A Quote by Michelle MacLaren
I approach an action sequence almost like a mathematical problem. Sometimes you get these action sequences that you read and go, 'Oh my God, this is huge, how do I do it?' and I go, 'Just a step at a time. Sit down and plot each piece of it out.'
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I think making a great action movie is one of the hardest cinematic endeavors. By definition, smart characters avoid action. Smart people don't go down dark alleys, but if you're making an action movie and you want to have an action sequence, somehow you have to get that character into that dangerous situation.
I have spent most of my time worrying about things that have never happened. Worrying is not an action! In fact, it is action that alleviates concern and dissipates worries. Take more actions when you feel that worry is creeping in to steal your time. It need not be a huge action, any action in the direction you want to go will do.
Coming from an action background, I always approach the action sequences in any script as kind of placeholders.
When in a movie like 'Housefull' you have to create comedy out of falling on a glass table or jumping from huge heights, it's all action, but packaged as comedy. Here you don't just have to perform a heavy-duty action sequence, but you have to make it look funny and that is really difficult. But it's fun... and I really enjoy it.
That and when you're doing live action you don't normally get to see the thing before it's in production. In this case we'd go in every couple weeks and look at animatic and sketches. The way they do it - is they'll put it up on a screen and the storyboard artist who worked on that sequence will talk you through it. Kind of like a pitch session. Then they would leave and we would sit there with the directors and say 'Alright - what if we change that? What if we do that?' It's very different from live action.
I try to stay away from stuff that's just action, action, action, action, action, and you kind of fast-forward through the dialogue scenes. I'm not interested in doing that. Give me a reason to fight, and I'll go there. But don't just make it, 'You touched my pen! Haaa-yah!' I've done that before.
There's always advantages and disadvantages to doing any role. And there's a great sense of achievement, testosterone, fun, being able to live out your masculinity when you play an action role, or an action-adventure, or a real tough-guy role. Really, if you're doing a comedy, you can sit back and relax. And it's good to know that at the end of the day, you don't have to run off for another two hours and go to the gym, or go spend the rest of the night swordplaying with stunt guys. Then I think, "Oh my God, I love comedy.".
I would have loved to do 'Alice in Wonderland.' Being a 'Bond' girl would always be fun. We had a lot of action in 'Eclipse' and I'd definitely like to continue down the action road. I want to do a romantic period piece, but those are really hard to get made because they're very expensive and there's not a huge demographic.
There are a lot of big action movies that we've worked on where the attitude has been, 'Let's just get through this scene.' Then you get those jumpy, what-were-they-thinking action sequences.
After I write a sequence, I just open the script and then sit at the piano keyboard and "play" the script. (And because I also draw and paint, sometimes I sketch out the action as well.)
Something that 'Game of Thrones' always does successfully is that action sequences are never just action sequences. There's always a point of view, and you're always identifying with one person or one group of people.
It's always irritated me that people say, 'Where's the action? Oh wow, there's no action here; let's go somewhere else.' These people will never find the action.
For me songwriting is very...it's almost like an accident. 'Oh I accidentally wrote about that.' I sit down with the urge to write a song and then afterward it turns out being really personal. I get really overwhelmed by how I feel a lot and sometimes - I feel like my body and my brain can't deal with all the different emotions and I feel like I'm just going to explode.
As footballers that's what we do when it comes to bonuses. we don't sit there and go 'yeah can I get £20million as a bonus.' You have to sit down, 'how much money does the club make, what's their reported loss.' You have to sit and go through it all and go OK, this is what you take, we feel that we should get that if we do this.
I've always been very strong minded on character-based fights and character-based action. If you take the character out of the action and you just shoot it as an action sequence, the audience starts to lose connection.
Every time I go in front of the camera, I have this fear of 'Oh my God, how am I going to tackle this? The director is going to say 'action' and I'm going to just keep standing there; I won't know what to do.' That's a constant fear I have as an actor.
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