A Quote by Gary Oldman
Being a good director is knowing sometimes when not to say something.
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Your own barometer is all you have to go by, and often what makes a good director is knowing when not to say something. On occasions you can find yourself on a film set where the person who is wearing the director's hat is only trying to justify his position.
What a good actor brings to a script is something, sometimes, even directors can't imagine. The director should always have the last say though.
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.
The quality of writing attracts me to films, also who the other actors are, who the director is, where it's being shot. Any or all of those things. But if the writing is really appalling, then the money had better be really good. Sometimes you say yes to something you wouldn't always do because you need the money.
Sometimes you have something to say, but you cannot say it through movies because there are restrictions - situations given by the director that you have to follow - so you are tied up.
You can give the greatest performance possible, but if you don't have a director who's pointing the camera in the right direction and an editor who's editing it properly, it doesn't matter what you do. The director and the editor are the most important people. Not the actors. Sometimes the writer is important. But if you don't have a good director, you can't have a good production.
Sometimes as human beings, we're so contradictory - we may say something or do something and completely contradict ourselves. That's what I'm learning to embrace in television - not knowing what's going to happen.
I usually work with the director and it's just a collaboration between me and the one person. I think you make good movies that way. If the director and the composer can have this common goal and this excitement about making something great, then you're going to do something good.
In the film industry you never really know if all the various ingredients will come together - sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't. As an actor, you don't have much control over those things. It's a director's medium in that sense. All you can really do is minimise the risks of being involved in something that might not work and look for something that also suits you.
I joke around sometimes and say that the DP [director of photography] is like a shrink for the director, but there's some truth in there.
One big power of an actor is knowing when to say no to something. It can be very tempting to say yes to something, because you're flattered that somebody would like to work with you, and your ego sort of takes over, but it's important to ask whether there could be something you could add to a project by being part of it.
One of the good thing about theater in the states, is that the playwright we do have a say, especially in the beginning, when the play is being discussed around the table. We talk about the play, and the actors listen, and there have been cases, you disagree on something... I mean, actors don't usually tell you what they're going to do, they do it. Of course, you try to speak with the director and say, "Is there any way you can bring this actor to do something different?" You try as much as you can, but then, you also have to be open to interpretation.
Being creative is having something to sell, or knowing how to sell something, or having sold something. It has taken over what we used to mean by being "wised up" knowing the tricks, the shortcuts.
It can be very lonely knowing that you have things to say but you daren't say them. Knowing that you could contribute to something but you don't dare quite do it.
Sometimes we take somebody who's been in the trenches and fought the good fight and been steady for granted. Sometimes we act as if never having done something and not knowing what you're doing is a virtue.
Before I do episodes of 'The Good Wife,' I talk to the director and say, 'I'm trusting you to let me know if it's too much! I won't be offended.' So I put myself in their hands, and most of the time they let me do my thing, but sometimes they'll say, 'Let's try this.'
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