When you see interviews with actors who have worked with legendary filmmaker, Martin Scorsese, most of the comments are that of intense praise for the director. Obviously, this is the result of Scorsese establishing himself as one of the best filmmakers to ever grace the medium over his decades of work, combined with the fact that he’s also just a huge fan of films, in general. But actress Emily Mortimer equated the feeling of working on a Scorsese film in a way that is unique. To her, as she explained in an interview with Collider, working on a Martin Scorsese set is akin to a religious experience.
“Walking onto his sets, it’s like walking into church or something,” explained Mortimer. “Really, it’s like you could hear a pin drop and everybody just knows their place. There is a kind of ritual to the whole thing.”
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She continued, “It’s like all these people who’ve been working with him for years and years, and adore him and are adored by him. But everybody from the person that’s bringing you your cup of tea to the sound person, to the costume designer, Sandy Powell, they’re all at the absolute top of their game… I don’t know, there’s something about working with people who are so good at what they do and working with Martin Scorsese who’s so good at what he does that the terror and the horror of the situation is completely mitigated by the fact that they are so expert and so good.”
The actress, who starred in the Scorsese-directed features “Shutter Island” and “Hugo,” went on to talk about how the filmmaker is a true “cinephile” and why it’s clear that he just loves working on film sets.
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“And he just is getting such a kick out of it that you do too, and it doesn’t feel precious; it just feels very precise and good,” the actress added. “He has a great talent that the great filmmakers have of just somehow by some osmosis or something, you understand the world that you’re in, that you understand the world that he’s creating and you know half your job is done because he lets it be clear what the world is and you can just enter it and go with it.”
Obviously, it’s not earth-shattering news to hear that Martin Scorsese is a great filmmaker and a joy to work with. The big news would be if Mortimer hated every second of it. But clearly, that’s not the case, and working with Scorsese is just as wonderful as people would expect.
