Acting in Film

HAS LANDED
    Directed byJohn Sturges. Columbia, 1975.
    Pictured with Donald Sutherland and Jean Marsh.
    Less is more. That's one of the hottest tips I can give any young film actor. To do nothing at all can be very useful in extreme reactive situations. For example, if something terrible happens to you in the script, like you find your wife murdered, and they cut to your close-up, very often you can do a completely blank look. The audience will project their own emotions on your face. The acting is in the buildup to that moment, not in the moment itself. You don't have to do anything, and the audience will go "Blimey!" For the final shot of Greta Garbo in Queen Christina, the director told her to remain impassive and the result is an absolute tearjerker. The audience knows what Christina is feeling because the actress has led them through Christina's emotions earlier in the film. At the end, the audience does all the work.

     

VOICE, SOUND, LIGHTING, MOVEMENT
Voice and Sound
    However your voice sounds, use it. It's yours and there's no reason why the character you play shouldn't sound like you. You might need to adopt an accent for a particular character, but that is another subject. Voice consciousness is the pits; it dispels all illusions of reality. If you try to smoothe your voice out-beautify and mellow it-you will no doubt produce a sound like "acting" in the worst old-fashioned sense.
    As in theatre, however, learn to produce your voice correctly. Breathe from your diaphragm. If you breathe properly, your voice will be comfortable to listen to because you will not have to strain to get your voice out. Strained speaking makes for strained listening. Some actors speak correctly but their voices are strained or strangulated because they are speaking only from the throat. Where the voice comes from is all you have to worry about-really. Breathe from your diaphragm and your nerves won't have a chance to strangle your performance.

    On Zulu I was incredibly nervous from the start, as you can imagine-my first big movie, my first big chance. The memory of the first day on location still makes me shudder. The uniform was uncomfortable in the boiling hot South African sun. I had to speak in this clipped upper-class accent-an effort, to say the least. Then, to cap it all, my horse threw me into the river three times and I kept having to change my clothes. Finally the damned horse behaved well enough for me to get out my line: "Hot day, hard work." The director, Cy Endfield, shouted:
    "CUT! Why is your voice so high?"
    I said, "It's the character."
    "No!" he said. "I heard you in rehearsal and it was different. It's higher now."
    He had the sound technician play my line back. I was so nervous that my throat had tightened, my shoulders became tense, and my voice was about an octave higher than usual. I had to ride that bloody horse across the river again; but this time I forced myself to relax, and I got it right.
    Stage actors have to calculate when they can take a breath because they need to control the pacing of a speech. But in film, the pacing comes in the editing. The editor can shorten a pause if it goes on too long or lengthen one where it's needed. So in film acting, space your words as the thoughts dictate. Hesitate if the mental process is hesitant; push on if the ideas are flowing fast and fluently. If you are thinking as the character and have made yourself relax, your lungs will instinctively do their work. If they won't, then the character must be having breathing difficulties anyway. Use it; it's naturalism.

    Voice projection is necessary in a theatre, where you have to be heard in the last row of the balcony. In the movies, projection isn't usually required. (Pay no attention to the sound technician; he always has a problem.) Sensitive microphones can pick up the softest delivery. There may be a boom mike on a pole over your head or you may be wearing a body mike connected to a transmitter. Either way, as the occasion calls for it, you can speak in a barely audible whisper or you can let it rip and be as loud as you want. The sound technician, however, has to know in advance because he's wearing the earphones. I remember I was doing a little sound feature picture in which I played some sort of hoodlum. I had to come up behind a guy and whisper, "You're gonna die," and then shoot him in the back. The sound technician had his equipment turned up high so he could hear the whisper. I forgot to say the line