Acting in Film

high-handed attitude toward the natives was the norm. Furthermore, Peachy and Danny had experienced their own humiliations at home as members of the working class at a time when class divisions in England were as tough as apartheid is now in South Africa. So when I tossed that Indian off the train, I had to bear in mind that Peachy might well have been tossed off a train by a member of the English aristocracy.
    Everyone kept telling Scan and me that we were making another Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. We weren't. It's no good getting into the imitation game; all you get is a pale copy. But Sean and I did come to the conclusion pretty quickly that we had to be a double act, and a generous double act. We had to give each other complete collaboration for the sake of the picture. We had a choice: we could edge each other out and get individual close-ups, or we could bring each other into close-up for the most interesting lines and improve the film as a whole. This was the best relationship I've ever had with another actor; we gave to each other all the time. It made it much easier to become those characters.

    But the great John Huston also helped enormously. He managed to consolidate my character for me in just one sentence. I'd been shooting for about two days and Huston said, "Cut! Michael," he said, "speak faster; he's an honest man." Because I was speaking slowly, it seemed as though I was trying to figure out what effect I was making. Huston's observation was spot on. Honest men speak fast because they don't need time to calculate.
    After three days of shooting, Huston wasn't calling Sean and me by our own names anymore; he was calling us Danny and Peachy. Sean and I got to the point where not only could we improvise some of the dialogue, but this director, who for twenty-six years had nurtured this script that he co-authored, actually let us improvise the dialogue.

    01967 Jovera S.0. All rights reserved.
    BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN
    Directed by Ken Russell. United Artists, 1967.

     

Behavior
On and
Off
the Set

    "No matter what the reason, if you start to scream and shout, you look a fool, and you feel a fool, and you earn the disrespect of everyone."

THE UPSTAGER, THE SCENE-STEALER, AND THE STALLER
    Almost without exception, actors help each other. In the movie business, the list of people whose careers suddenly ground to a halt is the same as the list of actors who tried to make enemies or pull tricks. That kind of behavior doesn't usually work anyway because the guv'nor-the director-is watching. He knows what's phoney and who's trying to screw up somebody else. He'll see it and he'll put a stop to it. And if tricks get past a director, an audience will sense them subliminally; they may not understand how a piece of acting skullduggery is achieved, but they have instinct and they'll say, "I didn't like that actor." The sort of dirty tricks such actors employ are fairly transparent, really. As in theatre, there is the Upstager: he keeps moving backward a few steps so that the other actors have to turn their backs to the camera to relate to him. Then there's the Scene-Stealer: he's the chap who will put in a little move of the hands or turn of the head during your tense moment and steal focus. The Staller does a slightly more subtle maneuver: he slows down the tempo that was set at rehearsal, extends pauses, talks more hesitantly and generally prolongs the time that the camera is on him, thereby hogging the scene. Few actors actually stoop to all this, and directors usually won't tolerate it. But occasionally only the other actor will notice a trick, and I recommend that you fight hack with the same weapons; that usually works like a charm.

    C1977 Joseph E. Levine Presents, Inc. All rights reserved. Assigned 1989 United Artists.
    A BRIDGE TOO FAR
    Directed by Richard Attenborough. United Artists, 1977.

TEMPERAMENTS
    You won't gain much leverage in the long run by pandering to other people's moods. If you put yourself in the position of yielding to temperaments, you deserve everything you get. During the filming of The Magus, I had a confrontation not so much with Anthony Quinn as with Quinn's kowtowers. Every (lay we'd get a bulletin from one of his minions: "Tony's in a great mood today"; or "Watch out, Tony's in a terrible mood today." One day I said:
    "Has he ever asked what mood I'm in?"
    The minion said, "Why should he?"
    "If you have to ask," I said, "I might as well get the next plane home." And I