"I thought his performance was absolutely wonderful and had said so, but he seemed, as actors quite often are when they first see.something, to be disappointed. I think he expected more from the film and himself"
About this Quote
Schlesinger’s praise lands with a sting because it isn’t really about the performance - it’s about the actor’s private contract with the work. “Absolutely wonderful” reads like the public-facing language of a director doing his job: affirming, steadying, keeping morale intact. Then he pivots to what directors notice and audiences rarely see: the first encounter with a finished film can feel like betrayal, especially to actors who built the role in fragments, out of takes, angles, and adrenaline, not out of the final edit.
The sly parenthetical - “as actors quite often are when they first see something” - is doing heavy lifting. It’s not dismissive; it’s diagnostic. Schlesinger frames disappointment as almost structural to the profession: actors imagine the movie they felt on set, then watch the movie the director and editor assembled. What looked incandescent in the moment can be muted by pacing, coverage, or a missing beat left on the cutting-room floor. The actor isn’t reacting to “bad work” so much as to loss of control.
The last line is the real reveal: “he expected more from the film and himself.” That’s not vanity; it’s ambition curdling into self-critique. Schlesinger is gently separating two standards - the director’s (what plays) and the actor’s (what was promised in the head). The quote captures a brutal truth about filmmaking: collaboration produces success, but it also produces grief for the version that never made it to screen.
The sly parenthetical - “as actors quite often are when they first see something” - is doing heavy lifting. It’s not dismissive; it’s diagnostic. Schlesinger frames disappointment as almost structural to the profession: actors imagine the movie they felt on set, then watch the movie the director and editor assembled. What looked incandescent in the moment can be muted by pacing, coverage, or a missing beat left on the cutting-room floor. The actor isn’t reacting to “bad work” so much as to loss of control.
The last line is the real reveal: “he expected more from the film and himself.” That’s not vanity; it’s ambition curdling into self-critique. Schlesinger is gently separating two standards - the director’s (what plays) and the actor’s (what was promised in the head). The quote captures a brutal truth about filmmaking: collaboration produces success, but it also produces grief for the version that never made it to screen.
Quote Details
| Topic | Movie |
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