The Star Trek Problem

No, this is not a review of the new Star Trek movie (It was great, by the way. I highly recommend it.). I did go see Star Trek over the weekend, however, and was amazed at how much the cast channeled the original cast. That got me thinking about, as a director, how you handle an actor you cast in a show which is already known for iconic performance.

In case you have been living under a rock over the last year or so, the new Star Trek movie chronicles the meeting of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy and the coming together of the original Enterprise crew. Now the original Enterprise Crew is HELLA OLD (and in two cases dead….RIP Deforest Kelly and James Doohan. You guys ruled!), so there is no way they could make us believe that they were young recruits straight out of Starfleet Academy (Shatner, the work you had done is good, but not that good…). So they had to recast the original characters with brand new people.

Now we have a situation where brand new people are not only stepping into characters other people have played, but stepping into characters who are so well known that their patterns of speech and physical movements have entered our public subconcious. It’s hard to imagine anyone else saying “Damnit, Jim!” and be the same.

Often this happens in our profession. How many times do we do a show or play a character which has been made famous by someone else? What do we do then?

The key, I find, is to neither completely emulate the famous performer nor completely make the character something different, but rather a combination of the two. On some level, the audience would like to see the character they fell in love with, but as an actor, you don’t get to do your job if you just copy someone else’s performance.

Finding that balance can be hard. There is a tendancy to either get lazy and not work as hard and just do it like it has always been done or to go so far over the top to get away from it that the character becomes unintelligible.

Which beings me back to Star Trek. The new cast, with Chris Pine as Kirk, Zachery Quinto as Spock, and Karl Urban as McCoy. Watching these actors tackle these characters is nothing short of amazing. Urban’s McCoy is by far the outstanding one. He was able to completly get DeForest Kelly’s accent, inflection, and demeraor without me once thinking I was watching a mimicry of an old performance. It’s JUST enough McCoy to work, but Karl Urban has completly made the role his. Pine and Quinto are equally as good in their portrayal of these characters, throwing in the essences of the character we have see other actors play for years, but completly making them their own characters.

As directors it is our job to help the actor balance the two. Even though I asked my actors NOT to watch the movie when I was directing “The Graduate” (The characters are COMPLETELY different in the movie and I didn’t want them to pick up bad habits), I will ask my actors to read AND watch the movie version of To Kill A Mockingbird when I cast it later this year. Those performaces are just too iconic not to at least have the essences of those character in the show.

So next time you are doing a show which has a very iconic character, don’t be afraid to try to capture the essence of someone else’s famous performance. They defined the character, let that definition shine your (or your actor’s) intrepretation of it

The Overhelpful Production Member

God it’s been forever since I posted. Well, everyone, gather around for our next installment.

Those of you who have either been in a show, directed a show, designed a show, teched a show, or just knew someone who had some sort of doings with a show in general will know what I’m talking about here. There is always one member of any production who is so into what is going on that they overstep their boundaries and move into uncomfortable land. Sometimes it’s the actor who directs their fellow cast members. Sometimes its the Light Board operator who tells the Sound Designer what Curtain Call music to use. Whatever form this person takes, they can derail your production and seriously hurt your morale.

“How can they hurt my morale?”, you ask? Trust me, this is one of the worst things that can happen to a production. I had a friend of mine ask me that question with the caveat that these people are doing it out of the goodness of their heart and just want to help. She was surprised that her fellow actors hated this kind of person. “Doing it out of the goodness of their heart?” That’s precisely WHY they are so toxic.

You see, these types of people are completely oblivious to what they are doing. Their suggestions come from an honestly good place (most of the time, the malicious types is a different post for a different day) and really WANT to make the show better. That’s what makes it so hard to say anything to them, because you like the creativity, but hate their approach so you sit there and try to be nice to them until it’s too late. You end up festering. Which is WAY not good for the creative process.

AS a director, I find the best way to handle these people is to LISTEN to what your cast is saying about these people. Are they getting angry? I mean, just because you think someone is overstepping their bounds and giving direction where none has been requested doesn’t mean you actors necessarily mind. If your cast is starting to get annoyed, you have to stop it sooner rather than later.

I did a show where I handled it this way. I made a general announcement to the cast that I knew they were all excited about the show and had really good ideas, but to keep some kind of common theme, all ideas should go through me. If they had an idea of how something should look or sound, they should discuss it with me first and then, if I liked it, I would incorporate it into the show. This served two purposes. First, I wasn’t having actors just go off and do their own thing under the direction of someone else, and I was taking the heat off of everyone and putting it squarely on my shoulders.

Then the tricky part happened. Since I had basically given permission to these people to come discuss everything with me, I opened myself up to a lot of conversations and ideas regarding the show. The key here was to always listen to these people and talk with them over their ideas. Again, they came from a good place and they wanted to be that much more involved in the creative process, but there was really no room for that much conflicting information.

Listening was hard, especially if it’s always the same person with lots of ideas that kind of run in the opposite direction to your vision. You have to let them know whether the idea will work or not and WHY it won’t work. You don’t want to shut them down because all that does is destroy their creative process and then you get nothing from them and they resent you. Not good.

So remember, take the heat off your cast and listen to these people, even if they aren’t talking about their character or going in a different direction as you. Who knows, they may have a gem of an idea you haven’t thought of which WILL make the show better?