A Quote by Luca Guadagnino
As a director, what matters is how you penetrate the soul of the person in front of the camera and let the actor blur the boundaries between the character and the person themselves. In order to achieve that, I try to make people feel at ease, to be mindless of problems and be skinless and give everything to the camera.
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I've always said the one advantage an actor has of converting to a director is that he's been in front of the camera. He doesn't have to get in front of the camera again, subliminally or otherwise.
I have received the digital camera as a blessing. It has really changed my life as a filmmaker, because I don't use my camera anymore as a camera. I don't feel it as a camera. I feel it as a friend, as something that doesn't make an impression on people, that doesn't make them feel uncomfortable, and that is completely forgotten in my way of approaching life and people and film.
I really trust the authenticity of real people and my job is to get them to be themselves in front of the camera. Often what happens is, you'll get a newcomer in front of the camera and they'll freeze up or they imitate actors or other performances that they've admired and so they stop becoming themselves. And so my job as the director is just to always return them to what I first saw in them, which was simply an uncensored human being.
If a person is in front of a camera, they're acting. It's not possible to live in front of a camera.
I always feel like when I work with people, I work with everybody - from the person that's working the camera to the person that's running the water to the person that's putting the clothes on me, the person that's combing my hair, my makeup, the person that's like, 'You gotta sign these papers.' I try to hang out with everybody.
What I love is a good role. In the theatre, there is just a canon of extraordinary roles, the quality of character is amazing, but I also love working in front of a camera. It was the first one for me; as a kid I was in front of a camera. I feel at home.
The terrible tragedy for every director is to watch an actor do what you want and not have the camera rolling - and never get it back again. So I always try to roll the camera before anybody's really ready.
It's not just the actor in front of the camera. And it's important to have respect for all those people that work behind the camera.
I want to be the person who eventually doesn't have to be in front of the camera. I can be behind the camera and really change things cinematically, and this is giving me an opportunity to do something behind the camera, which I really want to maximize.
I'm so into making music and being behind the scenes. I'm such a visionary person that I don't see myself being the person in front of the camera or the person in front of the mic.
My McQueen particularly was hard to make, because my father was dying. I see it, and I see my confusion, my pain, my everything. I thought that it was really interesting to be able to put the people from behind the camera in front of the camera as they make it.
This is going to sound crazy, especially in America where there is a total inflation of the word "love," but in a sense you have to love the people in front of the camera. There has to be trust between the one who is behind the camera and the people on the other side, so that they can relax. They have to feel they are safe, and that way they don't have to pretend just because they are scared.
And as a director, you constantly try to solve problems, so you have to focus on that. You take away all the other parts. Of course, when the shot finishes, you remember that you have Robert De Niro in front of you. But when you're shooting, you just see a character in front of you, and an actor, and you try to search for very truthful moments. That's what obsesses you.
One of my biggest fears as a director is that everything is taking too long on camera. The actor saying their lines, the silence between lines, the length of time it takes to walk from A to B. So you try it at different speeds and then see what sticks in the edit room.
When I'm not wearing makeup, when I'm not in front of the camera, I can be just Hrithik. I can sit with my watchman or with the spot boy and chat with him. I do that. Which is why I am able to differentiate between the person I am and the persona that is projected. It's not the person people are crazy about, it's the persona, it's the magic of the movies and you have to understand that.
If you're a certain type of actor, then eventually stepping into a director's shoes is a natural transition. I've always been the actor who's very focused on the narrative, where my character is in the story, and how I can benefit the story. I've always had a technical aspect of what the lens is, how the camera is going to move, how I can feed the information the director applies within that move. If you're that type of actor, narrative-based, technically proficient, the next step is actually not that far.
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