6. Directing Actors

All actors, whether professional or not, need a safe space for risk-taking. There is no such thing as failure. . First-time actors especially need what Mira calls a “cocoon of safety,” in which they can listen to what’s going on inside of their character, and contemplate how best to access and produce those emotions. Sometimes a more experienced actor can facilitate the creation of that safe space. For instance, David Owelelo as Coach Robert Katende in Queen of Katwe acted as a loving and protective father figure to the ensemble of children, both in the film and on set.

During the making of Salaam Bombay! The children affectionately called Mira “Kasku Didi” (Sister Tough Love). She is firm, but shows affection and concern for each child. She also knows that every child is different and responds to direction and instruction in a particular way. Because her films often involve sensitive and challenging issues, Mira often has to find ways to lead child actors to difficult emotional places. This involves an indirect path, where the situation represented in the scene is not confronted head on, but rather the child is asked to think about a memory or experience from their own life that gets them to a similar emotional space.

No fresh or honest performances can be achieved if you have not first established a trusting bond with the children in your film. Other directors, impressed by the young actors in Salaam Bombay!, have cast the same children and yet failed to coax equally powerful performances from them. They ask her, “What was the magic?” Mira explains is years of her work in her documentary work where she enters the lives of people to create an atmosphere of gaining their trust and mutual respect. You must invest real time, attention, and affection in earning their trust. Only then will your subjects be willing to share with you the boundless purity of emotion that only a child can give.

One of the most memorable scenes in Salaam Bombay! is when Chaipau, the tea boy, asks his young female friend, Manju to deliver a small package of biscuits to Sola Saal, the girl he loves—not knowing that Manju loves Chaipau. Manju does not deliver the biscuits, and instead she eats them herself, burning with jealousy. The scene is so unforgettable because in a single take, the girl devours all of the biscuits in the package, methodically chewing and swallowing them one by one. Mira gave the young actress a simple direction: “Eat the biscuits like you are eating Sola Saal.” This simple prompt got through to her, and it got Mira exactly what she wanted—an act of jealousy and intentional sabotage. Think about similar tactics you can take for directing child actors in your own film. What prompt gets through to them will depend on their personality and proclivities, and so you must know, understand, and create a bond with each performer.

Mira uses a variety of techniques to encourage trust and warmth between actors, no matter their experience level. For films like Salaam Bombay! and Queen of Katwe that mix actors of all ages, she relies on her remarkable collaborator Dinaz Stafford who holds extended workshops with her casts, beginning with a read-through of the script, and then continuing with trust exercises, theater games, and voice work. She finds that such group’s activities help to calm anxieties, lessen the ego, and bring everyone together as equals with a shared purpose.

Once a comfortable atmosphere has been established, the next step is to help children give honest and natural performances. Take care not to over-rehearse actual dialogue from the script, as children may lose freshness to their execution if they have to repeat their lines over and over again. Strive for spontaneity in front of the camera.

Additionally, give children training in any specialized skills they may need for their role, so they can perform naturally and effortlessly when the time comes. For instance, during workshops for Queen of Katwe, Mira brought in the real-life coach, Robert Katende, to engage her ensemble of children in the game of chess. By the time filming began, the children were so familiar and comfortable with chess that they were actually playing the game during takes, not just pretending.

Importantly, you need to create opportunities for children to develop relationships with the adult members of the cast. Those who play a mother or a coach in the film should also form a true connection with the children on the set. Early in workshops for Queen of Katwe, Mira had the children teach Lupita Nyong’o, who played the mother, how to cook Ugandan style. By the end of this bonding activity, the children were laughing and teasing Lupita, and a true family dynamic had been established.

Whomever you are directing, there will be times when you struggle to elicit the kind of performance you want. Resist the temptation to simply demonstrate what you want an actor to do, or to have them imitate you. That can lead to an inauthentic, borrowed quality. Instead, find a way to articulate what you’re not getting. Mira made Mississippi Masala in a stupor of love, just after meeting her now-husband. The sentiment she was getting on screen, however, didn’t feel quite as accurate. Mira drummed up the courage to share her feelings with Denzel. She told him if he could approximate the same feelings, the people in the audience would swoon. Denzel listened, and audiences fell in love.

Foreground characters with dialogue are of course central to bringing a film to life, but also crucial are the extras in the background. Second unit assistant directors who handle the blocking or choreography of extras play a hugely significant role in creating realistic environments for the main characters to inhabit. In the café scene woven throughout The Reluctant Fundamentalist, for instance, unnamed characters engage in their own conversations at several other tables in the room. At one table, a group of girls are gossiping—and these extras had been given something real to talk about and do. Devise miniature scenarios for the extras in your own film, and strive to create a multifaceted tapestry of background action that reflects the variety and unpredictability of real life.

DID YOU KNOW?

Just as actors have acting coaches, there is actually such a thing as a directing coach. Instructor Judith Weston has taught workshops and classes for directors for three decades. You may have heard of some of her students, such as Ava DuVernay (director of Selma), Steve McQueen (director of 12 Years a Slave) and Alejandro Iñárritu (director of Birdman and The Revenant). Although her studio is now closed, she still guest teaches and consults oneon-one. A more affordable way to mine her wisdom is to read one or both of her books on the subject: Directing Actors (Michael Wiese Productions, 1999) and The Film Director’s Intuition (Michael Wiese Productions, 2003). Both volumes offer in-depth advice on script analysis, rehearsal techniques, and channeling the relationship between director and actor.

 

ASSIGNMENT

The workshops that Mira conducts with her cast are filled with exercises and games. But what kinds of activities might they involve?

An interesting source for simple yet powerful ways to engage your actors in fruitful experimentation is the classic book, Games for Actors and Non-Actors, 2nd Edition, by Augusto Boal (Routledge, 2002). Framed by a revolutionary theory that the author calls “Theater of the Oppressed,” this book outlines a series of sensory techniques for attuning actors’ muscular and spatial awareness, heightening their listening skills related to rhythm and respiration, and developing their understanding of how to use gestures, facial expressions, and body positions to compose meaningful images.

 

If you are looking at games specifically geared towards children, two classics in theater education are: Theater Games for the Classroom: A Teacher’s Handbook by Viola Spolin (Northwestern University Press, 1986) and Theatre Games for Young Performers:Improvisations and Exercises for Developing Acting Skills by Maria C. Novelly (Meriwether Pub, 1985). Both of these have stood the test of time, and are filled with exercises exploring the basics of pantomime, voice control, rhythmic movement, monologues and dialogues. Consult any or all of these books for inspiration when planning your own rehearsals and warm-up exercises.

 

LEARN MORE

For a behind-the-scenes look at working with child actors, watch Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002), a film about three Australian Aboriginal sisters who run away from a forced relocation camp, and find their way back home. All three girls who played these parts in the film began as non-actors, and went through a casting and workshop process much like what Mira describes in her own practice. The DVD contains an incredible 45-minute feature about the making of the film, called “Following the Rabbit-Proof Fence,” which serves as a helpful model for anyone working with first-time child actors.

The documentary begins with director Phillip Noyce as he searches among hundreds of candidates for three girls to act in his film. It then shifts its focus to the girls he selects, following them through rigorous acting workshops and a difficult shoot, and then culminating in the filming of a wrenching abduction scene.

Discover how the director creates a nurturing environment for these girls—and at the same time challenges them to go to difficult and dark emotional places.

The viewing experience is made more powerful if you watch the fiction film first, but if you want to skip straight to the documentary, it has been made available by the Australian Aboriginal Documentary channel on YouTube.

 

ADDITIONAL VIEWING

The World Films Special Edition DVD of Salaam Bombay! (released in 2003) contains several retrospective featurettes that explore how the street kids who played parts in the film were affected by their experience, and what they grew up to become. Especially interesting are: “One Chance in a Million,” about Shafiq Syed, who played the lead role of Chaipau and is now working as an assistant cameraperson; and “I Got Love”, it’s about the girl who played Manju, Hansa Vithal.