The Director's Idea

Chapter 8

The Actor

This chapter is all about the relationship of the director with the actor. Because the actor is the most direct expression of the director’s idea, it is critical that the director understand the actor as well as the critical synergistic relationship of the director and the actor. An analogy that is appropriate here is the therapist–patient relationship. I do not mean this in the sense of a confessional relationship but rather a creative one. When it works, the therapist and the patient together create a pathway to a “new” person who is more actualized and more present in the world. In this sense, a good director and his actor create a pathway (i.e., performance) to a new person—the character in the film. That character will ...