Directing

Actors
Creating Memorable
Performances for Film
and Television

25th Anniversary Edition

Judith Weston

M I C H A E L W I E S E P R O D U C T I O N S
Published by Michael Wiese Productions
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Manufactured in the United States of America

Copyright © 1996, 2021 by Judith Weston

First Printing 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission
in writing from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Weston, Judith, - author.

Title: Directing actors : creating memorable performances for film and
television / by Judith Weston.
Description: 25th anniversary edition. | Studio City, CA : Michael Wiese
Productions, [2021] | Summary: “Directing film or television is a
high-stakes occupation. It captures your full attention at every moment,
calling on you to commit every resource and stretch yourself to the
limit; it’s the white-water rafting of entertainment jobs. But for many
directors, the excitement they feel about a new project tightens into
anxiety when it comes to working with actors. In the years since the
original edition of Directing Actors was published, the technical side
of filmmaking has become much more easily accessible. Directors tell me
that dealing with actors is the last frontier-the scariest part and the
part they long for-the human part, the place where connection happens.
Weston’s books help directors scale the heights of the actor-director
dynamic, learn the joys of collaborating with actors-and become an
“actor’s director.””-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020041463 | ISBN 9781615933211 (trade paperback)
Subjects: LCSH: Motion pictures--Production and direction. |
Television--Production and direction.
Classification: LCC PN1995.9.P7 W45 2021 | DDC 792.02/33--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020041463
 Table of Contents


PREFACE TO 25TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiv

What’s New and Different from the Original . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
Who Should Read This 25th Anniversary Edition? . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxv
Directors in Jeopardy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxv
Actors: The Mysterious “Other”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxvi
An Invitation to Break Habit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxviii
How Actors Work Their Magic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxx
The Actor-Director Relationship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxi
What Do Actors Want?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxiii
What’s In This Book. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxiv
Connection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxvi

CHAPTER ONE:
RESULT DIRECTION AND QUICK FIXES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Result Direction: What the Hell Is It? (12+ Examples). . . . . . . . . . . 1
Quick Fixes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Verbs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Facts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Imagery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Metaphor or “as if ”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Events. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
What It’s About . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Physical Tasks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Questions, Questions, Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
vi DIRECTI NG ACTORS  WES TON

Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Pro Tips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
The Privacy Rule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
The “Same Page”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

CHAPTER TWO:
MOMENT BY MOMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Fear And Control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Risk. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Unlikeable Characters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Honesty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
In The Moment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
The Character Has Free Will . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
The Character Has A Subconscious Mind. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Permission To Fail. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
The Social Mask. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Stop Doing It “Right” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Disobligation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Use It!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Commitment To Authenticity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
The Notorious Insecurity of Actors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Exchange the Promise. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Unrepeatable Moments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Directors Get to Be in the Moment, Too. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

CHAPTER THREE:
LISTENING AND TALKING. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
The What and Why of Listening. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
How Can a Director Tell If an Actor Is Listening? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Chemistry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Unselfish Actors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Damage Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Special Situations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
 T able of C ontents vii

Listening Makes the Shots Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Language Directors Can Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Directors Should Listen, Too. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

CHAPTER FOUR:
ACTORS’ CHOICES/DIRECTORS’ TOOLS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Opposites. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Mysterious Lines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
The Technique of Three Possible. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Judgment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Flaws and Likeability. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
The Verb Family: Intention, Objective, Spine, Need. . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Objective/Need. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Intentions/Active Verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
The Spine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Obstacle (The Stakes). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Imagery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Facts And Clues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
The Timeline. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Emotional History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Question Everything. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Invented Facts and Off-Camera Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
The Moment Before. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Adjustments: Metaphor; Analogy; “As If ”; “What If?”;
“It’s Like When” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Subtext (Mantra or Inner Monologue). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Physical Life. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Wardrobe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Gesture, Activities, Bits, Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
The Physical Is Emotional. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Secrets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Why So Many Tools?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
viii DIRECTI NG ACTORS  WES TON

CHAPTER FIVE:
EMOTIONAL EVENT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Defining Emotional Event. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Emotional Event As a Directing Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Find a Way In . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
So-Called Exposition Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Emotional Event and Genre: It’s All About the Relationship. . . . 141
What It’s About . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Make a List of Themes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Transitions and Through-Lines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Blocking. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Learning How To Block. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Does Everyone Have To Agree On the Emotional Event?. . . . . . . 156
Emotional Events Must Happen In Real Time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Mindless Coverage (and Avoiding It). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Spine and Narrative Drive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Spine and Narrative Drive In Franchises. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Director’s Intention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Always Do the Right Thing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
The Compass. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

CHAPTER SIX:
ACTORS’ RESOURCES AND TRAINING. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Memory or Personal Experience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Observation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Imagination. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Research. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Channeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Meisner Technique. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Living the Character’s Experience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Concentration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
Sensory Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
 T able of C ontents ix

Shakespeare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Post-Stanislavsky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Working With Stars. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Heart. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Feelings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

CHAPTER SEVEN:
SCRIPT ANALYSIS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Reading the Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Stage Directions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
The Charts and Guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
The Matrix. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
First Impressions: What I Love; My Reservations
and Concerns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
First Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
“It’s Just . . .” and “I Assume”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Pro Tip (for the Whole Script): Make Lists. Cut and Paste.. . . . . 196
Keep Reading the Script. Read It Aloud.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Mysterious Lines & the Technique of Three Possible. . . . . . . . . . . 199
Paraphrasing (Creating Inner Monologue) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Facts and Questions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Questions and More Questions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Research. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
Internal Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
Images and Associations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Ideas For Imaginative Backstory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
What Just Happened . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
What’s At Stake? aka Issues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Active Verbs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Subtext. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Obstacle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
x DIRECTI NG ACTORS  WES TON

Adjustments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Beats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Blocking. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Scene-Making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Make Events Happen With the Blocking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Get Ideas for Pacing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Plot Event, Domestic Event, and Emotional Event. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Cypher: One Last Mysterious Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Finally: The Shape of the Relationships. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Micro and Macro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

CHAPTER EIGHT:
CASTING. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Casting “Name” Actors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Casting Directors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Casting From Auditions: Guidelines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
Casting From Auditions: Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
Casting Non-Professional Actors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Casting From Self-Submitted Tapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Pandemic and Connection (2020) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244

CHAPTER NINE:
REHEARSAL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Rehearsal: Pros and Cons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Director John Korty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Goals of Rehearsal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Skills and Tools of Rehearsal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
Take—or Create—a Workshop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
Overview of Necessary Skills. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Ground Rules: Creating a Safe Space. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
Trust. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
Improvisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
Through-lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
 T able of C ontents xi

Emotional Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

Mysterious Lines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Three Different Ways. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Don’t Frontload. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
Listen More than You Talk. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
Making Your Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
Pick Your Battles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
Eye Contact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
Getting Actors to Not Stop for “Mistakes”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
Let the Actors Work. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
Learn to say, “Yes, and . . .” instead of “No, but . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
Other Exercises and Warm-Ups. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
Be Inventive. Go the Extra Mile. Think Outside the Box. . . . . . . . . . 274
Resistances. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Focus on the Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
Actors’ Subtext . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
Making Moments Count: Blocking, Pacing, Scene-Making. . . . . 279
Blocking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Blocking Templates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
Pace: the Last Frontier. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
Making Moments Count. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
Objects, Activities, and Territories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Work in Steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Working in Beats/Scene-Making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Nuts and Bolts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Finding Time for Rehearsal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
How Long Should Rehearsal Be? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
Get Organized. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
Notes to Bring to Rehearsal or the Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
Forms of Rehearsal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
Meeting One-on-One with Principals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
Full Cast Read-Through. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
Relationship Rehearsal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
Scene Rehearsal for Most Professional Situations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
Episodic Television. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
xii DIRECTI NG ACTORS  WES TON

Working With Stars. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

Working With Non-Actors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
More Examples of Rehearsal Language. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
Tips for Rehearsal Protocol. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
Sex, Violence, Pandemic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
Zoom Rehearsals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314

CHAPTER TEN:
SHOOTING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
If You’ve Had Rehearsal Before You Get to the Set. . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
If You’ve Had No Rehearsal Before You Get to the Set . . . . . . . . . 319
Guidelines for the Set. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
DIRECTING CHILDREN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
Do You Like Kids?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
Casting Young Roles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
The Age of Eight Is a Game Changer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
Kids and Line Readings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
Meet Children Where They Are . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
Kids In Scenes With Adult Actors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
Treat Young Actors As Equals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
How Young Actors Approach Their Craft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
Traumatic Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349
Young Teens. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
Older Teens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
Commit To Them . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
What About Older Actors? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353

CHAPTER TWELVE:
COMEDY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
Faster, Louder, Funnier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
More Principles of Comedy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358
 T able of C ontents xiii

EPILOGUE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361

APPENDIX A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
A: Verbs—Short List, Expanded ���������������������������������������������������������� 365
B: Verbs—Longer List, Grouped by Emotional Category������������368
C: Script Analysis Guide for Directors������������������������������������������������371
D: Script Analysis List of Topics ���������������������������������������������������������� 375
E: Script Analysis Addendum for Actors��������������������������������������������376
F: Text of The Matrix, Scene 74 ������������������������������������������������������������ 378
G: Billy Ray’s 3x5 card ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 381

INDEX OF SELECTED NAMES AND TITLES������������������������������382

ABOUT THE AUTHOR�������������������������������������������������������������������������� 391

 CHAPTER ONE

Result Direction
and Quick Fixes


Result Direction: What the

Hell Is It? (12+ Examples)
The biggest complaint I hear from actors is that directors don’t
know what they want. This may come as a surprise, because most
directors think they have a clear picture in their minds of how they
want the movie to look and sound.
While reading a script, most people project a miniature movie
version of it on the inside of their foreheads. They fantasize the faces
of actors they hope will play the roles, they see the facial expressions,
they hear the inflections of the lines. No matter how many times
they read the script, they hear and see the same line readings, the
same raised eyebrow or frown that they have pictured from the first.
They come to think of this as their “vision” of the script.
This is a passive approach to script-reading. It limits your ideas
and hobbles your imagination. It denies any life to the characters
beyond the four edges of the script’s pages. It’s like insisting that the
earth is as flat and four-cornered as a viewing screen and that peo-
ple or characters disappear when they walk off the edge. It causes
you to look at a line and say to yourself, “How can this be made
dramatic?” or “How can this be made funny?” rather than, “What
clues does this give me to what the movie is about and what the
characters are doing to solve their predicaments?” It may cause you

1
2 DIRECTI NG ACTORS  WES TON

to make artistic choices based on what you know about other mov-
ies, rather than on what you know about life.
This mistaken way of reading a script often leads to direc-
tors using what is known as “result direction.” A director may have
labored over financing, three-act structure, storyboards—and still
not have done the homework that will help her communicate her
ideas to actors. Directors, who tend to feel that their result-ori-
ented ideas are very exact, may be unaware that actors—who want
to please the director but need to make playable choices—can expe-
rience result direction as vague, general, and confusing instead of
specific and clear.
Terms like result direction and playable choices are slippery and
may be used differently by different people. What is result-oriented
direction? I’m going to take the plunge with thirteen examples:
1) “Can you make it more quirky?”
Describing the effect you want actors to have on the audience is a
perfect example of directing by asking for a result. Instructions of
this ilk—such as, “This scene should be funny,” or “I need you to be
more dangerous,” or “Can you give her an epic quality?”—cause an
actor’s heart to sink. The director wants her to do something dif-
ferent from what she is doing—what can it be? If the actor asks for
clarification, the director may go blank and simply repeat himself:
“You know, more quirky.” From this point, the actor-director rela-
tionship dissolves into a guessing game, because the direction is
vague and general. The actor tries something—is this it? Often, it
still isn’t. Oftener still, the director really didn’t know in the first
place what he wanted or how to recognize it. The actor’s perfor-
mance may have deteriorated because she has begun to watch
herself, to get in her head. It is death to an actor’s gifts to put her
concentration on the effect she is having on the audience.
Describing to the actors the “mood” of a scene—for example,
sultry, alienated, electric—can be problematic for similar reasons.
Actors who try to play a mood can end up evoking exactly the
 R esult D irection and Q uick F i x es 3

opposite of what the director was hoping for: efforts to “look” seri-
ous often produce an unintentionally comic effect; efforts to “be”
light and frothy can prove heavy-handed. Their attention has been
wrongly placed and thus, their eagerness to produce the desired
effect can cause them to concentrate on the effort itself. Conse-
quently, the effort itself is the effect that finally reads.
2) “When you say the line, ‘You always do that,’ don’t put
the emphasis on ‘always’—instead hit the word ‘do.’ So,
not ‘You always do that,’ but like this: ‘You always do that.’”
This is called giving the actor a line reading. That is, telling the actor
what inflection or cadence to give a line. For instance, if the line is,
“Please help me,” there are a number of different line readings, each
completely reasonable. Like these examples: “Please help me,” or
“Please help me,” or “Please help me.” And each different line read-
ing means something different.
What’s wrong with giving line readings? Well, worst-case sce-
nario, an inexperienced actor might try to obey you and repeat back
the line with the new inflection, but without any life behind it. An
experienced actor, of course, will look for a way to give it life—that’s
her job. But sometimes the line reading makes no sense to the actor.
If she asks you what it means, you want to be able to do more to clar-
ify the direction than just repeating the line reading over and over.
If you need an actor to make an adjustment to her perfor-
mance, it’s more helpful to communicate to her the meaning or
subtext of the line, not the inflection or result. The most danger-
ous signal conveyed by a director who gives line readings is that he
may not even know what the line means, what the intention of the
character is, or what the scene is about.
3) “Can you take it down?” Or, “Can you give it more
energy?”
There are directors who seem to have only these two generic direc-
tions in their toolkit. When directors rely entirely on these two
4 DIRECTI NG ACTORS  WES TON

phrases—“more energy” or “take it down”—over and over in sit-

uations that are not at all alike, actors may start to feel that the
director does not really know what she is talking about and that the
direction has become a string of empty clichés. Worse yet, it may
mean that the director is not able to recognize good acting when
she sees it. I have seen actors do brave, scary things, and yet after-
wards all the director says is that she wants it “bigger.”
Of course, sometimes “take it down” or “give it more energy” is a
perfectly fine direction. If an experienced actor has overcooked his
performance a smidge, maybe pushed a bit and stepped over the line
into overacting, he appreciates getting the heads-up to “take it down.”
If his performance is flat or not making the scene work—in other
words, if it needs more energy—he wants to be advised of that; he
will respond by making a different playable subtext choice. Don’t get
me wrong: If an actor could do better, he wants to be told!
But less experienced actors can fall into bad traps. An inexpe-
rienced actor may interpret “Take it down” as a request to say the
line in a monotone. Being asked for “more energy” or to “ramp it up”
or “punch it up” can cause them to add emphasis to the uninspired
line reading they have already frozen into their performance. Inex-
perienced actors are vulnerable—don’t sabotage them with vague,
unhelpful instructions.

4) “You need to get angry on this line.”

I’ve been warming up with a couple of examples of result direction
that you may already be familiar with. You probably know it’s not
cool to give line readings or tell the actor to “be funnier.” Now I’m
getting to the more complicated stuff—emotions.
Emotions are what it’s all about. Storytelling exists to tap into
the emotions of the audience, and the way to do that is for the
director and actors to access their own emotions. The film Edward
Scissorhands endures because it goes deep into the pain, sadness,
anger, and longing that has been felt by any human being who has
ever been isolated, misunderstood, or lonely.
 R esult D irection and Q uick F i x es 5

Don’t be afraid of feeling.

But. Emotionally investing in your story and all your char-
acters is not the same as deciding what every character feels at a
given moment. Telling the actors what their characters should be
feeling—angry, disappointed, worried, annoyed, excited, in love,
frightened, resentful, disapproving—is a very usual way that direc-
tion is given. Here’s the problem with it: As soon as an actor tries
to have a feeling or manufactures a feeling on demand, he looks like
an actor, not a real person. People in real life often find our feelings
are obstacles to what we want; we would prefer not to feel nervous at
an important meeting, not to feel upset when an ex-lover and their
new spouse appear unexpectedly at a party, not to feel angry when
our loved ones disappoint us.
To be playable, a choice must be choosable, and we do not choose
our feelings. This idea can be hard to take in, but I want you to
think about it: we don’t get to decide how to feel. For some reason,
we humans don’t much like this about our lives. Mediocre actors, as
well as much of the general population, go to great lengths to make
the world believe they feel something that they don’t actually feel.
But most of the time no one is fooled. Feelings can be hidden or
repressed, but we can’t selectively shut down just one feeling. When
one feeling is held back, all feeling gets shut down.
Good actors are emotionally free and available to many subtle-
ties of feeling. Emotion and impulse are the center of the actor’s
world. But feelings are pesky critters, cropping up inconveniently—
then disappearing just when you want them. The thing both
terrible and wonderful about feelings is that they change. You have
seen it in real life—a person can be crying one minute and laugh-
ing the next. The truth is, the more you let yourself feel whatever
you are actually feeling, the more available you are to a new feeling.
For actors, this goes double.
It can have a shrinking effect on actors to tell them their emo-
tions are wrong. When actors are told to have less feeling, they may
drop out emotionally—and the scene can then become flat and
6 DIRECTI NG ACTORS  WES TON

lifeless. When they are told to have more feeling, they may fall into
pushing, or underlining—overacting.
5) “You need to react to her with more shock and anger.”
An extension of telling the actor what emotion to have is telling
him what reaction to have. In real life we may wish we could plan
our reactions—we may wish we could react calmly to bad news;
we may wish we could laugh merrily when a client or boss tells an
unfunny joke—but it’s a fact of life that such disconcerting inci-
dents take us by surprise. In a script, these surprises and reactions
are the story’s emotional events—and the characters don’t know
they are coming. The actors, having read the script, do know what’s
going to happen to their characters—and what they are going to
do or say when it does. We want the actors’ reactions to be not
preprogramed but spontaneous and idiosyncratic. That’s how their
performances give scenes the texture of real life.
6) “When the scene starts, A is worried because B is late.
A is relieved when B arrives, but then disappointed
because B hasn’t got the money, and then B realizes that
A has become suspicious that B might be holding out
on him.”
This is what I call a fully loaded emotional map, outlining all the
feelings and reactions you have decided the characters are supposed
to have in the scene. It’s nothing more than a tedious regurgitation
of the dialogue and plot. Sadly, it commonly passes for an explana-
tion of the characters’ psychology and understanding of what the
script is about.
At first glance, emotional maps look innocuous enough. You
may be asking yourself, what could be wrong with this? How else
would you describe what happens in a scene? Everybody talks
about characters this way, don’t they? In fact, people in real life
talk about each other like this too. It’s called gossip. Like gos-
sip, emotional maps are not only tedious and long-winded but
addictive. Director and actors talk a scene to death—going down
 R esult D irection and Q uick F i x es 7

convoluted rabbit holes, until whatever genuine emotional con-

nection the actors originally responded to has been rendered
thoroughly cerebral. It’s the surest way to drain a scene or char-
acterization of all its life.
Don’t forget, directors need always to look for ways to
save time. Endless abstract discussions lead, finally, to analysis
­paralysis. When actors try to follow an emotional map, the per-
formance degenerates into an intellectualized connect-the-dots
­drawing—contrived and predictable. It can’t flow, because it has
no through-line. It can’t advance the story because it has no sense of
emotional event.
The best direction is simple and to the point. There are more
dynamic, briefer, more muscular ways to evoke characterizations
than the convolutions of emotional maps. I want you to practice
and learn them. Elia Kazan said a director’s job is to turn psy-
chology into behavior. How to do this? Focus on the relationships
between the characters: pose questions about their emotional his-
tory, consider choices about their needs from each other, create the
emotional events of scenes—rather than be satisfied with reductive
emotional maps.

7) “He’s a punk.” “She’s self-destructive.” “He’s stupid.” “A

loser.” “A bitch.” “A poseur.”
These are negative judgments on the character. Good actors never
judge their character. If the actor is not on the character’s side, who
will be? No one is born bad. Like people, characters become who
they are because of their needs, the things that happen to them,
and the decisions they make. Neither writer, director, nor actor
should judge the character, who, like all of us, has both good and
bad sides. The audience gets to decide which character is weak or
strong, ambitious, lazy, etc.
Audiences love suspense. The craving to know what happens
next makes them lean into the story. Even if we know that the hero
is going to win or the lovers are going to live happily ever after.
8 DIRECTI NG ACTORS  WES TON

Even if it’s a “character piece” and all its events are interior, private.
When the actor telegraphs to the audience thus: “I’m the good guy,”
“I’m the loser,” or “I’m the villain”—he is playing a caricature. Who
can care what happens to him?
It goes without saying that serious drama loses any oppor-
tunity for insight or revelation when good and evil are portrayed
without ambiguity. Villains portrayed as recognizably human,
like Ralph Fiennes’s Nazi commandant in Schindler’s List, are
far more frightening than cardboard cutouts. A main character
with human flaws, like Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley in Alien, is
more relatable for the audience than a formulaic, perfect hero.
If you are directing live-action characters based on the DC or
Marvel universes, it’s as important to find a central humanity to
the character as it is when directing naturalistic drama. Heath
Ledger as the Joker in The Dark Knight showed us it’s possible
to meet the demands of genre without caricature. He forever
raised the bar.
It’s extremely disappointing for a good actor to work with
a director who judges the characters. If directors want to have
a meaningful conversation with an actor, they need to have
unlocked ways not to judge any of the characters—this should
be a central element of their preparation, their script analysis.
Instead of judging, the director should approach each charac-
ter with openness, and—dare I say it—compassion. When the
director speaks to each actor, take the side of that character. My
personal motto for connecting myself to characters who do things
that I believe I would never do in life is this: “This character is me
with a little worse luck.”
One last, serious warning: If an inexperienced or untrained
actor is given direction that is judgmental toward their charac-
ter—because that actor may not have been trained in techniques
with which to translate poor direction into a playable choice—I
can just about promise you the results will be disappointing, if not
disastrous.
 R esult D irection and Q uick F i x es 9

8) “This is how I see the character . . .”

Labeling character traits is something you might recognize from
real-life families: one sibling labeled the smart one, one the flaky
one, one the responsible one, one the difficult one. While these
shorthand descriptions may not be negative—may even be meant
as compliments—they are never the whole story.
Narrative filmmakers routinely describe to actors “what the
character is like”—haughty, tormented, awkward, fierce. Look, I’m
not saying these labels are wrong—tormented people surely exist.
I am asking that you not stop at such quick branding. The character
is not an abstraction that the actor must “become.” The character is
an active human being with emotional history, with needs—who
has free will, who takes chances, who makes mistakes.
9) “Can you play him aggressive, but pleasant?”
Try to avoid describing characters the way that some people describe
fine wine. “The character is frightened, but determined.” Or, “defen-
sive, yet vulnerable,” “cynical, yet caring,” “catatonic, yet curious.”
Directors mean well—and actors themselves may talk about
their characters this way. Both directors and actors may think that a
description like this calls attention to the complexity of the character.
People are complex and it is exactly my goal to allow the characters to
have as much complexity as actual people. However, making a long
list of contradictory labels does not accomplish complexity.
There isn’t only one way of creating complexity in a charac-
ter—after all, it’s complex! Actors who successfully bring to life
complex and contradictory characters create rich and detailed lay-
ers. Just like people, characters may say one thing while doing the
exact opposite. Think of a person who says, “I’m sorry” while glar-
ing at you. Or—characters may alternate what they are doing—for
instance, shifting their intention from punishing to apologizing and
back again to punishing—with lightning speed. But describing the
behavior as “defensive, yet vulnerable” is lazy. And inattentive to the
behavior of real human beings.
10 DIRECTI NG ACTORS  WES TON

10) “Let’s give [this character] a hostile edge.”

I was taught by my teacher Jean Shelton never to “play attitude.”
When you limit your script analysis to a quick psychological
sketch of this sort—that the character has a wary attitude towards
his brother, a tender attitude towards his sister, a hostile attitude
towards his father—you limit your imagination.
Now, describing this hypothetical family the way I did just now
would be better than dismissing the family as “dysfunctional.” It’s okay
to note that it sounds like a dysfunctional family—but don’t stop with
that generality. Go deeper. Ask questions about the family’s emotional
history: Where is the mother? Is there a history of abuse, neglect, or
addiction? What has the father done to lose his son’s trust?
Ideas for objectives may come out of speculation around these
questions. For instance, perhaps our main character is driven by a
need to protect the sister from the brother and father. A spine so pri-
mal can sustain an actor’s performance and create relationships of
emotional depth and power.
11) “I want more energy, but not hysterical energy.” Or, “The
character is grossed out, but not too grossed out.”
Actors are not machines. You cannot dial a performance the way
you dial levels on equipment. The dialing result direction drives
actors to despair and makes them feel that no matter what they
do, it will be wrong. Attempts to dial performances are assaults
on an actor’s connection to the moment. Experienced actors will
do their best, but over time will become less interested in what
the director has to say. A director who gives dialing direction is
sending a clear signal to the actors that he is clueless about the
character’s interior life—and that he has done zero script analy-
sis preparation. I can’t help feeling that dialing is the very worst
result direction.
 R esult D irection and Q uick F i x es 11

12) “You need to have a smirk on your face, because the

script says so.”
Sometimes the script itself seems to be giving an emotional result.
Sometimes a character has a line of dialogue declaring his emo-
tional state—such as, “I’m a callous person,” or, “I’m frightened.” Or
another character has a line: “You look so smug.” There can be stage
directions or parentheticals in the script describing the character’s
emotions, such as, “disappointed” or “her voice quivering with rage.”
The actor whose character’s emotional state is being described in
the text (whether in dialogue or stage direction) may feel obligated
to produce that emotion. Many actors ignore—and may literally
cross out with a Sharpie—the emotional parentheticals, because
creating the emotional subtext is the very province of the actors.
(It’s a lot like the way directors typically disregard suggestions by
the writer for camera angles.)
Don’t think of the script as giving emotional instructions.
Instead look for the emotional clues to the subtext. Actors already
torture themselves with worry and stress over whether or not
they have the “right” emotion. As soon as they start envisioning
the characters in terms of what emotion they “should” be having,
their emotional life is dying a little death. Directors can help sup-
port them in finding an emotional life that is honest and original
by questioning the emotional-result stage directions in the script.
13) Bonus example! “Can you split the difference between
take 3 and take 5?” “Do it the same but one year
younger.” “Can you play it more anecdotally?”
These are actual quotes that have been reported to me from actual
sets. I call this “ridiculous direction.”
Alright. Okay. Who knows? Maybe saying, “Do it the same,
but one year younger,” will mean something to a particular actor
and do just the trick.
But—seriously. It. Might. Not. You need other options.
12 DIRECTI NG ACTORS  WES TON

Quick Fixes
There are powerful tools ready to come to your rescue. I call them
Quick Fixes because when you know how to use them, they’re more
efficient than lengthy emotional mapping or facile pop-psychology
explanations, and more effective than result-oriented generalities
about the characters’ character traits or emotional states.
I also call them Quick Fixes because I don’t want you to get dis-
couraged about how depressingly familiar you may have found the
list of result directions earlier in this chapter. And, okay, let’s face
it—I wanted you to read this chapter and I knew one titled “Quick
Fixes” would be the first thing you’d read, no matter where I placed
it in the book, so I figured I might as well put it at the beginning.
These “quick fixes” are not a cheat sheet, but a sophisticated set
of tools to create believable behavior. To quote directing coach Adri-
enne Weiss, “An actor shouldn’t do something unless something
makes him do it. To strengthen a reaction, make what’s pushing the
actor/character stronger.” That’s what the tools do—address the
stimulus, create a reason for the character’s behavior.
I shouldn’t give you the impression that result direction never
works, because sometimes it does. When a director has a deep level
of trust with an actor, they can probably say just about anything
to each other. But how do you get to that trust? I recommend this
path: genuine curiosity about what makes actors tick, real concern
for emotional honesty from your actors, love for your characters,
and an interest in revealing truths about human behavior. Actors
pick up on all that.
Along the way, the tools will help and support you. Here they
are:
● verbs (aka intention or objective or need);

● facts (aka emotional history or backstory);

● subtext imagery;

● emotional event;

● obstacle;
 R esult D irection and Q uick F i x es 13

metaphor, the “as if ”;

●

● physical life;

● and—questions.

These powerful tools are keys to the inner life of the story and
its characters. Like result-oriented generalities, the tools can stop
working unexpectedly—but they are less likely to. And if they do
stop working, the situation is less hopeless, because verbs, facts,
images, events, metaphor, physical life, and questions, in addition to
being helpful language for direction, are useful script analysis tools.
They open up your imagination. Once you are alive and active in
the subtext of the script, you will have new ideas—this I promise
you. The tools turn ideas into events and psychology into behavior.
They are active and dynamic rather than static, sensory rather than
intellectual, specific rather than general, and above all, emotional
rather than abstract. Okay. Let’s jump in.

Verbs
You may have noticed that many of the examples of result direc-
tion involve adjectives—be quirky, be funny, be dangerous, be sexy, be
sad, be angry, be defensive, be suspicious, be awkward, be tormented. A
powerful way to be less result-oriented is to get excited about verbs
and to incorporate more of them in your communication. Verbs
(like demand, beg, seduce, blame) describe experience and are more
active than adjectives. Some of my directing students tell me that
verbs have changed their lives.
Here’s an invitation that may seem at first burdensome, but I
promise you, will be liberating: get specific. For example, instead of
describing a character by saying he is “being defensive,” let’s see if
we can translate that generality into a more specific verb. For now,
let’s consult the Short List of Verbs, in Appendix A. You might say
that the right verb is not on that list. You might want to say that
the appropriate verb translation for “being defensive” is to defend or
to protect or to deflect.
14 DIRECTI NG ACTORS  WES TON

Totally cool. These are verbs and they might work; I don’t rule
them out. But I’ve got to be honest. When I think about the verbs
to defend or to protect or to deflect—those verbs feel wimpy to me
and I want to keep looking for a bolder choice. What about com-
plain, belittle, or warn? Strong, active verbs.
I found those ideas by thinking about the defensive behav-
iors I have seen in life (including my own). When people are being
defensive, it’s often because information is coming at them that
they don’t like, or don’t want to face—information that impairs
their self-image. Each “defensive” person has her particular tactics
to take attention off the information she perceives as an attack. She
might complain about being picked on unfairly; she might belittle
the source of the information; she might warn the person convey-
ing the information not to persist. She might even accuse the other
person of something entirely irrelevant, in order to take the con-
versation off-topic.
I don’t claim that the Short List of Verbs (or even the lon-
ger list, in Appendix B) comprises all of human behavior—they’re
examples, to orient you to the world of verbs.
Verbs are a quick fix, but they are also central to the basic
understanding of a character—that the behavior of characters (and
people) arises from their needs. I use the term Verb Family to intro-
duce a constellation of tools: verb (or intention), objective (or need,
through-line), and spine. The Verb Family is valuable for creating a
characterization, as well as for structuring a scene. Here are a few
examples of how a member of the Verb Family can function as an
alternative to common result directions.

Use an active verb instead of an emotion.

A strong, active verb creates an emotional response between
characters. That’s its job. “To confront” is an example of an active
verb. It has an emotional component in that being confronted—
for instance, over lying or cheating—has a serious emotional
effect on the person being confronted. And—it has a serious
 R esult D irection and Q uick F i x es 15

emotional effect on the person doing the confronting! I mean,

have you ever confronted someone for their deliberate cruelty?
Can you imagine how doing such a stressful thing would churn
your emotions? (I’m talking about face-to-face, not on Twitter.
The anonymity of social media makes confrontation feel easy, but
in real life it’s not.)
Can you see how “to accuse” or “to punish” is more power-
ful than “to become angry”? The word “become” is a verb, but it’s
not active toward another person. Active verbs focus each actor’s
attention on their scene partner—on the effect they are having on
their scene partner—instead of on their own performance. Thus
the actors are engaged with each other, they are listening. When
the actors affect each other, something happens. If one character
is begging and the other one is ridiculing, something will happen!
Someone will get hurt—or won over—or maybe something else
no one expected. These are the emotional events. Now you’ve got
drama. Or comedy. The verbs work for both.
We cannot decide how to feel; we can decide what to do. Verbs
are experiential, dynamic, and playable rather than descriptive and
result-oriented.
A couple of examples of translations from emotional result to
verb:
● Instead of the adjective vicious, the verb to belittle.

● Instead of adjectives weak or desperate, the verb to beg or to

plead.

Use a verb instead of an attitude.

Examples of translating attitudes to verbs or objectives kind of make
themselves:
● Instead of an accusatory attitude, the verb to accuse.

● Instead of a threatening attitude, the verb to threaten.

● Instead of a mocking tone, the verb to mock.

● Instead of a friendly attitude, the objective to make friends.

● Instead of cheerful, the objective to cheer the other character up.

16 DIRECTI NG ACTORS  WES TON

Those are simple ones. Some you have to think about a bit. For
example, instead of hostile, you might consider the objective to make
her feel unwelcome or make her feel uncomfortable.
Superior actors will not be harmed by your using verbs instead
of adjectives and less experienced actors may very well be rescued
from disaster. An actor who is floundering may find the right track.
A scene may come alive right before your eyes! So instead of ask-
ing an actor to “play it sexy” (the result), you might suggest that he
“flirt” with her (verb); instead of asking an actor to “be angrier,” you
might suggest that she “accuse” or “punish” him.
Please do not think of me as the language police! If “a mocking
tone” sounds more natural than “to mock,” go for it. I want you to
become invested in something more important than just using “cor-
rect” instead of “incorrect” language. I want you to understand that
what is happening between characters is more significant than line
readings. What matters—however you describe it—is the inten-
tion underneath, the need for each character to have an effect on
the other characters.
For the director, the shift from attitude to verb looks like a
small one—but really it’s a big one. It means thinking of the story
as a network of relationships instead of a collection of performances.
This simple but sophisticated shift to your understanding of story-
telling will advance your skills more than you can imagine. Because
it helps you determine and recognize emotional events. Emotional
events tell your story.
It’s time for me to mention that when I say suggest such and
such direction, I really do mean suggest. This is what I like to call
the language of permission. For instance, “What do you think about
this thought I had?” Or, “I was wondering whether this idea might
be worth trying . . .” The language of permission is not about diplo-
macy—it’s about honesty. If a director has an idea, even one that
she is passionately committed to, no one really knows whether it
will work until the actors try it.
 R esult D irection and Q uick F i x es 17

Use a verb instead of “take it down.”

Actors actually hear directors say things like, “Can you take it down
by about 90%?” Can you hear how hard it would be to interpret
this direction—other than to assume the director hates everything
about you? It can sap actors’ energy to be constantly told to “take
it down” instead of a more specific direction. It can make them
feel that you don’t care if they commit, that you don’t want them
to engage.
Verbs can help. You may notice, though, that it will take more
thought on your part to articulate precisely what it is you want
using verbs. This is why you need to prepare! Yes, I am advocating
homework, but the extra mental exertion is good for you! Direct-
ing is not supposed to be easy. Asking an actor to coax rather than
demand might be another way of getting them to “take it down.”
Do you want the actor to punish? To warn? To complain? Each of
those verbs would give a different level of intensity to a scene or
moment; punish might be the most intense and complain the least
intense. But—you can’t be sure until they try it! It’s not a chem-
istry formula, where “X” milliliters of hydrochloric acid combined
with “Y” milliliters of bleach will always turn the litmus paper a
certain color.
When director Courtney Hunt shot the indie film Frozen
River, she had already worked with her lead, Melissa Leo, on a
short film; she knew that Leo would bring a lot of energy to the
set. While shooting Frozen River, instead of telling Leo to “take it
down,” Hunt said in an interview that she would ask Leo to “con-
fess it.” This is a brilliant way to adjust a performance! It not only
prevents the performance from going over the top, it supports the
deep vulnerability of this lost and haunted character.

Use a verb instead of “give it more energy.”

Choosing stronger verbs is great for creating more energetic perfor-
mances. Look at the difference in energy between to convince and to
accuse. In real life, the verb to convince is more common than the verb
18 DIRECTI NG ACTORS  WES TON

to accuse—and for good reason. In the business and social world,

convincing someone to admit they lied is more diplomatic, and prob-
ably more effective, than accusing them of lying. But for drama—or
comedy—the more heightened verb, to accuse, can take the scene
to another level. Vivid verbs like accuse or provoke or seduce may be
counterproductive in real life—but in narrative fiction, they are more
exciting than the socially acceptable verbs like convince.

Use a verb instead of describing “what the character is like”

or “how I see the character.”
We are what we do. I had an acting teacher who used to roar at us,
“If a man is standing on his head in the middle of the road, nobody
asks if he’s the type!” At the time his statement (which he repeated
often, at full volume) was a riddle to me; I pondered it for a long
time without understanding. What I know now years later is that
actors and directors waste energy and time gossiping about the
characters, arguing over whether the character “would do” such and
such a thing. If he does it, he would do it!
Actors sometimes resist this idea. You’ll hear them say: “My
character would never manipulate—she’s too nice.” Or, “My char-
acter wouldn’t flirt—he’s uptight about his sexuality.” News flash:
Uptight people flirt! Nice people manipulate! Proud people beg! Shy
people brag! People are complex! In real life, we do lots of things that
are inexplicable to others—and even to ourselves. Actors and direc-
tors who get stuck in “what the character is like” miss entirely what
a tangle of opposites humans really are. You don’t get to the com-
plexity of a character by indulging in analysis paralysis—it only piles
convolution upon convolution, psychologizing the character to death.
One way to create complexity in characters is to remind your-
self that human behavior is often irrational—possibly more often
than not. Another way is to understand what makes a charac-
ter complex is to notice that he does different things at different
times. Robert Downey, Jr. is a master at this; he can change inten-
tions (verbs) in the wink of an eye—he is able to charm, challenge,
 R esult D irection and Q uick F i x es 19

whine, demand, seduce—not all at once (although it may seem like

it)—but one at a time in extremely quick succession. This makes his
characters complex, unpredictable—and quirky.
Don’t waste time wrestling over some abstract concept of what
the character’s personality is. Go for the behavior.

Use a verb instead of a judgment.

Instead of denouncing a character as manipulative, give some
thought to the specific behaviors of a manipulative person. For
example, the mother, played by Mo’Nique, in the 2009 film Pre-
cious. I expect that many of us might view Mary as manipulative.
But let’s go deeper than that negative generality and instead break
down—deconstruct—that judgment into specific behaviors or
intentions. Here are some verbs I thought of: Mary demands, she
goads, she definitely punishes—but she also sweet-talks and cajoles;
she even begs. Not all at once—different verbs in different situ-
ations. She’s complicated! More complicated than her luckless
daughter, played by Gabourey Sidibe, who has one single need: to
make someone, anyone, love her.

Use a verb instead of a line reading.

During your script analysis, you can think up ways to translate the
line reading in your head into a verb. The line reading, “Please help
me” might carry the intention to beg; the line reading, “Please help
me,” the intention to demand; the line reading, “Please help me,”
perhaps the intention to complain. But when you’re out of time,
don’t beat yourself up. Just remember that when you have the urge
to demonstrate a line reading for an actor, what you really want is
a particular intention, or verb. If you can’t think of any other way
of communicating what you want than a line reading, it can help
if you say something like, “I know it sounds like I’m giving a line
reading, but there’s an intention I’m looking for and I can’t think
of the verb.”