A Day in the Life of a Megalomaniacal Producer/Director

My Advice On...Bad Directors

   This entry is for my fellow actors and actresses trying to make in this industry. As we struggle to perfect our craft there will be days that you arrive on a movie set and encounter one of the biggest obstacles that an up and coming actor can face in their early career...a horrible director. It happens, and it happened to me on the set of my first movie.

   Let me begin by saying that it will be the worst moment of your life, and there will be nothing that you can do about it. When you meet a horrible director early in your career your performance will be garbage. There is no escape. "But Megalomaniac, how will I know that I have a horrible director?" Well I'm so glad you asked! Let me break down all the ways you can tell if you have a horrible director...

   1.) As an extra, when you arrive on set, the director (or one of his many flunkies) will begin to fill you in on your lines and motivation, and thats if you're lucky to begin with. Now if this director simply says your motivation is to be an emotion (e.g. "Be happy", "Be angry!", Be strong!") then congratulations, you're about to suck. Why? Because nothing you do will ever be good enough. You'll either over-act and look cartoonish, or under act and look boring. It's just a disaster and you're going to catch all the wrath.

   2.) One sure sign that you have a bad director is if the cast is always angry. Now I'll admit that there could be other reasons why the cast of a film could be angry, but if the cast is constantly angry, then the director will suck as a result, thats just life. So anyway, if you're playing a character that interacts with the lead character and the actor that plays the lead character is angry when he/she arrives on set, then contratulations, it now officially sucks to be you. If the lead actor/actress is pissed, then the director is pissed, and if everybody on set is pissed then the filming of that whole scene will not be cool. Trust me, I had a mug thrown at me once, not a great time...

   3.) Now this may be politically incorrect to say, but that gives me even more reason to say it, right? A sure sign that you will have a bad director is if you do a *Bollywood film in America. The communication problems you will have will be absolutely insane. If you arrive on the set of a Bollywood film, and the director is trying to tell you your lines and motivation while he's holding an English translation dictionary, grab your car keys and leave. Save yourself the blood pressure medication.

   I'm sure I could go on, but most of you have more important things to do than read a long blog, and if you don't, then you've got bigger problems than bad directors. Feel free to leave some horror stories or comments on bad directors that I may have missed. Until next time...

*For those of you that don't know, the term Bollywood refers to the film industry in India. Bollywood films are becoming increasingly popular around the world and now many Bollywood films are being filmed in America.