A Quote by Matthew Macfadyen
People like to think that actors are terribly worried about ghosts of other actors in the parts they play. But you just have to get on with it.
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It's very rare that you get a part that you actually like. People have a misconception, whether it be because actors lie or because you're reading interviews from giantly, massively famous actors, but you don't just get offered parts, all the time. You actually have to work to get them.
Obviously, once you're finished, you're like, "Okay, I have to make this a movie now, and I need people - bodies to play these parts, and actors to bring this thing beyond a script." But when I was writing it, I wasn't thinking of actors; I was really thinking about creating three-dimensional characters.
If you have a great part, you have the opportunity to give a good performance. The greatest actors get the best parts, and the best parts make the greatest actors. There are plenty of people who are as talented, who just never got the part.
I don't really write with actors in mind; I write with characters and then hope desperately that we can get good actors to play those parts.
Some people get really worried about non-actors, but I think you can get brilliant performances out of people.
I try to take B genre movies and treat them as if they're A dramas. Get the cinematographers, get the actors to do an A drama, but it just happens to be about aliens or ghosts or crazy people, or killers, or whatever it is.
You work with every actor differently. It's like if you're a mother, if you have children, some children need more discipline. Other children you back off of a little bit and let them be. It's the same way with actors. Some actors need a lot of hand holding. Other actors like to be let be and you let them go. Some actors like to be nudged just a little bit. Some actors don't mind line readings.
There's two types of character actors. There's character actors who play all different characters. Or there's actors who always play the same part; they're just a bit funny-looking.
I hear about actors being exterior actors and actors being instinctual actors and I always think it's crap. Anybody who knows anything about it knows that good actors do both - they do inside-outward and they do outside-inward. You can't not do both.
Often you find actors have big hearts; they're quite emotional people. Talking to actors who date other actors, and talking to people who deal with other actors, they often get emotionally caught up in lots of different things. They often wear their hearts on their sleeves. They feel things quite a lot - often to the nth degree, which I can imagine could make it quite difficult to date some of us. I think it's about having an emotional availability that you can kind of draw on. But I'm also searching for that. I'll be searching for the answer to that question for the rest of my life.
I think, in general, straight actors should be able to play queer roles just as much as queer actors should be able to play straight roles. I think the reason why the debate is there is because we haven't had enough queer actors being cast in anything. People are in need of that representation in general.
The thing I was up against in documentary films - was trying to get non-actors to convincingly play themselves in a way I'd come to know before the camera started rolling. And many non-actors can't do that convincingly, even if they just have to play themselves - they can't be naturalistic. And I would always want to recreate something I'd witnessed them do or say, and it just would be incredibly difficult because of the fact they weren't actors.
I learned early on to abandon all those preconceived notions you have about other actors and it's served me really well. I usually just try to empty my mind of that. I love meeting actors and I love working with actors.
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.
It takes awhile for writers to get to know actors rhythms, not just as actors, but what they bring to the characters. I think it takes a few episodes for the writing room to catch up to the actors and vice versa.
It's true that old actors don't die, their parts get smaller. You're less likely to get the part, many parts, if you're playing people your age as opposed to people who are younger. There are fewer parts around.
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