A Quote by Sheryl Lee
Media is a powerful thing, and you see it with so many actors, where one role that brings them a lot of attention is sort of how they get defined.
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I don't see myself as one type of actor. When you get one role, you start to get cast in that role for awhile because that's what people have seen you do, and have hopefully seen you do it successfully. And so, it becomes an easier thing to see you as, for casting directors and directors, and they start to think of you as that particular person or type of character. But, for me, I'm just an actor, first and foremost. The actors I respect are the real character actors, who are the real chameleon actors that completely change from role to role.
I think that for a lot of actors - especially American actors - to get line readings and to be told and have your director literally act out the part for you is sort of discouraging in a way. It's a very Eastern European thing to do - a lot of directors that I worked with in Russia did that as well. And, I never took that as an insult, as many actors tend to do. To me, I think it's just offering a certain energy - offering their flavor - and, instead of trying to sort of decode and communicate it to you, they just show you their flavor of what it should be.
What is this land of Instagram, social media? Having a lot of likes and a lot of followers, and getting paid for it? I kind of found it to be really twisted, but then I started to see how it worked, and see how powerful it was, and how impressionable we all are.
You give power to issues if you pay a lot of attention to them. The more attention you give them the more power they have. So the most powerful thing you can do is just get on and ignore it.
I think that so many actors are defined by the first thing that people see them do, and there were people who simply couldn't accept the fact that I was doing something that they perceived as being a radical departure from Avenue Q.
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.
All the actors I respect, especially old-Hollywood actors, the reason I think so many of them have had long careers is that there is a sort of mystery about them. You don't know what they do on Friday nights when they go home from work. You have no clue. You have this sort of fantasy about them.
I spend a lot of my time trying to draw the attention of actors to the minute and subtle details of human behavior, which was the sort of thing I was looking at when I was a neurologist.
In our society, I see public media as a lever. It pushes people by elevating them and their sights. It brings them into more thinking and understanding, and it brings us together.
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.
Drinking alcohol takes you into a lower state of mind. If you drink a lot of it, things get very fuzzy and they are not very sharp or defined. This brings you into a lower state of attention.
I also focus on Bush and his administration - who do a lot of lying - and how a right-wing media has allowed them to get away with a lot of stuff that, in a different media environment, they probably wouldn't be able to get away with.
If there's one thing that I know how to do, it's talk to actors. From what I have experienced working with so many different directors in so many different things, a lot of them don't really know how to talk to us.
And as cynical and jaded as many have become, you see the heroic nature of cops, who put aside a lot of their own personal concerns and their families to speak for the dead, which is a sacred thing. Over time there is this thing in them that is very powerful and interesting and provocative to me.
Ramy' is based on a lot of personal things, and it's interesting to see how many people feel like it's their story. And how many people view it as this democratic thing that should represent them.
I like to think in camera, but at the last minute the most important thing is that there is something happening between the actors. But good actors can have a lot of scenes going around them but sometimes it sort of helps the performance because it takes their mind off of who they are supposed to be.
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