A Quote by Idris Elba

Actors tend to not know how their performances are going to actually be used. Even though the script says one thing, in the edit, it can be something else. — © Idris Elba
Actors tend to not know how their performances are going to actually be used. Even though the script says one thing, in the edit, it can be something else.
I realize how much I rely on the actors to really know the lines because I tend to forget what they are exactly, even though I've written them. I don't have them memorized. But when it's going well, there is that point where the actor starts to know more about the character than I do.
Die Hard With A Vengeance shooting was a great time, because we had an interesting script. The first script was called Simon Says, and something was going on, because some days we'd get to work, but we wouldn't actually have dialogue. We would go to Bruce's Willis trailer, and they'd say, "Okay, you have to go from 168th Street to 97th Street today. We're going to do it in the cab, and Sam, you say this. Bruce, what do you want to say?" And that's how Bruce's "hey, Zeus!" thing came up.
Any script, even like The Founder, if it's something that I imagine myself playing this character or that character - any of the characters, basically - how do we flesh these characters out to be good enough to have amazing actors that come in that make it really difficult for them to say no? Even though I'm not right for any of those parts, that's just kind of how we go about it.
If there's a cutaway, you need to get it then because it's only going to last [a few moments]. You have to edit the movie as you're shooting it in your head and communicate with your crew about how it's going to work. While making a movie, you have the luxury of storyboards and a script and a bigger crew and actors. I mean, it's so much easier.
I think a lot of actors, sometimes what happens I think is that actors finish a movie and they go, 'Oh my god, I'm never going to work again,' even big huge actors, and so they'll take something thinking that something else will never come along.
In Chicago it's really a case of the play's the thing - people are just so happy to be acting, you know? We were all actors - not like in New York or Los Angeles, where everyone says they are actors but they are actually waiting tables and hustling for spots in commercials.
I tend to be very private. It's easier for me. When you're acting, you're very susceptible to comments that somebody makes, so if they know something is going to happen on the show, and they say something, it can actually throw you off. So I tend to not share things with anybody.
Actors always want you to believe something else even though that's the truth and to do that well it's almost a dying art.
When you're starting out, you know, you have to do something on a very limited budget. You're not going to be able to have great actors, and you're most likely not going to have a great script.
The truth is, a director wins an Oscar for a writer's script and actors' performances.
Don't go into something you actually don't know much about, in the hopes that you're going to get really financially successful and rewarded... even though people think you're, like, terrific.
When you work on something in an edit room with just a couple of other people, you never know how it is going to be received.
Look, a lot of directors were actors, even if they were unsuccessful actors which I think is helpful. I think it's a really helpful thing for a director to have experienced that. It helps you know how to talk to actors and how to get what you need from them.
The United States brags about its political system, but the President says one thing during the election, something else when he takes office, something else at midterm and something else when he leaves.
It's always been important to us to be original, which sounds really easy when you say it. Everyone says it all the time, but it's actually not that easy to be original. It's also something scary because if you're doing stuff that doesn't sound like anything else, I think a lot of people get scared of that. A lot of people tend to follow instead, they wait for something else to do something new and then they follow that. We just don't like to do that.
It doesn't matter how much polite self-deprecating fluff you have on the outside if you don't have a steely something in the middle that says, 'You know what, I'm actually really, really good at this, and this is what I can do, and I'm going to do it.'
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