A nice mention by director Joe Wright

In a recent interview with Indiewire in which Hollywood director Joe Wright talked about casting and acting, he had a nice mention of Naomi and David Lynch (Mulholland Drive) and below is what he said:

[excerpt]

Is it a difference between actors who speak with intention or speak off the cuff?

Maybe. I’m very interested in acting as a craft. I think that it’s stagnated quite heavily for the past 50 years, really. Since the emergence of Strasberg’s Method and the dominance of that during the ‘70s. Now I find that a lot of young actors just f*cking copy. Not to mention names, but there are actors out there at the moment who are doing impersonations of Robert De Niro doing an impersonation of someone else. I hate it and I don’t believe the Method has monopoly on truth. In fact, I think naturalism is probably a kind of false god, really. I’m far more interested in acting from the ‘40s and pre-Strasberg.

In fact, I think David Lynch is probably the best director of actors that I know. I think David Lynch, the performances he gets out of actors is extraordinary. He knows what he’s doing as well. It’s no accident. When I saw Naomi [Watts] in Mulholland Drive and this kind of extraordinary heightened performance that she’s giving, and then when she’s doing the casting, the audition and suddenly when she’s acting she’s playing naturalism. I thought that was a fantastic little comment on sincerity and on the craft of acting, because I think that we’re all acting all the time. Philosophically it’s about sincerity and what sincerity is, really. Are we ever really sincere?

(Director Update: Joe Wright on Hanna and Ronin, The Little Mermaid and Anna Karenina Casting}

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