I always used to say, as a director, that I could make anybody good in a movie if you found the right part. It all comes down to casting.
People who work with me think I should cut my hair. They say casting directors are less likely to hire me with long hair - that they don't have imaginations and can't picture me looking normal. People literally have conference calls about my head when I'm not around. I mean, obviously I would cut my hair for an amazing part.
Where having been an actor was extremely helpful to me was in casting. That's where I think a director who has acted can really shine, and casting is the most important thing you do.
When I was in casting, we would bring somebody in, have them read their lines, maybe give them a few pointers, and hire them, and then once they go to the set and you have a director who's directing them, that performance may not be anywhere near what you had in the audition, either good or bad.
Casting young people is always so difficult, and they got it so right in 'Game of Thrones.' All the young actors are amazingly talented and so professional.
People have nervous tics they don't know about, and I would advise asking around. Ask the casting director, 'Is there something I'm doing?' I would see people unconsciously rocking back and forth. I roll my lips. I bite my lips and roll them.
If you're going to go to an audition, you don't want to go in trying to force yourself into some archetype that has been thought up by a director and translated by a casting director.
I didn't want to have people open doors for me. My dad never made a call on my behalf to anyone - not to a producer, a director, or a casting agent.
I loved doing casting because I love actors, and I am very conscious of what actors do. But I always wanted to be a producer.
For female directors, there's a whole other set of things we have to think about, particularly when we are casting men, because there are some actors who have never been directed by a woman. Crew members, too.
My priority is the script. Get me a good script, and I will sign the movie. I think I should leave the casting up to the experts!
How you look is part of what acting is, but the way I look at it, every actor is a character actor. Someone once told me at a casting, 'You're a character actor in a leading man's body,' and I can live with that.
As an actor, I have casting issues. I'm a minority. I don't have trouble making a living, but as far as being on the food chain of the pecking order of actors, I'm not at the top of it. With the jobs that I do, there are always control issues with directors and producers.
I think the location is almost as important as casting the leads of the movie. The location on 'The Purge' was crucial to that movie working.
Like every novelist, I fantasise about film. Novelists are not equipped to make a movie, in my opinion. They make their own movie when they write: they're casting, they're dressing the scene, they're working out where the energy of the scene is coming from, and they're also relying tremendously on the creative imagination of the reader.
America seems much more diverse and has more exciting casting - they really take risks.
There couldn't possibly be a more label-driven industry than acting, seeing as every audition comes with a character breakdown: 'Beautiful, sassy, Latina, 20s'; 'African American, urban, pretty, early 30s'; 'Caucasian, blonde, modern girl next door'. Every role has a label; every casting is for something specific.
My dad was dean of fine arts at the university. I was casting bronzes in the school foundry. I was using the university as a playground.
I owe a lot to my time on 'House of Cards' because, up until I booked that show, I had been working consistently for 12 years, but I wasn't working on anything that mattered in the way 'House of Cards' did to its audience, to casting directors, to directors and producers. The show hit this sweet spot.
I think Michael Crawford realised, I think we all realised, once we'd gone the route of casting a very young girl, you can't really cast a 65 year old man opposite. Slightly different resonance I think. No, we weren't going to go there. We'd have Jack Nicholson in the lead.