. . . to make the invisible visible.

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"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

MARK & JAY DUPLASS ON "CYRUS"

The Duplass brothers have taken a big step forward with Cyrus. Their previous films such as The Puffy Chair and Baghead were both very good, but Cyrus is great. One of those reasons: the awkwardness and realism. When you watch a Duplass film it couldn’t feel more close to real life. The jokes aren’t broad or too over-the-top, but grounded in a realm of uncomfortableness.

This isn’t a battle a la Step Brothers or Rushmore style, but something real. The Duplass brother’s shooting style is a contributing factor to that which is quite unorthodox compared to most filmmakers. They shoot in sequence, the camerawork is practically all handheld, and they hardly stick to the dialog on page. Their formula is different, but obviously works. Here’s what Jay Duplass had to say about all this:

So, how did you make sure not to make Step Brothers 2? It’s obviously not that at all.

Thank you, I appreciate that. That’s an important message for us to get out there. It is John and Jonah, but we don’t want people coming in expecting Step Brothers. The easy answer to that is: although we love those type of movies and laugh our asses off, those aren’t the type of films that we make. Ultimately, it’s a relationship movie first. It’s about characters and real people tying to accomplish real things. Secondarily, we want it to be as funny as it can be. We don’t really write jokes or ask our actors to be funny, but we actually go the opposite way. We try to make sure that they’re just playing their characters. It’s the situation that comes off funny.

When you pitched the film to Fox Searchlight with the script did you and Mark say, “All the dialogue you read in the script actually won’t be in the movie.”

Yeah, we told them exactly how we work. It’s interesting that, in the end, the movie is actually pretty similar to the script. It’s just the method of getting there is really different than how most people in Hollywood shoot. We just try to go off script so we can get that level of naturalism that we’re obsessed with.

What’s your process of writing dialogue? Do you guys focus less on that because of how off script you go?

Honestly, the way it goes down is that my brother and I get the story down pretty heavily. When it comes time to do the first draft we have everything set. We know what the story is, we know how it’s going to add up, and Mark literally spews the whole script out in a linear fashion without looking back in a matter of two or three days. The dialogue actually comes out of the mouth. When it’s on the page, it doesn’t look as pretty as a lot of scripts look. It looks messy and looks almost superfluous. We definitely have a process where we try and keep the piece of art out of the intellectual realm as much as possible. We try to keep it in the body and as a living, breathing thing.

And all the plot points stay the same?

Absolutely. The plot points are all the same, but except for a couple that are just from typical editorial choices. Sometimes you take out scenes to make the film move along a little bit quicker.

One scene I wanna ask about that I know was cut out was where you actually got to see Cyrus having a panic attack. Was that cut out because it could’ve made him too sympathetic?

There’s definitely some things we had to cut. We were writing a very specific tone and there were some things that Cyrus was doing where… At a certain point, if you’re really connecting with this kid and realize he’s just a kid scared of losing his mom you have to save that realization until the end. If you realize that earlier on it would make it harder to have a lot of fun with the competition between John and Cyrus.

The most interesting part about Cyrus’s relationship with Molly is the subtle creepiness to it. There’s something slightly inappropriate about it, but the film never condemns that.

For us, we don’t like to condemn anything or any of our characters. Ultimately, at the core of Cyrus- who’s probably the most extreme character we’ve ever created- he really is just a kid terrified of losing his mom. That’s really the only significant relationship he has in his life. That’s what drives him to this desperation.

How do you balance though making Cyrus sympathetic while also making him out as the menacing and manipulative kid that you do?

You know, I don’t know. It’s more of a sub-conscience process, but I’d say more than anything we start off with an impression and then flip it over on its head. Hopefully, by the end of the movie you really get who he is and why he’s doing what he’s doing. It’s important that you understand him.

Do you think John ever comes off creepy as well?

Yeah, John is going head-to-head with this kid and using everything in his arsenal to try to take him down. In our opinion, no one is innocent in these movies. There’s no right or wrong. Everyone has flaws. That’s how we experience the world and that’s how we see people. We don’t judge them for it, but what we will do is put them on film and laugh with them and even at them a little bit. Never in a mocking way, but just in the way you’d laugh at yourself for all the little weird things you do.

You don’t hide their warts at all. It’s pretty awkward when you see John following Molly home. He’s a really nice guy, but it’s still odd.

Yeah, he stalks her and he even admits it. She’s a little creeped out by it. At the same time, if the guy turns out just to be a genuine dude then it’s a little flattering. It’s flattering if someone like that is focusing all about you.

John is a good guy. There’s that one scene where he says, “I know I’m a good guy,” and that really plays into how self-aware your characters are, but that’s also a really sad moment as well.

I know (laughs). We just love that his character is one-hundred percent on-the-line and that’s one of the great things about John C. Reilly. He can achieve a level of vulnerability that not many people can.

Reilly put it best too that Cyrus isn’t only ruining his relationship with Molly, but also messing with his goal to have his life together by the time of the wedding.

I think that is definitely a sub-conscience aim that maybe even the character is not even aware of. His ex-wife is getting remarried and he just doesn’t want to be that person that all of his and her friends have come to see him as.

When you get to Cyrus’s redemption at the end, how do you make sure it’s not too triumphant? It’s great how you don’t disregard the fact he’s acted like a terrible person for most of the film.

Yeah, we don’t. Honestly, we don’t like to suggest anything specific like everything is going to be okay from this point on. We’re definitely walking a fine line with the tone of the movie to makes sure there’s a lot of interpretations. The ending of the movie is more of a product of what’s going on inside of each audience member. Things are left pretty vague. There’s definitely some satisfying moments, but who knows what will happen in the future.

Couldn’t you say though that Cyrus ends a little more upbeat than your previous films?

Definitely. I don’t know if it’s a product of the fact that this movie has an enormous amount of conflict in it. It was something where you needed to achieve a balance in terms of the overall piece of art. There’s definitely some hopefulness there that definitely hasn’t been present in some of our past films.

Was finding the right tone something you struck at during the editing process? Since you shot so much footage I’d imagine once you get to that stage you could, if you wanted to, make a completely different movie.

That’s exactly what it is. Although the plot would’ve been the same, but because we are ninety-percent in close-ups that tone and the mode of how these people are treating each-other rises to the surface a lot more than you see in most films. From our perspective, we feel like we could make different movies with that footage. Our edits take a long time and it’s usually about nine months of editing. It’s documentary feature edits. We probably recut every scene twenty times.

Did you ever end up with say, a broader cut? Something more over-the-top?

We never did, but we certainly could’ve ended up with a more balls-out comedy cut.

How do you make sure to keep it restrained in that realm? You could have easily gone too far with the conflict between John and Cyrus.

You know, we’re just following our instincts. Ultimately, we like relationship movies that are funny. We’re going for a documentary-like style with the realism. We really want people to feel like they’re in the room with these people. You know, it may or may not be happening, but it certainly feels like the argument I had with my girlfriend last week. That’s the type of stuff we’re obsessed with. It’s a lot of work for us to imagine the tone, but it’s easy for us since that is what we’re drawn to.

The documentary style definitely comes off with the handheld camerawork.

It’s really just a result that we shoot totally differently than most of Hollywood. Normally, Hollywood will bring actors to a mark and overall, it’s a machine type of production. We actually do something completely different. We set people loose in a room and we say, “Do what you want.” Go where you wanna go, say what you wanna say, and have the interaction you wanna have. You know what the script is about and you know the goals you have to achieve, but just run free. We come to that interaction as a documentary-like crew. The adjustments of the camera are really because of where the actors are going.

Cyrus is now in theaters.

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"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

MERYL STREEP, GEORGE C. WOLFE, ET. ALL: IN & ON THE PROCESS

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"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

THIS SUNDAY - THE HOLIDAY BRUNCH

The Holiday Brunch!

It's the most wonderful time of the brunch. Once again the playwrights of Youngblood turn their jaundiced, eggnog-soaked eye to the holidays. Five brand new plays about family, togetherness, charity and good cheer!

ONCE THE HOLIDAYS ARE OVER AND
EVERYTHING SETTLES DOWN
by Meghan Deans
directed by Nelson Eusebio
with Devere Rogers and Patricia Randell*

THIS CHRISTMAS LAST

by Angela Hanks

directed by José Angel Santana*

with Shyko Amos* and Shawn Randall

THE KID WHO'S FRIENDS WITH THE FAMOUS TREE
a new musical by Eric March
directed by Carlos Armesto
with Jake Aron, Brian Hastert, Eugene Oh and Dan Ziskie*

AND RICHIE'S STILL AN ELF

by Christopher Sullivan

directed by Jamie Richards*

with Steven Boyer, Jackie Chung* and David Gelles*

AND THEY MADE LATKES
by Emily Chadick Weiss
directed by Colette Robert
with Britt Lower and Joe Petrilla

* member of Ensemble Studio Theatre

Five brand new plays, plus our fabulous BRUNCH BUFFET of pancakes, eggs, bacon, pastries and our fiscally irresponsible open bar - all for just $18! Special holiday beverages may be had!

Reservations are ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL!
just email here: boxoffice@ensemblestudiotheatre.org
or call (212) 247-4982 x105

Sunday, December 5, doors open at 12:30pm for the buffet (food goes fast so get there early!) show starts at 1pm.

PLEASE NOTE: We usually have a waiting list, so any reservation not picked up by 10 minutes before curtain time can NOT be guaranteed.

Ensemble Studio Theatre
2nd Floor
549 West 52nd Street (bet. 10/11)

If you like Youngblood, go "Like" Youngblood on Facebook!

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"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

THANK YOU BILL REILLY

THANK YOU BILL REILLY, AS BEST A FRIEND AS ANYONE COULD EVER HAVE.

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"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

THE NEW BUSINESS OF ENTERTAINMENT

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"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

"CHARACTER" IN THE PERFORMANCE OF EVERYDAY LIFE OF THE "SUCCESSFUL ARTIST"

In the video clip referenced below (yesterday's post), from "char•ac•ter," Sidney Pollack talks about how the "Independent Activity" is the key that opens all the doors to acting and directing actors, I mentioned too (below) how the Mamet memo has its roots in the "Indpendent Activity." In the above clip, shard with me by Risa Bramon Garcia Master Class and Coaching, Kevin Spacey talks about the "character" of the successful artist, like an actor nailing down the "character" of the "successful artist," in terms of the "what," the "why," the "urgency," in show business the "where," - the elements of "Independent Activity" of the successful actor in the performance of everyday life.

Oh, and what the heck, this is: SHOW BUSINESS!

"Real Dreams" by Trevor Griffiths

The Other Stages August 8 - August 18, 1984

José Angel Santana and Kevin Spacey: credit Bob Marshak

From Trevor Griffith's "Real Dreams" clockwise in the rear Nina Bernstein, Scott Burkholder, Lucinda Jenny. - Williamstown Theatre Festival, 1984.

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"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

THE INDEPENDENT ACTIVITY

Disclaimer and in full disclosure: I do not know, have never met nor spoken to the makers of the documentary "char•ac•ter".

From the last recorded interview with Sidney Pollack from "char•ac•ter" produced and directed by Drago Sumonja.

Greetings everyone,

Not long ago I posted about the documentary "char•ac•ter"

http://working-with-actors.blogspot.com/2010/10/character.html

Today, a very well regarded, highly respected, and fine actor colleague friend of mine sent me this email note after I recommended and he watched the movie documentary "char•ac•ter". He wrote:

"The film is wonderful, especially the supplemental footage.
Tell me, Pollack was fascinating about the "Independent Activity."

Care to elucidate?"

It would take volumes . . . to really get into it, but the questions raised
by Pollack's segment about the "Independent Activity" reverberate through Mamet's notorious "MASTER CLASS MEMO"

http://working-with-actors.blogspot.com/2010/03/david-mamets-master-class-memo.html

Which is to say that the "Independent Activity" impacts writing, directly, and acting in a most powerful way. It's a technical term and approach to expressing, finding and portraying the inner life of a character at all phases of the creative process.

It's actually a lot more than that too . . .

Sometimes questions are better than answers.

Good morning,
José

Note: The only issue I take with this otherwise extraordinary and essential documentary "char•ac•ter" is that it's devoid of a feminine perspective on the subject of acting and directing. This thus opens the door for that doc, that has yet to be made.

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"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

JILL CLAYBURGH'S UNFORGETTABLE "UNMARRIED WOMEN"

Jill Clayburgh as Erica in "An Unmarried Woman" in 1978.

Clayburgh’s Unforgettable ‘Unmarried Woman’

An Appraisal
By Janet Maslin

Published: November 7, 2010

In the most famous scene in Jill Clayburgh’s most influential movie, her character reacted to the news that her husband wanted to leave her. Ms. Clayburgh’s Erica responded with such naturalness, confusion and wounded pride that she captured the imagination of a generation.

“As Miss Clayburgh plays this scene,” Vincent Canby wrote about “An Unmarried Woman” in 1978, “one has a vision of all the immutable things that can be destroyed in less than a minute, from landscapes and ships and reputations to perfect marriages.” But she proved that a reputation could be made in less than a minute too.

Has any actor’s career ever been more powerfully affected by a prefix? It was the “un” in “Unmarried” that established Ms. Clayburgh’s creative power. Women’s roles had been changing irrevocably, and a new assertiveness was being established and understood. But the usual story lines of that era followed female characters’ quests for independence and authority. Heroines rebelled. They picked themselves up and moved out. They took action. They weren’t acted upon.

Their roles were often sharply defined, but Erica’s was not. Paul Mazursky, the writer and director, had a divorced friend who described herself as “an unmarried woman” on a mortgage application. Extrapolating from that, he envisioned the story of a Manhattan wife set adrift. But Ms. Clayburgh’s shaping of the character was utterly and unmistakably her own, just as surely as its impact on female movie audiences was universal. And the unaffected nature of the performance became its most distinctive feature. She didn’t have the tics of Diane Keaton, the steel of Jane Fonda, the feistiness of Sally Field, the uncanny adaptability of Meryl Streep. She simply had the gift of resembling a real person undergoing life-altering change. In her signature role, that was enough.

“Mr. Mazursky has written a marvelous role for the actress, so I suppose it’s not unfair of him to depend on her to carry the movie,” Mr. Canby wrote. Carry it she did.

Ms. Clayburgh, who died at her Connecticut home on Friday at 66 after living with chronic leukemia for 21 years, had been on stage and screen for a decade before giving this definitive performance. But she could be awkwardly miscast and at first often was. She was blond, willowy and beautiful, but she was about as much like Carole Lombard as James Brolin was like Clark Gable (“Gable and Lombard,” 1976). Without “An Unmarried Woman” she might never have found her niche.

But once she did, she began a streak. She went from playing an opera star in Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1979 “Luna,” one of the most conversation-stopping films ever to open the New York Film Festival. She made widely seen comedies about smart, interesting women (“Starting Over” in 1979, “It’s My Turn” in 1980). She even turned up on the Supreme Court (“First Monday in October” in 1981), a likable presence even in highly unlikely circumstances. “The F.B.I. is wrong in reporting to you that I have no children,” she had to tell cinematic senators in that film. “Ideas are my children, and I have hundreds of them.”

Then she and her husband, the playwright David Rabe, had real children, Lily and Michael. And although Ms. Clayburgh kept working, her public presence grew more intermittent, the available film roles more motherly or eccentric. (She appeared in the 2006 film version of Augusten Burroughs’s “Running With Scissors.”) She was so greatly missed that any major appearances were apt to be described as comebacks (two television series in the late ’90s, “Barefoot in the Park” on Broadway in 2006), but the roles that should have been welcoming hardly existed anymore. Only in life did anyone wonder what had become of all those Ericas 30 years later.

She remained elegant, lovely and so recognizable that she became accustomed to being treated as an avatar. “My God, you’ve defined my entire life for me,” one weeping “Unmarried Woman” fan told her in 2002, and that experience was apparently not unusual for her. When she and Lily, an actress, roomed together in Manhattan in 2005 as both of them prepared for stage appearances, a writer for The New York Times visited the 61-year-old eternal heroine and still saw her unforgettable movie persona.

“Jill Clayburgh appears to be living in an updated Jill Clayburgh vehicle,” Nancy Hass wrote. “Fluttery-yet-determined mom flees comfortable exurban married life to share tiny Manhattan apartment of headstrong, aspiring-actress daughter. Conflict, hilarity and, of course, self-actualization ensue.” For Jill Clayburgh, in both her life and work, that’s just what happened.

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"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

FINDING THE BEHAVIOR OF CONVERSATIONAL REALITY

Jodie Foster talks about rehearsing with Robert DeNiro for "Taxi Driver." "Taxi Driver" Collector's Edition DVD
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"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

char•ac•ter

This is a great documentary. A compilation of the best "shop talk" I've ever heard on film. if you are an actor or director this is the best $25 you will ever spend on your craft. - José Angel Santana

website

"A raw and candid dialogue about the life and craft of acting between longtime colleagues and friends Dabney Coleman, Peter Falk, Charles Grodin, Mark Rydell, Harry Dean Stanton and including a very special interview with Sydney Pollack. Drago Sumonja's document takes us into the hearts, minds, and living rooms of some of America's greatest storytellers. This unique and inside glimpse at this revered collective exposes as much about each individual as it does about acting." Written by Cody Henderson

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"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

JAMES FRANCO IN AND ON "127 HOURS"

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"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

ABIGAIL GAMPEL IN "THROUGH THE WINDOW"

(ckick image to enlarge)

Abigail Gampel

"Through the Window"

Directed by Holli Harms

Abigail on TCD*S

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"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

BILL REILLY

The world has lost one of the great teachers and mentors to filmmakers of all time. He recognized talents in others when they were getting started that they didn't know they had. And because of his encouragement, his belief in young artists he helped them to believe in themselves. What a great and loyal and kind friend. I will miss him forever. William Reilly.
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"Elevate the subtext." William Reilly

NYTIMES: ONCE MORE INTO THE GROOVE: 'DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN' TURNS 25

José Angel Santana with Madonna in scene from "Desperately Seeking Susan."

NYTIMES ARTSBEAT:

September 22, 2010
BY DAVE ITZKOFF

Empty out your vintage shopping bags from Love Saves the Day, unroll your fishnet stockings and dust off that pyramid jacket you claim belonged to Jimi Hendrix, because “Desperately Seeking Susan” is a quarter-century old. This 1985 comedy-drama, which starred Rosanna Arquette as a New Jersey housewife masquerading as a bohemian Manhattanite – and, by the way, provided Madonna with her first lead role in a movie – was for a generation of viewers an introduction to New York’s downtown counterculture and its motley fashion sensibility. Now the film plays like a cinematic time capsule, filled with endearingly grimy places, authentic and imagined, and distinctive personalities that have vanished from the city.

To celebrate the 25th anniversary, the Film Society of Lincoln Center is hosting a screening of the film at the Walter Reade Theater on Thursday evening that will be attended by its director, Susan Seidelman; its screenwriter, Leora Barish; and the producers Sarah Pillsbury and Midge Sanford.

ArtsBeat spoke recently to Ms. Seidelman (who went on to direct “She-Devil,” “Gaudi Afternoon” and episodes of “Sex and the City,” among other projects) about the making of “Desperately Seeking Susan,” her memories of New York in the ’80s and, of course, Madonna. These are excerpts from that conversation.

Q.

Twenty-five years after the fact, what are you most looking forward to about this particular showing of “Desperately Seeking Susan”?

A.

I haven’t seen a lot of the actors and crew members in a while, but I haven’t seen it on a big screen in many, many years, so I’m just as curious to see how New York has aged. It was a very different place back then, especially downtown. Young people didn’t have to move out to Brooklyn and Queens to find affordable housing.

Q.

How did you first get connected with the movie?

A.

This was my second film. I had done a low-budget independent film that was also set downtown, called “Smithereens,” in 1982. And as a result of that, these producers, Midge Sanford and Sarah Pillsbury, sent the script to my agent. And I’m kind of a superstitious person so the “Desperately Seeking Susan” title caught my attention. It had that title already –- that wasn’t vanity on my part.

But it had a theme that my first film was about. It’s about finding out who you want to be and who you are inside. The inner Susan — the adventurous creature that’s inside the suburban housewife — really interested me thematically. I wasn’t a housewife but I grew up in suburban Philadelphia and I couldn’t wait to cross the bridge, metaphorically speaking, into Manhattan. I just knew that there was something on the other side, out there, that I needed to get to.

Q.

How deep were your roots in the downtown New York scene?

A.

I came to New York in the mid-’70s to go to N.Y.U. film school. The grad film school, at that time, was on East Seventh Street and Second Avenue. That was when Second Avenue – after First Avenue, you just didn’t go, but Second Avenue was pretty funky. I’ve always been a downtown person for the last 30 years or so, and I’ve never lived above Ninth Street. So I was familiar with that world. I went to the clubs, I knew some of the musicians. I felt comfortable.

Q.

Who did you cast first, your Roberta (the housewife) or your Susan (the bohemian)?

A.

The producers were from L.A. and had gotten Rosanna Arquette attached before the movie was greenlit. Then when I got involved, the rest was cast out of New York with up-and-coming actors — obviously, Madonna, who was not known at the time, as well as downtown types that had been in some of these independent, downtown movies. Like Rockets Redglare, Richard Edson, who had been in Jim Jarmusch’s first movie -– he hadn’t made any others at that time – and some of them had been in my first movie, “Smithereens,” like Richard Hell and Susan Berman.

Q.

How did you find Madonna for this film?

A.

Madonna lived down the street from me, so she wasn’t “Madonna,” in quotes. I knew her from people who were in the downtown music scene. We started to audition more up-and-coming actresses who had done some films -– people like Ellen Barkin and Melanie Griffith and Jennifer Jason Leigh and Kelly McGillis, who had just made one or two movies and were getting known. But even though the film is a fairy tale, in a sense, it needed to be grounded in some kind of authenticity. We didn’t want actors putting on costumes and playing downtown.

Q.

You wanted someone who genuinely embodied it, rather than an actor who would be playing at it or pretending it?

A.

Right. And she hadn’t really done a movie before. She’d played in a band in the background of “Vision Quest,” whatever. But it wasn’t really an acting role. I hoped that because she is a performer and she had such an interesting persona, I could capture that on film somehow. And that does involve a lot of acting. People sometimes think, “Oh, it’s just being.” But it’s not. When you have to say lines and hit marks and get your lighting and repeat it 20 times from different angles, it’s acting.

Q.

Given her inexperience, did you have to make a case for casting her in the film?

A.

Well, yes. She had to do a bunch of screen tests. But it was the early days of MTV, and she happened to have a video that got a lot of rotation, because there just weren’t a lot of music videos at that time. I think it was for “Lucky Star.” So the the Orion people out in L.A. saw that and liked the way she looked. She was also helpful in auditions for the actor that was going to play her boyfriend. Somewhere, in a carton in my basement, I have Madonna and Bruce Willis doing an early screen test for that.

Q.

How did you find your locations?

A.

A lot of them that were places that I knew. I went to Danceteria, I went to the Bleecker Street Cinema and I knew that strip along Second Avenue where Love Saves the Day was. That was home turf. We were trying to find a tone that was sort of hyper-realism. You wanted it to be gritty, but with a slightly romanticized edge. If you look at a location like the Magic Club, it borrows from punk but it also borrows from bad Las Vegas lounge acts.

The other thing that was so crucial was that we filmed it all in New York. We were filming at the end of 1984, and New York was still coming out of the 1970s bankruptcy crisis. Nothing was getting renovated or repaired. There was no money. So it still had that grit. If it was in the ’90s, they would have said: “Go film it in Toronto. Toronto looks just like New York.” It doesn’t. When you look at the background people and the faces, that is New York and you don’t get it in Toronto and you don’t get it in L.A. either.

Q.

Watching the film recently, one thing that struck me was how much more curvaceous Madonna was than I remembered her. Where did that aesthetic go?

A.

I think that starting in the ’90s, and certainly continuing on, people got a little obsessed with skinniness. Certainly she was more full figured, but look at Marilyn Monroe or Jane Russell — they were great, sexy, curvy, voluptuous women. I guess tastes change and I’m hoping it’ll come back a little bit more in the other direction.

Q.

Does Madonna owe you a debt of gratitude for helping to send her career into the stratosphere?

A.

I can’t postulate what kind of response the film would have gotten had Madonna’s star not risen so fantastically in such a short period of time. But sometimes things converge and make a thing that’s even bigger than the two alone. By the time we finished shooting the film, Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” album came out and that’s what catapulted her to the first level of stardom. You never knew how long that was going to last, but certainly that made a huge splash. Simultaneously she had this movie, and had the movie not been well received, it wouldn’t have mattered. But the fact that she’s good in the movie, people seemed to like the movie and she suddenly had this meteoric album -– all that converged. So much about what makes something happen or not happen has to do with having the right stuff at the right time.

Q.

Did you feel like your experience with “Desperately Seeking Susan,” and the success that it had, prepared you for the ups and downs that awaited you in your filmmaking career?

A.

I didn’t have any expectations. If I moved out to L.A. and immersed myself in the world of Los Angeles, my ups and downs would have been different. But I’m really a New York person. New York is bigger than the movie business, and I really like not living in a company town. I got to make some movies that I’m really glad that I got to make. I got to make some that I thought were going to better, more successful than they were, but I’m still glad I made them.

Another thing that people don’t really talk about, but is really true, because there are so few female directors: the last movie I did for Orion [the company that produced "Desperately Seeking Susan," and went bankrupt in the 1990s] was “She-Devil.” The week that movie came out, I was in the hospital having a baby. Literally, in labor pains watching Siskel & Ebert on the monitor in the room. That’s another component to being a female director: how you juggle a professional career with a family raises its own issues. When you’re making a movie it is nine solid months of your life where you are living, breathing that movie 16 hours a day. It’s not like you can do it and turn it off. That’s another article.

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"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

ACTIVE VERBS

	Accelerate
	Accommodate
	Accomplish
	Accumulate
	Achieve
	Acquire
	Act
	Activate
	Adapt
	Add
	Address
	Adjust
	Administer
	Advertise
	Advise
	Advocate
	Aid
	Aide
	Align
	Allocate
	Amend
	Analyze
	Answer
	Anticipate
	Apply
	Appoint
	Appraise
	Approve
	Arbitrate
	Arrange
	Articulate
	Ascertain
	Assemble
	Assess
	Assign
	Assist
	Assume
	Attain
	Attend
	Attract
	Audit
	Augment
	Author
	Authorize
	Automate
	Avert
	Award
	Bargain
	Begin
	Bolster
	Boost
	Bought
	Brief
	Broaden
	Budget
	Build
	Built
	Calculate
	Calibrate
	Canvass
	Capture
	Care
	Catalog
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	Categorize
	Cater
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	Centralize
	Chair
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	Chart
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	Clarify
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	Co-operate
	Coach
	Code
	Collaborate
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	Collect
	Combine
	Comfort
	Commence
	Communicate
	Compare
	Compile
	Complete
	Compose
	Compute
	Conceive
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	Conciliate
	Conclude
	Condense
	Conduct
	Confer
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	Connect
	Conserve
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	Contact
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	Contribute
	Control
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	Cooperate
	Coordinate
	Copy
	Correct
	Correlate
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	Counsel
	Create
	Critique
	Cultivate
	Customize
	Dealt with
	Debate
	Debug
	Decide
	Decrease
	Dedicate
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	Defend
	Defer
	Define
	Delegate
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	Demonstrate
	Depict
	Depreciated
	Derive
	Describe
	Design
	Detail
	Detect
	Determine
	Develop
	Devise
	Devote
	Diagnose
	Diagram
	Differentiate
	Direct
	Discharge
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	Discriminate
	Discuss
	Dispatch
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	Dissect
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	Distinguish
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	Document
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	Draw
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	Earn
	Edit
	Educate
	Effect
	Elect
	Elicit
	Eliminate
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	Engineer
	Enhance
	Enlarge
	Enlighten
	Enlist
	Enrich
	Ensure
	Enter
	Entertain
	Enumerate
	Equip
	Establish
	Estimate
	Evaluate
	Examine
	Exchange
	Execute
	Exercise
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	Expand
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	Experiment
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	Express
	Extend
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	Fabricate
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	Familiarize
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	File
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	Finalize
	Fine-tune
	Fix
	Focus
	Forecast
	Formulate
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	Forward
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	Found
	Frame
	Fund
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	Further
	Gather
	Gauge
	Generate
	Govern
	Grade
	Grant
	Greet
	Guide
	Handle
	Head
	Help
	Highlight
	Hire
	Host
	Identify
	Illustrate
	Impart
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	Import
	Improve
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	Incorporate
	Increase
	Index
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	Influence
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	Initiate
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	Inspect
	Inspire
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	Insure
	Integrate
	Interact
	Interface
	Interpret
	Intervene
	Interview
	Introduce
	Invent
	Inventory
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	Log
	Maintain
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	Manufacture
	Map
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	Mediate
	Mentor
	Merge
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	Model
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	Modernize
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	Motivate
	Narrate
	Navigate
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	Notify
	Nurse
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	Observe
	Obtain
	Officiate
	Offset
	Operate
	Orchestrate
	Order
	Organize
	Orient
	Orientate
	Originate
	Outline
	Overhaul
	Oversaw
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	Package
	Participate
	Perceive
	Perfect
	Perform
	Persuade
	Photograph
	Pilot
	Pioneer
	Plan
	Practice
	Predict
	Prepare
	Present
	Preserve
	Preside
	Prevent
	Print
	Prioritize
	Probe
	Process
	Produce
	Program
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	Promote
	Propose
	Provide
	Publicize
	Publish
	Purchase
	Qualify
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	Quote
	Raise
	Ran
	Rank
	Rate
	Read
	Reason
	Recall
	Recognize
	Recommend
	Reconcile
	Record
	Recreate
	Recruit
	Rectify
	Reduce
	Refer
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	Register
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	Rehabilitate
	Reinforce
	Relate
	Related
	Release
	Remodel
	Render
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	Reorganize
	Repair
	Replace
	Report
	Represent
	Research
	Reserve
	Resolve
	Respond
	Restore
	Restrict
	Retain
	Retrieve
	Revamp
	Reveal
	Review
	Revise
	Revitalize
	Route
	Sample
	Save
	Scan
	Schedule
	Screen
	Script
	Scrutinize
	Search
	Secure
	Segment
	Select
	Serve
	Service
	Set goals
	Set up
	Settle
	Shape
	Share
	Show
	Simplify
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	Sketch
	Sold
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	Solve
	Sort
	Speak
	Spearhead
	Specialize
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	Spoke
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	Standardize
	Start
	Stimulate
	Straighten
	Strategize
	Streamline
	Strengthen
	Structure
	Study
	Submit
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	Suggest
	Summarize
	Supervise
	Supply
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	Surpass
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	Symbolize
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	Systematize
	Tabulate
	Tail
	Target
	Taught
	Teach
	Tend
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	Theorize
	Time
	Tour
	Trace
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	Transcribe
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	Uncover
	Undertook
	Unify
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	Upheld
	Use
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	Validate
	Value
	Verify
	View
	Visit
	Visualize
	Vitalize
	Volunteer
	Weigh
	Widen
	Win
	Withdraw
	Witness
	Write

FREE DICTIONARY

(Amazon Link)

Book Description:

ACTIONS: The Actors' Thesaurus is a vital companion for actors in rehearsal—a thesaurus of action words to revitalize performance.

Actors need actions. Actors cannot ‘act’ adjectives, they need verbs. Verbs are an aim to achieve, an action to perform.

‘Actions’ are active verbs. ‘I tempt you.’ ‘You taunt me.’ In order to perform an action truthfully--and therefore convincingly-- an actor needs to find exactly the right action to suit that particular situation and that particular line. That is where this book comes in….

ACTIONS is a thesaurus of active verbs that the actor can use to refine performance until s/he hits exactly the right one to help make the action come alive. ACTIONS: The Actors’ Thesaurus by Marina Caldarone & Maggie Lloyd-Williams has gathered together the (formerly) dogged-eared photocopied lists of action verbs from greenrooms and rehearsal rooms and put them together in this pocket-sized thesaurus. All with a view to helping actors get to the heart of meaning and to a great performance. This thesaurus of action words is indispensable in developing mood, line readings, and acting choices for each and every line.

From the Publisher
This new book just released by Drama Publishers gathers together -- for the first time -- the acting community’s –- formerly — secret lists of action words and makes them available in an organized and comprehensive format.

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"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."