As a filmmaker I find it much more rewarding to work with actors who are classically trained. It's about the work and only the work.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
My acting experience has been a benefit. What I learned from directors is how to listen to and talk with actors. I know how they think and what they need.
I love working with actors, and it's all been based on my being trained in the theater.
Being an actor really, really strengthens me as a director. There's just a certain type of understanding that comes from having been there and knowing how much is really being asked of actors that helps me.
I look at other filmmakers and see skills in them that I wish I had but I know that I don't. I feel like I have to work really hard to keep myself afloat, doing what I do. But I find it pleasurable.
For me, the more talented the actor is that I'm working with, the easier my job is because the circumstances of a scene are easier to believe when the people around you are in the moment just as much as you are.
I don't know what is better than the work that is given to the actor-to teach the human heart the knowledge of itself.
I stand to learn more working as an actor with really talented people than I do by directing a feature.
The key is working with great directors. A film is so many different people and all their talents, but particularly the directors, because of the idiosyncrasies of that person.
Having a director who is also an actor makes for that very relaxed way of working and it's empowering.
That is the great pleasure of working with great directors. You get to look at the world through many different prisms. I guess I love talent, whatever form it takes.