Death scenes are hard. Sex scenes are hard.
So many times you see beautiful lovemaking scenes with a lot of exposure or an awkward lovemaking scene, but I think it’s very rare that you see it private.
You can’t steal every scene. There are scenes in which you need to sit back and do a lot less, verbally, physically.
Things develop in front of my camera, and then I will try to do the best out of it. I am close, but in most of the scenes, I am trying not to be seen. I think that’s the trick. I think it starts in your heart, goes to the head, and the head puts it into the finger.
In the past I’ve been very into the falling part, very into the swimming in the dark, deep emotional water. ‘Rampart’ I really went into it and it took me three times as long to get out of that depression as it did to just do the scenes. I had to learn to give it my all and then go home and laugh.
It doesn’t excite me as a writer to write some swearing or sex scenes, because they don’t have any emotional content.
I feel like because I’ve done more gay characters, gay scenes, or gay projects than most straight actors, people see it as some sort of mission. It’s more of a case-by-case basis, and just trying to capture figures that I love. I guess that a lot of the figures that I love were gay.
The romance stuff is easy. A sex scene… that’s hard, because you don’t know what to do. Those scenes are awkward.
I have been given a lot of roles that are downtrodden, mammy-ish. A lot of lawyers or doctors who have names but absolutely no lives. You’re going to get your three or four scenes; you’re not going to be able to show what you can do.
There are a couple of scenes in David Lynch’s ‘Dune’ that I loved – again, small things but inspired and elegantly done.
In ‘There’s Something About Mary’ and ‘Dumb & Dumber,’ I ended up improvising quite a bit of my scenes, and later I didn’t even remember what I’d said because I just winged it. When I went and saw the movie, I was as stunned as everyone else was.
I will always respect the beliefs of fellow Christians who aren’t comfortable reading or writing explicit love scenes, but I believe romances are beautiful and spiritual books that celebrate the best of what love has to offer and mirror the love God has for his children.
My characters have to talk, or they’re out. They audition in early scenes. If they can’t talk, they’re given less to do, or thrown out.
I think good radio often uses the techniques of fiction: characters, scenes, a big urgent emotional question. And as in the best fiction, tone counts for a lot. But a lot of effective and interesting radio is based on one character who reacts to the world.
If you write a bunch of different characters with a bunch of different opinions, you end up with these long scenes of everyone standing around talking.
Of course, women have long exercised influence behind the scenes. A few thousand years ago this drove Aristotle to distraction: ‘What difference does it make whether women rule or the rulers are ruled by women? The result is the same.’
‘Cinderella’ the cartoon scared me. I watched the bits with the mice, and the scenes with the stepsisters ripping her dress apart scared me. Cinderella was never even my favorite character in ‘Into the Woods.’
In ‘Twice Born’ I play my character in her 20s, 30s and 50s. For the fifty year old scenes, I had some prosthetics; it was interesting to see how I’m going to look when I’m fifty-five or so. I actually saw similarities between my grandmothers and my mother.
I can only speak for myself, but you never set out to be funny. You just set out to play the scenes real, and hopefully the funny comes.
‘If I Loved You.’ All the way. Totally intimidated by it. From the outside, it has this aura of being one of the greatest musical theater scenes ever written.
On ‘Whose Line,’ we had six, seven, eight scenes per show, so everything was pretty quick. And there’s a lot of games that we just got tired of, like ‘Hats’ and ‘World’s Worst’ and ‘Hoedown’ and stuff.
I don’t feel comfortable with violence, and I’m not sure that I film violent scenes properly, and it’s something I’m reticent to do, and yet violence is sort of in all of my films.
I played a definite part in it. I guess the things that I played in films and the way the nudity and the love scenes were handled were really different.
Once the film is done, then I like to watch myself. I know some actors say that they get very self-conscious watching themselves on screen especially if they have to cry in the scenes, they don’t like the way their face contorts, but I have no such issues.
There are writers’ rooms that will write episodes all together, who will break into little groups and write certain scenes. Everyone’s process can be a little bit malleable. Everyone tries to get into a groove or find what works for their room.
I think the grime scene is one of the sickest, most diverse scenes ever.
The most important thing when you’re shooting difficult scenes is that you have a supportive team who will buck you up emotionally.
When I was shooting ‘The Dark Knight,’ I always felt like I was shooting an intimate drama for some reason. The scenes were all intimate, and they were always between a few individuals.
I avoided nudity unless a film couldn’t be told without those scenes. If you look at my films, few of them have that element, yet nudity and male fantasies have become emblematic of my work.
I remember laughing an inordinate amount of time. Setting up scenes that involve ooze coming out basements, or pigs’ heads flying through windows is really fun. How could you not laugh?
I kind of got really lucky a couple of years ago: I got to do a part in ‘The Descendants,’ in Alexander Payne’s movie. I just had a small part, but I got to do a few scenes with my best friend George Clooney.
When I walked in to read with Edie Falco, it was nice, because I auditioned in New York, and it was very quick. You walk in, there’s Edie, the producers, the director, and a camera. I read three scenes, and it was done.
Long scenes of emotion are quite difficult – you’ve got to build up to them and make sure you’re in the right emotional space.
It is a treat to do scenes where you silently enact.
I find directing so incredibly rewarding and challenging and humbling and exciting and engaging. Scenes become challenging. Actors bring out the best of you. Circumstances demand you dig deep.
We help kids and fans of all ages find their social scenes. Find their place. Find their demeanor.
They’re called ‘action scenes’ because they do the acting for you. You don’t have to act in action scenes. The action does it all for you. It’s great.
Some of the biggest changes that have happened are behind the scenes, in the way we produce the magazine. E.g., much of our production has been brought in-house via desktop publishing.
I cleaned up everything behind the scenes and simplified my life. I made some changes in my staff. I changed management, my accountants, my bookkeeping team. I had a full refresh. For me that was extremely important.
This is the point being missed by readers who lament Liquor’s lack of hot sex scenes, probably because they aren’t old enough to understand that a passionate relationship could be about anything other than sex.
I’ve always just loved the Marshall/Lily relationship, and just exploring that, and the dynamic of a long-term relationship, and I just love our scenes together. I love it.
When my family goes to sleep, I start clicking, combing through digitized phone books, school yearbooks, and Google Earth views of crime scenes: a bottomless pit of potential leads for the laptop investigator who now exists in the virtual world.
I think explicit love scenes are a turn off unless it’s the kind you read with one hand.
For me, playing music while I write is important. Several of the romantic scenes in ‘Paris’ were written with Debussy’s ‘String Quartet,’ his ‘L’Apres-midi d’une Faune,’ or Canteloube’s ‘Songs of the Auvergne’ playing in the background.
In the car and in front of the camera I tend to be very calm but behind the scenes I can get fired up and passionate, I just don’t see the need to shout my mouth off in public.
It is very important to me to communicate with the fans and not hide what’s going on behind the scenes.
There was an email forwarded to me from a first-grade teacher, and she said she was teaching them civil rights for MLK weekend, and a little first-grader stood up, and he said, ‘I can explain segregation,’ and proceeded to explain all the scenes from ‘Hidden Figures.’ And I died because that’s everything.
Bruce Springsteen really got any creative person’s dream career, and his good-heartedness and good-spiritedness are part of it: both because it made the people behind the scenes want to do their jobs that much better, but it also means that he connects with an audience in a way that holds them close.
Music is definitely influential on how I approach my scenes.
It’s nice to create a character, not just within two scenes, but within the journey of a whole movie. It’s fun to do that.
As I have written before, one of my favorite parts of my job as CEO of Moda Operandi is the opportunity I get to explore international fashion scenes to discover new talent, and then being able to introduce these designers to our community of fashion-savvy customers worldwide.
