But I don't really care for directors flaring up and trying to humble some actor, which they would do to try and make an example out of them so everybody else would stay on the ball - and David wasn't anything like that.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
David was the kind of guy who was totally supportive of the actors and instructed the writing staff to trust the actor's instincts, since after all, it's the actors playing the character.
There's nobody who loves being around actors working more than David Mamet, especially actors bringing his tremendous dialogue to life. I've never seen a movie director who was happier to be directing a movie than Dave.
The thing is David is also aware of everything and it's not like you're going somewhere the director is not.
There's a lot of directors who were actors, so they have the sensibility of an actor, which sometimes helps.
I don't believe that all actors should end up being directors.
I don't like actors who try to talk directors into making their part bigger and that's really lame.
Sometimes the odds are against you-the director doesn't know what the hell he's doing, or something falls apart in the production, or you're working with an actor who's just unbearable.
All actors have a significant amount of vanity about work, and necessarily so. Things they will do and won't do, and I've completely lost all of that. I don't care.
From my experience, I think that every actor has to make sure that they're in charge of their own career somehow or other.
I do think that's so much a part of what being a director is - in working with actors - to really try and be sensitive to what each actor needs to get to where he wants to be.