A Quote by Gina Bellman

In England, I've never had to drive myself to work. I don't think the English producers trust actors to get up at five A.M. and get to the set on time. — © Gina Bellman
In England, I've never had to drive myself to work. I don't think the English producers trust actors to get up at five A.M. and get to the set on time.
English actors feel vaguely apologetic for being there at all. American actors know that the most important thing is to get one take out of fifty that is great, and they'll go to any length to get it. The English are used to working within consistently small, low-budget things and think, I mustn't waste their time.
I always had that get-up-and-go to work for myself - I never wanted a nine-to-five job.
As a child, I had to get up early for school or work. I'd get ready by myself. I'd set my alarm to wake me up very early in the morning, and be off to work, the family driver driving me every morning. I did it alone, my parents never coming in to wake me up.
What I learned about acting, from my experiences directing, is why so many producers and directors don't like actors. You go through all of this work securing a location, figuring out how to get electricity there, how to get trucks parked where they need to be, and where catering is going to come from. And if the actors don't come up with some magic, it actually didn't matter. That creates a lot of animosity towards the actors.
I think trust is the most important thing. If the actors and the director and the crew trust each other and you set up perimeters and boundaries, you give everyone space to do great work.
There is so little time on a set to build up a working relationship with a new member of crew. It is tough to be polite, especially in an extreme location where we will not get a second chance to get the scene. It is such a stressful process that I like to work with people I know and can trust.
I'm a big believer in to-do lists. I think of five things in the shower. I set goals and get my work done, but I have to plan for fun things, too. I'm always thinking about what will make my family happier. So I set up playdates and trips.
It is true that ADs do not get a chance to get a chance to create or produce, almost never, because it's whole separate thing. Most creative producers you have to come up on the development side, you work with agents, you work with writers, you're in the office and then the AD's are on the set. But it's a real shame because part of - no decision in producing can be made correctly unless you have all the creative information you need but you also have all the budget and scheduling information you need.
Being a figure skater myself and knowing what it took for my parents to get up at five in the morning to drive me to the rink before school and then drive me to practice after school - it's a huge commitment for any family.
It's funny because when you're a Welshman living in England, you always get the mickey taken out of you for being Welsh, and then when you go to Wales with an English accent because you were born in Bristol and grew up in Birmingham, they say you're English. You can never win.
I'd get off the set of 'The Wire' at 3 A.M. or even 4 A.M. and drive home to Washington to see my kids sleep and give them a kiss. I'd get up at 7 A.M., while the kids were still in bed, and drive back to Baltimore.
We're all unique as actors. To yourself, you are unique. You have to think, 'I'm me. I'm not going to bunch myself with other people.' Agents and producers have to get you into a box to accommodate their limited imaginations.
We're all unique as actors. To yourself, you are unique, you have to think 'I'm me, I'm not going to bunch myself with other people.' Agents and producers have to get you into a box, to accommodate their limited imaginations.
Comedians work great as actors because they're good under pressure. With a lot of actors, you have to make them feel like everything's going really well to get a good performance out of them. But, if you have a comedian on the set, you can tell them, 'Hey, you really are screwing this up,' and then they just get better.
One thing that is very different technically is that you don't get a lot of coverage in television. Not like you do on a film. I know we don't have time for separate set-ups, so I will design a scene where I'm hiding multiple cameras within that set-up. That way, if I don't have time to do five set-ups, I can do four cameras in one set-up. It's a different kind of approach for that. For the most part, a lot of television, in a visual sense, lacks time for the atmosphere and putting you in a place.
I think it's worse for actors, though, because people have to choose you. As a director, I get to choose the actors, but most of the time, actors have to be chosen in order to work.
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