I don't like is when I see stuff that I know has had a lot of improv done or is playing around where there's no purpose to the scene other than to just be funny. What you don't want is funny scene, funny scene, funny scene, and now here's the epiphany scene and then the movie's over.
You really have to take your time; you have to know your character and your scene. The line you are about to say comes from the moment right before. It's not what's said, it's what is in between the spaces, it's what's in between the lines; that is the most important to play.
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