Not giving your 100 percent, and what makes a good actor...or writer.
I'm still charging away on my WIP -- just a few chapters from the end -- writing furiously as the expression goes.
But I came across this interview I just had to share. Just a few days ago when Christopher Plummer won best supporting actor for Beginners, and I thought, Wait a moment! This can't be the same Christopher Plummer from The Sound of Music! And of course it was. Unbelievable this could be the same man. I googled and came across this video where he and other actors talk about a number of things.
There are a series of interviews, but my favorite was the one about what makes a great actor. Christopher Plummer talked of the "great rage," how an actor of talent can portray it underneath and brewing when he acts, and to make the classic roles feel fresh.
Albert Brooks agreed, but he said it was something else. In movies, when you are up close to the actor with the camera.
"The actors who have been the most effective," he says, "...are the ones who allow me to interpret on my own. There are some actors who give you 100 percent and don't let you get in. They're working, you see them working. And there are other actors who lay back. With a good actor, they allow you to fill in the blanks."
That's a short paraphrase of what Albert Brooks said, but I really loved it, and I thought it was true about writing, too. About how when we write, we should be careful not to interpret everything for our reader, and to tell them how to think about our characters. It's a hard thing to carry off, to offer precision and ambiguity in our characters' inner lives, to show what they do without explaining why.
I'm in that place in the WIP when I'm thinking about motives and about larger themes, and I'm trying really hard not to be heavy-handed. I thought this video was the perfect thing to listen to just now.
Here's a link for anyone interested: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/gallery/george-clooney-gary-oldman-awards-roundtable-268491#3
But I came across this interview I just had to share. Just a few days ago when Christopher Plummer won best supporting actor for Beginners, and I thought, Wait a moment! This can't be the same Christopher Plummer from The Sound of Music! And of course it was. Unbelievable this could be the same man. I googled and came across this video where he and other actors talk about a number of things.
There are a series of interviews, but my favorite was the one about what makes a great actor. Christopher Plummer talked of the "great rage," how an actor of talent can portray it underneath and brewing when he acts, and to make the classic roles feel fresh.
Albert Brooks agreed, but he said it was something else. In movies, when you are up close to the actor with the camera.
"The actors who have been the most effective," he says, "...are the ones who allow me to interpret on my own. There are some actors who give you 100 percent and don't let you get in. They're working, you see them working. And there are other actors who lay back. With a good actor, they allow you to fill in the blanks."
That's a short paraphrase of what Albert Brooks said, but I really loved it, and I thought it was true about writing, too. About how when we write, we should be careful not to interpret everything for our reader, and to tell them how to think about our characters. It's a hard thing to carry off, to offer precision and ambiguity in our characters' inner lives, to show what they do without explaining why.
I'm in that place in the WIP when I'm thinking about motives and about larger themes, and I'm trying really hard not to be heavy-handed. I thought this video was the perfect thing to listen to just now.
Here's a link for anyone interested: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/gallery/george-clooney-gary-oldman-awards-roundtable-268491#3