Even experienced actors feel panic in front of people. Director John Badham explains how to help your actors overcome fear and perform with confidence.
A jolt of panic rises in even the most experienced actor when he starts to perform in front of other people, even if it is just a rehearsal. He is putting all his talent and self-image on the line and is probably terrified that his audience may not buy into what he is doing. What if the crew hates it? It would be a personal rejection of the actor. The more he uses his own psyche to build the character, the more vulnerable he becomes.
There is one key principle about working with actors. It is inviolate. Actors must feel they are in a place where they are totally safe. Your set needs to be a place where actors can expose their deepest emotions and feel support on their creative journey. You must treat them with love and support if they are to do their best work.
And remember, the egos of the biggest stars are just as fragile as a less famous actor.
Certainly it is extremely important that the actor get beyond any fears he may have of his audience now and in the future. As a director, there is an easy way to offer constructive help to this sensitive process. Make your rehearsal space a playground with a purpose. When all the muscles are bound up, creativity is bound up. If an actor can get past his fears of the audience, he can free his emotions and his instrument and liberate a true performance.
The next time you are in a library or bookstore pick up any book on acting technique. Chapter One is usually about relaxation and Chapter Two is about imagination. These are ridiculously simple ideas, right? A student looking at that acting book in the bookstore will, without fail, flip past these first two chapters to get to the real secrets of acting. Well, guess what? The real secrets were back in Chapters One and Two. It is only through mastering relaxation and imagination that the actor can begin to use any of the other techniques that the book is conveying.
Without the freedom that relaxation gives to the mind, imagination cannot flourish. Emotional memories cannot flow. Physical qualities such as voice and movement are strangled and stiff. If imagination is dormant the characters that emerge will be stale, clichéd, uninteresting, boring and flat. Acting is all about playfulness, openness. This is why we directors need to create a comfort zone for our actors where they are free to create without fear of failure. Do that and their imagination can work and the talent flows.
Anne Bancroft told me, “Relaxation is the key to acting. Most actors will relax if you tell them they are the best thing on God’s earth.” Her line exhibits her wonderful sense of humor, but also underlines how important it is for the director to be able to get his actors in a creative space. Our job as directors is to guide this creature who stands before us with his insides exposed for all to see and figure out how to make them comfortable.
Peter Fonda gave a terrific performance in The Limey. It was charming and loose, yet with an evil undertone, and very different from his other work. Steven Soderbergh told me about how he helped Fonda achieve this performance. Before shooting, Soderbergh read Fonda’s recently released book and then met him for lunch. As the director and actor chatted, Soderbergh realized that Fonda loved to tell stories and was really funny. Soderbergh came away from lunch thinking, “The most important thing that I have to do on this movie is to figure out how to get Peter to remain Peter.” On set, Soderbergh would relax Fonda by playing to his gregarious nature. He’d ask Fonda to tell the cast and crew a story that Soderbergh had read in Fonda’s book. Fonda would tell the story and as he would wind down, Soderbergh would give the crew the “here we go,” sign. When Fonda finished his story, they were rolling. Fonda would go right from the story into doing the scene and never lose his relaxation. Eventually, Soderbergh didn’t have to rely on the story-telling as much, because Fonda fell into a comfortable rhythm on his set.
Often, as a director, you know what you want from a scene, but the actors have reached a creative stalemate. How do you keep pushing the scene towards success? Get in touch with your child side and use it to get the best from your artists.
Years ago, I was asked to help out on a film in which the director had been replaced. On my first day, I had to re-shoot a scene with two young stars who were nearly paralyzed with fear. The director had been replaced, and they were worried they were next.
Their scene needed to be light, charming and playful, showing two kids shyly flirting and getting to know one another. What we had now was two actors behaving like department store dummies. The cameras rolled. The first take was as animated as Mount Rushmore. Actors, like athletes, need to warm up, to relax. We did a couple more takes… and a couple more… and a couple more. There was no relaxing going on. I got really nervous. This scene was the first thing the studio would see the next day and it better be good.
It was clear that the scene was being played far too seriously. The characters needed to have fun. It’s no good to say “come on kids, have fun with it.” A specific action or task, organic to the scene, was needed.
Since the scene was in the boy’s bedroom, we messed up the bed and trashed the room. We scattered some of his underwear around the room, on the lampshade and at the foot of the bed. When the two actors came in the room, the character would discover what a pigsty it was and be embarrassed. He was excited to have this girl with him and wanted her to like him. Now he could react to this new situation: try to hide his underwear, straighten the messy bed and kick the trash out of sight, while acting cool. Now, the girl could be amused by his antics and, at the same time, be uncomfortable alone in a strange boy’s bedroom. Her job was to calm herself by pretending to ignore him, checking out posters on the wall and books in the bookcase.
The scene started to loosen up. But they were still stiff. So I became Bozo the Clown (never a problem for me). I told stupid jokes and stuck carrots in my nose. At one point, I took them outside and challenged them to a race around the stage. The winner would get $10; the loser would have to sing a song for the crew that the winner would pick. We would run into the stage and roll the cameras. Of course I lost, I’m not stupid. They made me sing “The Happy Wanderer,” one of the dumbest songs ever written.
The takes quickly got better and better. By take 14, the scene was alive and charming.
The next day the studio executives came to the stage after seeing the dailies. Watching this grim group come on set was like watching a jury come back from deliberations. God forbid they should smile, people would want more money. They stopped the shooting and said they had an announcement. There was a strict rule against alcohol on the lot, but they were so happy with the film they passed out champagne to celebrate. We drank a quick toast and went back to work charged up.
The un-playful actor or director is a person in a creative jail. The technical term for this is “untalented.” Any dingbat can shoot a scene with less than a week’s instruction. I said, “shoot a scene,” that’s not the same as “directing a scene.” When you hear “He’s a really good shooter,” know that’s a buzz phrase for “all you get from this wing-nut are some neat visuals.” A real director puts a special spin on their work. There is a reason why actors throughout time have been called “players.” They are playing a part. Directors don’t have the word “play” in their job title, but if they have no play in their soul, they are not directors, they are traffic cops.
Be a good director, by building a set where creativity can flourish.
John Badham (Short Circuit, Men in Trees, Heroes) is a noted film and television director and producer. Badham is Professor of Media Arts at The Dodge School of Film and Media, Chapman University in Orange, CA. His book, “I’ll Be in My Trailer: The Creative Wars Between Director & Actors,” (written with Craig Modderno), was released by Michael Wiese Productions in July, 2006.
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