I love the scene where he goes into his favorite diner and he’s convinced himself that the bartender is actually interested in him when he’s just being friendly. It’s so well done.
Every bad first date on whatever your preference is, on that first date when it goes wrong it goes really wrong.
It goes really wrong.
It goes wrong with him and then he finds out [the object of his affection is] a racial bigot. Two seconds later I go, “[inaudible 00:10:09]”
It shatters the illusion of someone you have. The other night I ran into Octavia Spencer at Fox Searchlight’s party here at TIFF and she was telling us that you told every actor something different in regards to their character and the film itself. And that most of the cast didn’t realize this until just recently.
I write a biography for each actor. I said, “Sally and Doug, I’m going to write for them.” I wrote a biography from birth to movie for every actor. It’s three to eight pages long. It has their sign, what they like, what they don’t like, what they eat, what they don’t eat, whether they smoke, whether they don’t smoke, what they watch, what they don’t watch, what they listen, everything. Then, it has a section that says, “a secret no one knows about you.” I put a secret there.
Oh wow.
Then, what I asked is that they don’t share that with any of the other actors. Its sort of a game, but it’s nice. Some actors like it because it gives them strength. Some actors don’t even use it. Jenkins didn’t use anything, but it was in the background. If we needed it we could go, “Well, remember that idea?” Oh yeah. Shannon, I think, used it to a degree. I don’t know. He has such a beautiful unique process. Octavia used it a lot. A lot. Really took to it.
You say Shannon has a unique process. Is he always in character off screen?
He’s a guy that can be in credibly precise, like an English actor. He keeps exact matching. I don’t mean just actions. He coughs in the same place, he touches his eyebrow in the same line, he puts the glass in the same, he brings the same amount of water. He’s incredibly precise. Take to take to take to take, he mostly repeats 90%. Then, within that, he changes everything. He will give an angry one, he will give you a vulnerable one. He’ll give you a sardonic one. You never know where you’re going, and the same time you know that whatever you need you can steal little colors from the performance.
I don’t know if this will ever happen, but after the movie I comes out it would be great to see a side by side of multiple scenes that shows him doing those distinct moments while playing the rest of the scene completely different.
That would be great for actors because I think most people just worship, and rightfully so, the freedom of the method. Or Stanislavski or Sanford Meisner and all that. The beauty of precision is that it creates a rectangle in which you can be really free. Precision allows the director and the editor to get what they need and allows the actor to be free. For example, Jenkins, I would say, “Can you grab the cigarette with the same hand?” He said, “Did I do that?” That’s why I put that line in the movie when he says, “Did I do that?”
In regards to Michael, when you realized he worked that way did it make it easier to direct him or did it give you more ideas?
Jenkins for example you watch. You watch and then two or three days in you see what he’s trying. He has a particular color in his head, and then he starts trying something different and you need to end very surgically and say faster, slower, be angry, try doing it without looking at her face. Don’t make eye contact. Things that simple. With Shannon, you really, really, really need to go in with an instruction that is absolutely necessary because he will say, “Explain it to me,” and until he understands it he doesn’t internalize it. You really have to learn to watch him. Some actors you want to help mold. Some actors you just want to partner. Shannon is a guy that you need to go in and say exactly what you need to do and immediately have an answer for why. I think probably, not probably, he’s one of the best actors I’ve ever worked with.
One last question, the musical moment in the film that is so unexpected – am I making an assumption that for a filmmaker, no matter who you are, that might be your most nervewracking moment? Whether this will work in the context of the film? Did you have any fear about putting it in there?
Oh yeah. All the way. The moment that is equally difficult is when she gets naked and gets in the shower. Those are the two moments that are threshold moments. If you walk in during the movie, if you walk out, you were never there. You need to do that. I have that moment in “Pan’s Labyrinth” with the bottle. Where the bottle smashes. That’s a walk out moment. If you’re not in the movie you leave, if you’re in the movie you stay. I have it in “Cronos.” I have it in “Devil’s Backbone.” I have it everywhere. I do things that are not safe now and then. If you’re in you’re in. In “Pacific Rim” the mere idea of that we’re using 25-story robots to fight 25-story monsters, you’re going to tell me, “Well, that’s silly. Why would we do it?” “O.K., You really think there are 25-story monsters? What is your solution to that? That you accept. What is silly is that we use these robots.” [Laughs.]
“The Shape of Water” opens on Dec. 8, 2017.