It is interesting to be here and to see that for certain actors they have to live in a way that you think of nobody living anymore except for in small towns. They have such elaborate double lives.
That day I think we really saw each other for the first time. I mean, saw beyond the bag of bones on the outside. You take away her pretty and my plain and what you get underneath is about the same: a couple of lost girls looking to be found.
But you really – I always think that a director has got to adapt to whatever the needs of the actor are. You know, so if you take someone like Eddie Murphy, who is not a big fan of rehearsal.
I think that finding a way into somebody’s life that’s sort of off from a side angle can tell you more about that person than a greatest hits approach.
I had a couple of movies that I was passionately involved with that I could never get made. ‘Richard Pryor,’ I wrote for – gosh – over a year. That was close to getting made for two-and-a-half years after that.
For me, someone like the Eddie Murphy character doesn’t live anywhere; he lives on a stage and when he’s not on the stage he’s on a bus getting to the next stage.
There’s nothing quite as good as folding up into a book and shutting the world outside.If I pick the right one I can be beautiful, or fall in love, or live happily ever after. Maybe even all three.
I do think that’s so much a part of what being a director is – in working with actors – to really try and be sensitive to what each actor needs to get to where he wants to be.
You’ve got friends and family. That’s how we get by. We talk and share and eat cake and giggle in the dark, even when we’re scared – no, especially when we’re scared.
