Acting in Film

the brain. You feel and look like an absolute twit, panting away, but you find you get a rush to your head, your eyes begin to sparkle a bit, and you're ready to play an energetic scene, mental or physical. Just be careful not to overdo the panting or you will hyperventilate and pass out.

    Usually I play the character who terrifies other people, so in Sleuth, it was rather an unfamiliar experience when my character thought he was going to be killed and was abjectly terrified himself. Instead of dealing with my natural nervousness about the scene, I purposely let my nerves take over. I was surprised at the extent of them. It was relatively simple to become a gibbering wreck. Larry Olivier knew immediately what was happening with me and played up to it, so on that occasion my fears helped me out. But the way I figure it, generally I need all the help I can get to calm down.
    In film, you make your actions and reactions realities whenever you can. If you're supposed to be breathless from running, get breathless from running. On stage, technique can often fool an audience: you can act as though you are breathless from having run ten laps, you can drop a coffee cup and the audience will believe you are anxious. But in film, you cannot fool the camera with technique. If I've got a long sequence in which I'm supposed to be nervous, I avoid my relaxation ploys and go and drink a cup of coffee, which strings the nerves along. Drink two cups, and your hand will start to shake; five or six cups, and your lips will twitch.
    But whether you're supposed to be tense or relaxed in a scene, hang on to the knowledge that everyone is there to get the greatest performance from you that you've ever given. Don't be intimidated by anyone. Everybody's on your side. They all want you to be great. I've produced movies and I can tell you that if I put you in a movie, I want you to be great, even more than you want to be great.

    The electrician will scramble up on the catwalks to set the light so that there's no glint in your eye; you've got seventy or eighty people concentrating on getting your best face on that screen and helping you say the line right. You may think, "I've got to do something, otherwise I'm not going to be interesting." But if you can attain that basic relaxation, that's all you need. Just block everybody out and relax. No one's going to kill you; no one's going to upset you. Everything is being done to help you do it right, because film acting is bloody difficult work, and everybody knows that.

    ®1979 Warner Bros Inc.
    BEYOND THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE
    Directed by Irwin Allen. Warner Brothers, 1979. 1 .1 - 11 -.11
    Pictured with Sally Fuld.

     

The
Take

    "Acting is not a competition; everything must be done for the good of the film or else everybody loses."

     

CLOSE-UPS AND CONTINUITY
    Film people admire professionals. Given a choice between two actors (all else being equal), professionalism will be the deciding factor. Competence is a crucial, basic quality treasured far more than erratic brilliance. It implies an understanding of the extra disciplines that filming demands. You've got to know how to help the camera. In a close-up, the camera lens magnifies your actions, so you have to know how to scale down the action of your performance without losing the intensity as the shot gets tighter. The film actor knows how to reduce a performance physically but not mentally. In fact, oddly enough, your mind should work even harder in a close-up than it does during other shots because in the close-up, the performance is all in your eyes; you can't use the rest of your body to express yourself.
The Eyes Have It
    When you are the on-camera actor in a close-up, never shift your focus from one eye to the other. Sounds odd, doesn't it? But when you look at something, one of your eyes leads. So during a close-up, be especially careful not to change whichever eye you are leading with. It's an infinitesimal thing, but noticeable on the screen. The camera misses nothing! Another tip from my own experience: when it is my close-up being shot, I pick the off-camera actor's eye that is closest to the camera and look at it with my eye that is furthest from the camera. This turns my face more squarely toward the camera, so as much of my full face as possible is in the shot.

    01971 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Irx.
    GET CARTER
    Directed by Michael Hodges. MGM, 1971.

    And I don't blink. Blinking makes your character seem weak. Try it yourself: