JUDITH WESTON's beloved classic Directing Actors, a bestseller ever since it was first published in 1996, has now been released in a 25th Anniversary Edition from Michael Wiese Productions (also available from Amazon in paperback and Kindle).
Her directing students include Alejandro Iñárritu (The Revenant, Birdman, 21 Grams, Amores Perros); Ava DuVernay (When They See Us, Selma, Queen Sugar); Steve McQueen (Small Axe, 12 Years a Slave); Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit, Thor: Ragnarok, Hunt for the Wilderpeople); Deniz Gamze Ergüven (Handmaid’s Tale, Mustang); David Chase (The Sopranos)—and thousands more directors and writers around the world.
Judith maintained a Los Angeles studio for 30 years, and has traveled with her workshops to Amsterdam, Berlin, Cologne, Dublin, Stockholm, Lund, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Milan, Strasbourg, Belgrade, Utrecht, Geneva, Zurich, Penzance, Auckland, Sydney, Cape Town, and cities all across Canada. She now offers one-on-one consultations for filmmakers preparing for a specific project. You can find more information, including her social media links, on her website https://www.judithweston.com/.
We spoke recently about what's new in the 25th Anniversary of her seminal book, what's changed and remained constant with the acting process, and her favorite cinematic moment from a Best Picture winner.
Dave Watson: Congratulations on the 25th Anniversary Edition of Directing Actors. What did you notice differently writing this edition?
Judith Weston: Thanks for asking this! Because I followed an unusual process writing this book. In April 2019 an audiobook publisher, Dreamscape, asked my publisher, Michael Wiese Productions, if they could produce an audiobook of the original Directing Actors, which came out in 1996. I’d been dying to do an audiobook version and voice it myself—but at this point, so many years after the book had been written, it felt like it needed updating. So the audiobook, which came out in September 2019, is different from the original paperback. Then Michael and Ken said, let’s do a new print edition—it’s perfect timing for a 25th anniversary edition. At first I thought it would be a matter of sprucing up the punctuation from the audiobook text—but then I decided to work with an editor and go all out on a complete revision and updating of the original book. I’d been fielding questions from directors throughout the twenty-five years since the original book was written, so I had a lot of material to include. I thought to myself, this will be the last book I write on the subject of directors and actors so I want to put in it everything I know and I want to present it as clearly as I possibly can.
I followed the chapter structure of the original but I reorganized and expanded every chapter. I updated film and television references. I completely re-did the Script Analysis chapter because I’d gotten permission to use a scene from The Matrix—I found this made it possible to describe script analysis almost step-by-step. I re-organized the Rehearsal chapter as meticulously as I could, so it could be almost like a handbook. I might be proudest of all of the chapter on Emotional Event—that’s the topic that my students and clients have struggled with the most, so I put in many hours figuring out how to approach it from every possible angle—I really want the concept of Emotional Event to enter the moviemaking lexicon. And—I wrote a whole new chapter on Directing Children.
DW: Has acting changed over the last twenty-five years?
JW: The real sea change in acting happened after World War II—essentially there is pre-Brando and post-Brando. No one admires and loves the great actors of the 1930s and ‘40s more than I do—Barbara Stanwyck, Bette Davis, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, Walter Houston, and so many others. But—Marlon Brando’s performances in Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront, both directed by Elia Kazan, permanently raised the bar for naturalism and risk-taking in acting. That hasn’t changed.
DW: You discuss Result Direction. What is this?
JW: I start the book with thirteen examples of Result Direction, like “Be quirky,” “Be angrier,” “Say the line this way,” or “Your character is a jerk.” I do this to get people’s attention—ways of talking about characters that many directors (and many actors) use all the time but are unhelpful if your goal is freshness and truth in the performances. But I’m not trying to police anyone’s language—it’s not a matter of using correct vocabulary—it’s about doing more depthful script analysis, digging under the surface of the lines to find revelatory, playable insights into the characters’ behavior and relationships.
DW: Through Quick Fixes and Moment by Moment, you focus on small moments in acting. Is this where film acting begins or what resonates specifically with audiences? Film seems to be a medium where people remember moments readily years later.
JW: Working “moment by moment” gives actors the possibility of surprising each other and even themselves, while the camera is rolling. It is the first principle of good acting, and yes, I think acting that is “in the moment” is the delivery system for the shimmering, electric moments of drama or zany moments of comedy that lure the audience into the story.
DW: You also discuss Actors' Resources and Training. Has this changed since you wrote the first edition of the book? With streaming, YouTube, and other content platforms or do principles transcend these changes in venues?
JW: I usually recommend to people starting out that they find a Meisner class with a good teacher. The Meisner repetition exercise centers an actor in their own body, their own feelings and impulses, and most importantly—in their relationship to the actor opposite them. The repetition exercise can even be done over Zoom—the two actors doing the exercise “pin” each other and the teacher and rest of the class turn off their video and put themselves in “gallery mode.”
DW: What's next?
JW: Is it too entirely predictable if I disclose that I am writing a memoir? I think that with DA25, as well as The Film Director’s Intuition, which came out in 2003, I have done my very best to put into print everything I have to say on the subject of directing actors. The only follow-up I have now is to model my deep belief that if you want to be a storyteller, you need to face your own story. And that’s what I started doing six years ago, after I closed my studio.
DW: Finally, what's your favorite cinematic moment?
JW: The moment in the Moonlight diner scene when Chiron, Trevante Rhodes, asks Kevin, Andre Holland, “Why’d you call me?” Really, every moment of their interaction in that whole scene.
Clip: Moonlight
Founder and editor of Movies Matter, Dave Watson is a writer and educator in Madison, WI.
Her directing students include Alejandro Iñárritu (The Revenant, Birdman, 21 Grams, Amores Perros); Ava DuVernay (When They See Us, Selma, Queen Sugar); Steve McQueen (Small Axe, 12 Years a Slave); Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit, Thor: Ragnarok, Hunt for the Wilderpeople); Deniz Gamze Ergüven (Handmaid’s Tale, Mustang); David Chase (The Sopranos)—and thousands more directors and writers around the world.
Judith maintained a Los Angeles studio for 30 years, and has traveled with her workshops to Amsterdam, Berlin, Cologne, Dublin, Stockholm, Lund, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Milan, Strasbourg, Belgrade, Utrecht, Geneva, Zurich, Penzance, Auckland, Sydney, Cape Town, and cities all across Canada. She now offers one-on-one consultations for filmmakers preparing for a specific project. You can find more information, including her social media links, on her website https://www.judithweston.com/.
We spoke recently about what's new in the 25th Anniversary of her seminal book, what's changed and remained constant with the acting process, and her favorite cinematic moment from a Best Picture winner.
Dave Watson: Congratulations on the 25th Anniversary Edition of Directing Actors. What did you notice differently writing this edition?
Judith Weston: Thanks for asking this! Because I followed an unusual process writing this book. In April 2019 an audiobook publisher, Dreamscape, asked my publisher, Michael Wiese Productions, if they could produce an audiobook of the original Directing Actors, which came out in 1996. I’d been dying to do an audiobook version and voice it myself—but at this point, so many years after the book had been written, it felt like it needed updating. So the audiobook, which came out in September 2019, is different from the original paperback. Then Michael and Ken said, let’s do a new print edition—it’s perfect timing for a 25th anniversary edition. At first I thought it would be a matter of sprucing up the punctuation from the audiobook text—but then I decided to work with an editor and go all out on a complete revision and updating of the original book. I’d been fielding questions from directors throughout the twenty-five years since the original book was written, so I had a lot of material to include. I thought to myself, this will be the last book I write on the subject of directors and actors so I want to put in it everything I know and I want to present it as clearly as I possibly can.
I followed the chapter structure of the original but I reorganized and expanded every chapter. I updated film and television references. I completely re-did the Script Analysis chapter because I’d gotten permission to use a scene from The Matrix—I found this made it possible to describe script analysis almost step-by-step. I re-organized the Rehearsal chapter as meticulously as I could, so it could be almost like a handbook. I might be proudest of all of the chapter on Emotional Event—that’s the topic that my students and clients have struggled with the most, so I put in many hours figuring out how to approach it from every possible angle—I really want the concept of Emotional Event to enter the moviemaking lexicon. And—I wrote a whole new chapter on Directing Children.
DW: Has acting changed over the last twenty-five years?
JW: The real sea change in acting happened after World War II—essentially there is pre-Brando and post-Brando. No one admires and loves the great actors of the 1930s and ‘40s more than I do—Barbara Stanwyck, Bette Davis, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, Walter Houston, and so many others. But—Marlon Brando’s performances in Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront, both directed by Elia Kazan, permanently raised the bar for naturalism and risk-taking in acting. That hasn’t changed.
DW: You discuss Result Direction. What is this?
JW: I start the book with thirteen examples of Result Direction, like “Be quirky,” “Be angrier,” “Say the line this way,” or “Your character is a jerk.” I do this to get people’s attention—ways of talking about characters that many directors (and many actors) use all the time but are unhelpful if your goal is freshness and truth in the performances. But I’m not trying to police anyone’s language—it’s not a matter of using correct vocabulary—it’s about doing more depthful script analysis, digging under the surface of the lines to find revelatory, playable insights into the characters’ behavior and relationships.
DW: Through Quick Fixes and Moment by Moment, you focus on small moments in acting. Is this where film acting begins or what resonates specifically with audiences? Film seems to be a medium where people remember moments readily years later.
JW: Working “moment by moment” gives actors the possibility of surprising each other and even themselves, while the camera is rolling. It is the first principle of good acting, and yes, I think acting that is “in the moment” is the delivery system for the shimmering, electric moments of drama or zany moments of comedy that lure the audience into the story.
DW: You also discuss Actors' Resources and Training. Has this changed since you wrote the first edition of the book? With streaming, YouTube, and other content platforms or do principles transcend these changes in venues?
JW: I usually recommend to people starting out that they find a Meisner class with a good teacher. The Meisner repetition exercise centers an actor in their own body, their own feelings and impulses, and most importantly—in their relationship to the actor opposite them. The repetition exercise can even be done over Zoom—the two actors doing the exercise “pin” each other and the teacher and rest of the class turn off their video and put themselves in “gallery mode.”
DW: What's next?
JW: Is it too entirely predictable if I disclose that I am writing a memoir? I think that with DA25, as well as The Film Director’s Intuition, which came out in 2003, I have done my very best to put into print everything I have to say on the subject of directing actors. The only follow-up I have now is to model my deep belief that if you want to be a storyteller, you need to face your own story. And that’s what I started doing six years ago, after I closed my studio.
DW: Finally, what's your favorite cinematic moment?
JW: The moment in the Moonlight diner scene when Chiron, Trevante Rhodes, asks Kevin, Andre Holland, “Why’d you call me?” Really, every moment of their interaction in that whole scene.
Clip: Moonlight
Founder and editor of Movies Matter, Dave Watson is a writer and educator in Madison, WI.
