Acting in Film

listen, thinking of wonderful things to say, and then you decide not to say them. That's what you're doing in that scene."
    And that's the greatest advice I can give to someone who wants to act in movies. Listen and react. If you're thinking about your lines, you're not listening. Take your response from the other person's eyes, listen to what he says as though you have never heard it before. Even if you're rehearsing. Actually, rehearsing can be a good test of your spontaneity: if you're running lines with another actor and the assistant director comes up and says, "Sorry to interrupt your rehearsal," you've failed. If he comes up and says, "Sorry to interrupt your chat," then you're on the right course. Your lines should sound like spontaneous conversation, not like acting at all. And that comes from actively listening.
    Movie actors earn their living and learn their craft through listening and reacting. I noticed that American actors always try to cut down their dialogue. They say, "I'm not going to say all this. You say that line." At first I couldn't figure out why; I came from theatre, where you covetously count your lines. But it's a smart approach for an actor to give up lines in the movies because while you wind up talking about them, they wind up listening and reacting. It's no accident that Rambo hardly speaks. Sylvester Stallone is not a fool. I remember when I first went to America, right after I made Alfie. I met John Wayne in the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel. He'd just got out of a helicopter, he was dressed as Hondo and he came over and introduced himself to me. I said:

    DEATHTRAP
    Directed by Sidney Lumet. Warner Brothers, 1982.
    Pictured with Christopher Reeve.

    "I do know who you are, Mr. Wayne."
    He said, "You just come over?"
    "Yeah."
    He said, "Let me give you a piece of advice: talk low, talk slow, and don't say much."
    When I said I was going to do Educating Rita, my friends said:
    "Educating Rita? That must be about Rita; what are you playing?"
    I said, "I'm playing a guy named Frank."
    "Well," they said, "you should be doing a picture called Educating Frank if you're going to star in a movie."
    Everybody thought I was nuts. But I knew that while in the theatre the audience might have looked at Rita because she has so many lines, in the movies the camera has to cut to Frank to get his reactions; otherwise what Rita says has no further meaning. I can't say it enough: one of the most important things an actor can do in a motion picture is to listen and react as freshly as if it were for the first time.
    Of course, you needn't stare at people too intently when you're listening to them. In real life, when you listen to people, your eyes go up and down, you look around, you play with your glasses, and then look back at the person. One of the finest practitioners of this technique is Marion Brando. He denies the camera his eyes. Half the time he's looking down or away. Then suddenly he looks up, and you are absolutely fascinated by his eyes.

    Freshness becomes a perishable quality after several takes. I'm known as One-Take Mike. That's because I gear myself up to take the risk on "Action!" and it's difficult for me to get the same sense of danger in the very next take. So I usually go off a bit in take two and later I get better again. But I have worked with actors who never get it right the first time but improve with each take. The director has to juggle each actor's different capability to strike the balance that's right for the whole.
    Often you may be asked to do a scene again and again, either to get you to the heart of an emotion or to simply exhaust you. The director keeps at you relentlessly until you're totally exhausted. The remarkable thing about exhaustion is that it leads naturally to relaxation. During each take, you change your interpretation by a whisker to keep your performance from getting boring or stale. (I never change physical movements, though, to avoid continuity problems.) It can be bloody annoying when you think you've been great and the director says, "Go again." But the art of the game is to, at least, not get any worse. Most sensible directors, once they've got what they want in the can, say, "Right. We'll print that one. Now we'll just do one for the hell of it. Let yourself go. Have fun, relax." Usually that's the take that's finally used because everyone is so relieved to be free of the responsibility that they give their best performances of all.

    THE EAGLE