Often a performance can be judged not by a movie's strongest moment but by its weakest, especially when it's the picture's crucial scene.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Each performance and each film is what it is. It's right and belongs within that moment. You look at it and try to make it fit your particular part of your character and your particular film.
I've done scenes in films that I felt like the performance was better in certain takes, but they couldn't use them because it didn't match what the person was doing when they came around and the camera was on them.
Whenever I think about movies, I always look at that art process as having the best of a lot of worlds. Because if you watch a great film, you have a musical element to it, not just on the scoring, but in the way that the shots are edited - that has music and rhythm and time.
I think audiences sometimes mistakenly assume a quality performance comes from some great emotional disturbance rather than really intense concentration. Concentration and flow is what it's all about.
Even if you see a great performance, it's not always great getting there. There are injuries... Intrinsically or unconsciously, people understand that - people see those performances, and they know there are stories behind that.
I'm never certain of a performance - my own or the other actors' - or the script or anything... But to me it seems there's only one place in the world the camera can be, and the decision usually comes immediately.
When a scene is being shot, it is very difficult to know what one wants it to say, and even if one does know, there is always a difference between what one has in mind and the result on film.
When you work so hard on making a film, it's all worthwhile when you get to experience seeing that film with an audience who thoroughly enjoy it and react to the movie.
You act in a movie, and at the end of the day, the director and editor decide what your performance is.
How can you judge one film against another?