Once you sign on as an actor, you know, you don't go to the editing room, you don't see how they cut, you don't see how they score, you don't see how they cast the rest of the movie.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
As an actor you have to bring to the table your creative input. But when a director like Ridley Scott says I want you to do this this way, you know when he gets to the editing room he has a reason for it. It's like watching a masterpiece.
You never really know as an actor; it's completely out of your control, in terms of editing, and music, and film stock, shot selection, and what takes they use.
Actors look for characters. If they read a well-written character, and if they think the director's not an idiot, they're going to sign up and do some acting.
Actors want to be told what to do - they really do. But they also want to have an input and be recognized for that.
Actors are conditioned to develop a system for expressing as much as they can in the shortest amount of time because you're going to get all cut up in a movie.
Sometimes you see a movie and you can really feel that it's an actor putting in a performance. Someone said 'cut' and they're back in their trailer having a coffee or getting their hair done.
It's amazing that for actors mostly, it's a risk to attach yourself to a film that you don't know whether or not it's going to even be made and if you sign on, in doing so, who else is going to be in the movie with you.
It's like you take these great actors and put them in an aquarium of life and just watch them swim. That's what makes editing tough because you get all these beautiful, unplanned moments.
Actors come in, and they have their own take on things, and you have to adjust on the fly to make sure everything still works structurally and dramatically.
You act in a movie, and at the end of the day, the director and editor decide what your performance is.