My dream as a producer is to be able to build a company that can be a safe haven for artists, for directors and for writers and actors to do what they do best and let them have final edit. I'd like to build something to that effect.
My favorite parts of work as an actor and a director are those unplanned mistakes that do happen, because it's like catching lightning in a bottle. It's the best part of what we do.
I was too dumb to know Opie was going to grow up to be a great Director, if so, boy, I would certainly have become his best friend.
The best complement I ever got from the public or producers or directors is that I just totally blend in and become the character and they don't notice me and that the play happens or the movie happens or the TV show happens.
I did this thing for HBO called 'Strip Search' with Sidney Lumet, who was one of the best directors I've ever worked with. We actually had a rehearsal period before we shot, which is unusual.
One of the tasks that any artistic director has is, you're trying to bring elements together that will work. The truth is that you could bring all the best talents in the world together and produce a big turkey.
Every actor you work with has a different method, same with the director. You have to figure out what your shared language is and how to best support each other, and also take care of yourself.
I think the best directors provide you with a safe environment where they can instill you with confidence and allow you to try things out and not feel like you're failing or that you're doing it wrong.
You hope and pray that you'll get involved with a director that you understand and who has the same sensibility as you do and knows how to push you and bring out the best in you.
I read every screenplay that was being sent to the other directors. None were being sent to me, but I was reading what others were choosing and what the best writers were writing.
As a designer, design director or any creative person, you have to hire great people, support them and make them feel comfortable so they can contribute and give you their best.
I seemed to belong to three countries: I had an apartment in Paris, a house in Hollywood, and when I married British theater director Peter Hall, I moved to London.
I find it easier to play someone who is so far from me because you create someone - you build this person based on the story and the script, with the director.
An actor can be as talented as another, but if he doesn't stick to what the director's intentions are, it all falls down. I adore working with actors.
I never try to show an actor what to do or what to say. He has to find out for himself. The role of the director is to guide him to that state, and then to implement it.
When we did concerts, we wanted them to be theatrical events - collaborations with designers, choreographers, and directors - because we thought traditional rock concerts were boring.
Many casting directors won't hire aspiring actors because you might be burning some chick's headshot under the table so she doesn't get the part.
'Carrie' was a pretty big-budget movie at a real studio, with a director that had already done a bunch of things and had some notoriety, and Stephen King was the writer.
I was not born a size 2. I'm not skinny, period. I'm not willing to sleep with the director or step on somebody else's neck to get the job.
But for me, the challenge is how you turn a character into behavior. Once the director says 'action', you just try to live between those two worlds.
Sometimes jobs are jobs, and when you guest star on television, you're also working with a guest director. You're the new kid on the block, because everyone else is already in the ensemble.
