The Great Acting Blog: “How The Director Sets The Actor Free”

The Great Acting Blog: “How The Director Sets The Actor Free”

To follow on from yesterday’s post, I wanted to expand a little bit on the notion of giving the actor space to create.

As a general rule, I believe the primary task of the director is to assist the actors in expressing the writer’s intentions*, and he does this by stating literally what is happening in the scene (if the director cannot do this then he doesn’t know what he is talking about). Once this is done such that the actor has a clear understanding of the director’s view of the scene, the director needs to stand back and let the actor go for it. If the actor veers too far from the writer’s intentions or some mechanical adjustments are required, then of course the director must step in, but he needn’t do so just for the sake of it.

Giving the actor space however, means the director stepping back and being prepared to accept what the actor does even if it was not what he had in mind. He must see what the actor has given for what it is and value it – the actor’s performance is the scene filtered through his own personality, and any attempt to block this or fashion it into something else, will render it lifeless, meaningless and unartistic. This backing off does require preparation on the part of the director, and mental dexterity in order to adjust his thinking in response to what the actor delivers. It also requires him to feel secure in his position, not needing to put his finger prints all over everything. Some may say this backing-off approach diminishes the role of the director in the process, but I say the contrary is true, that helping to set the actor free is the most important function a director could possibly perform.

*many people argue this point.

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