Directing

CHAPTER 29

DIRECTING ON THE SET

DIRECTING THE ACTORS

While the actors are publicly working their way through a labyrinth of strong feelings, the director must suffer in stoic silence. The cast endows you with their trust, so in return you become the all-caring, supportive, and quietly confident parent figure. Inside, you are probably racked with uncertainty about whether you have the authority for the job. How can you, when you feel like a fraud? So you play the role of being confident—a role the whole unit wants to believe. Fake it till you make it, actors say. It helps to limit the area you oversee, by being better prepared than anyone else, and by keeping everyone busy.

Your major responsibility is always to the cast; the actors‘ ...

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