It wasn’t so much of a controlled effort to end up as part of the Goth scene.
A movie that makes me cry every time is ‘Billy Elliot.’ That scene where he’s dancing in the hall, and his dad walks in. And the first time his dad can see how amazing he is dancing, but he’s so conflicted with kind of his own feelings towards it. Oh, it’s so emotional.
I don’t get the jitters and I don’t get nervous, because I build that comfort on set for myself. Sometimes if I’m gonna do something really crazy, it helps me to yell or look like an idiot on set, so that when I’m about to do a scene, I’ve already embarrassed myself. I find ways to work around getting the jitters.
I claimed identity as Jewish musicians for political reasons, because most of us were touring in Germany and, at this time, twelve years ago, there was a strong resurgence of Nazism in the places we were touring and part of that was on the music scene.
The only reason for using another cut is to improve the scene.
So on my screenplay, on the left-hand side of the page, I will put all the ideas that refer to the scene next to it so I have some sort of pictorial reference.
I can’t tell you how much we laughed on the set to have Alec Guinness in a scene with a big, furry dog that’s flying a space ship.
It was a turning point in the sense that as a scene, we can up with a lot of new ideas.
Because of the need to remove all modernism, we stayed in the middle of nowhere all day long, living out of tents. It was cold. It definitely set the scene.
Sweet is the scene where genial friendship plays the pleasing game of interchanging praise.
I remember doing the sex scene in Red Rock West. I had to kiss Nic Cage and then look like I was going down on him. And he couldn’t do anything – he just had to lie there.
Most of my stuff before CSI was kind of the jerk boyfriend, so I thought this was one of those deals, where these two have a thing going on, so we had a scene where they make out.
In the States, this type of jam-band phenomena has opened it up for groups to improvise, admittedly more in the groove area, as opposed to the straight-ahead jazz thing – which is good for me, as that’s one part of where I’m at. It’s been so great playing these gigs and seeing kids come out and the whole college scene.
Sometimes fake laughing is hard once you’ve done a scene 18 times. I don’t want to brag, but I have a reputation for being very, very good at that. It’s funny finding what’s challenging about acting as you go.
I had a scene where the chair was meant to slide off the table, but do you think it would slide off? No. We were running out of time and we had to get these scenes done urgently.
I was a girly-girl until I moved to New York. Then I got really into the androgynous look of the early-’90s club scene. I had really short hair and started blurring the line a bit. But for me, grade school was about Benetton, Esprit, and Guess jeans.
The Florida in my novels is not as seedy as the real Florida. It’s hard to stay ahead of the curve. Every time I write a scene that I think is the sickest thing I have ever dreamed up, it is surpassed by something that happens in real life.
There are a lot of actors who will watch the monitors. They’ll do a scene, and then the director will look back to see if he got whatever he wanted. I just find it odd to sit there and watch yourself.
That’s the only way I can control my movie. If you shoot everything, then everything is liable to end up in the movie. If you have a vision, you don’t have to cover every scene.
Greater than scene is situation. Greater than situation is implication. Greater than all of these is a single, entire human being, who will never be confined in any frame.
When I look at a character, whether he’s good or bad, one scene or 10 scenes, I just have to find my way in.
My favorite – my very favorite movie, which I suppose is a bit of a guilty pleasure in that it’s like, you know, every scene, you know, pushes every button, is ‘True Romance’ directed by Tony Scott with Patricia Arquette and Christian Slater, and it’s a fantastic, fantastic film, very violent, very romantic.
I saw ‘Taxi Driver,’ and ‘Taxi Driver’ kind of saved my life. The scene where Robert De Niro is looking at himself in the mirror saying, ‘You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? Who the hell else are you talkin’ to?’ That’s the scene that changed my life by changing my attitude about acting.
A lot of young actors will do a scene and then run off and look at themselves. I don’t believe in that at all.
I know pretty well in the broad sense what I’m going to do, because I have to know that when we shoot the live-action, so that it’ll synchronize. Then I know pretty well when I get to the animation stage, what that scene requires.
I’m always saying that my books are not autobiographical because they’re not. I can’t choose any one scene and say, ‘Oh, this is exactly what happened to me!’ I just use little snippets of things as a starting point!
There’s the movie you write, there’s the movie you shoot and the movie you edit, and often, you find that you’re getting the same information out of a scene that you already have and a scene that’s actually more powerful, so you have to make the tough decision to take it out.
I can’t stand the club scene. It’s all about impressing people.
There are times when I’m driving home after a day’s shooting, thinking to myself, That scene would’ve been so much better if I had written it out.
Novelists are not equipped to make a movie, in my opinion. They make their own movie when they write: they’re casting, they’re dressing the scene, they’re working out where the energy of the scene is coming from and they’re also relying tremendously on the creative imagination of the reader.
It’s almost better most times to not talk in a scene. I think you can actually express a lot more without words.
And sometimes, when you feel low on yourself, that’s just when you have to go out there and be photographed or do a scene where you’re hot stuff. You’re always working on it.
All trembling, I reached the Falls of Niagara, and oh, what a scene! My blood shudders still, although I am not a coward, at the grandeur of the Creator’s power; and I gazed motionless on this new display of the irresistible force of one of His elements.
Yeah, you know, if I’m having an emotional scene I do like to go off and be by myself; not to say that I’m a method actor or anything like that, but for scenes like that that are more emotional, I do like to take that night off and not be so social.
I’m Sudafed-ed up, but it’s alright because I’m having to do this rather sultry scene, so maybe it’s OK that my voice is three octaves lower.
When Robert Benton was doing the movie ‘In the Still of the Night,’ I’d choreographed the auction scene and supplied the paintings and had a bit part – I was bidding against Meryl Streep.
‘Evita’ was four pieces of slick paper and a record album. It’s the most scary, to sit down and dictate a musical scene by scene. It was a musical unlike anything I’d ever seen before myself.
I’m wary of the whole Los Angeles scene. I’m a California kid, but there’s a difference between California and Los Angeles. L.A. is urban. California is restorative.
Then I did one fight scene, and they said it looked good. Because I did it well enough, they’ve given me more.
I enjoy some physical stuff. But if I had a choice between playing a scene where it’s raining, it’s terribly cold, I’m wet and I’m being drowned and playing a scene with dinosaur eggs in a laboratory, I’d probably take the latter. It’s warmer and generally more comfortable!
It feels so great to be back on the scene.
The English scene got more media attention with their emphasis on fashion, with the safety pins and all. There were some really good bands over there. The Sex Pistols were great.
If the director says you can do better, particularly in a love scene, then it is rather embarrassing.
As a director, try to be humble and not to overdo it, not overcoverage and over-covering the scene.
Most women’s pictures are as boring and as formulaic as men’s pictures. In place of a car chase or a battle scene, what you get is an extreme closeup of a woman breaking down.
And this system sorted out the Chechen war in just 20 days. This way, I used the President’s power, he didn’t use me. It wasn’t hard for me to leave – it isn’t my scene. I have nothing to do there.
When I don’t know what the music is going to be for a scene, I imagine some sort of orchestration going on and damned if they don’t usually come up with a similar kind of thing.
When the Chicago rap scene came about, I listened to all of the upcoming artists like Lil Durk, Chief Keef and G Herbo.
That’s what sets apart one actor from another, and that you can’t teach. You can’t give someone that. When you’re working, putting a character together, or in a scene, that’s where things will happen that you have to have the intuition to notice them, and to register them.
But I couldn’t cut that whole septic tank scene out because the audience liked it so much. So I sort of fell right back into getting a cheap laugh, but I still loved it.
I don’t really like to work with actors that work a lot and are very well established already. In a way, I like to nurture talent and have it burst on the scene.
Acting with creatures that aren’t there is kind like acting with an actor who refuses to come out of his trailer. You still have to go on and do the scene.
