Brando_ Songs My Mother Taught Me - Marlon Brando [62]
I’ve never seen a director who became as deeply and emotionally involved in a scene as Gadg. The amazing thing about him was that after such a scene was over, he’d realize the flaws in the scene and have them do it over.
Gadg never shaved completely. He used an electric razor, and for some reason he always had patches of stubble somewhere on his jaw. On Streetcar—first the play, then the movie—I discovered he was that rarest of directors, one with the wisdom to know when to leave actors alone. He understood intuitively what they could bring to a performance and he gave them freedom. Then he manicured the scene, pushed it around and shaped it until it was satisfactory.
I have worked with many movie directors—some good, some fair, some terrible. Kazan was the best actors’ director by far of any I’ve worked for. Gadg, who got his nickname because of an affection for gadgets, was the only one who ever really stimulated me, got into a part with me and virtually acted it with me. Before being a director, he had been an actor in the Group Theatre, and I think this gave him great insight. Creating emotions in an actor is a delicate proposition. Most of the time you have to bring your part fully rehearsed in your back pocket and appear on the set, having done your rehearsal off camera. Gadg knew when to intervene after a few takes and say something that would provoke a strong emotion in you, and most of the time he would get the result he was looking for. He was an arch-manipulator of actors’ feelings, and he was extraordinarily talented; perhaps we will never see his like again.
Performances evolve. On film it may take several or even many attempts to get it right; you may not hit your pace until the third or fourth take. Gadg knew this; he nursed you along and shaped a better performance with each take. Some directors don’t want you to improvise; they’re either too insecure or too inflexible to see the possibilities. They cannot bear improvisations trapped in unstable egos, or, like Bernardo Bertolucci, who has the highest degree of sensitivity and is delicately attuned to the actor, they encourage you to improvise but add nothing to the performance, relying on you to offer your craft to them.
Gadg was different; he chose good actors, encouraged them to improvise and then improved on the improvisation. He understood that every performer has to bring his own inspiration and characterization to a part; he gave his cast freedom and would be pleased and excited when he got something good. He was always emotionally involved in the process and his instincts were perfect. Sometimes they were conveyed in just a brief sentence at exactly the right moment, or sometimes he inspired me simply by being there because I trusted his judgment.
When we had a scene coming up, he often said, “Listen, go work on it, then bring it to me and show me what you’ve got.” So another actor and I would go off by ourselves, rehearse a scene in various ways, try something we thought was real and then show Gadg what we had come up with. Then he’d say, “That’s good, that’s good,” or “No, don’t do that, move it over here …” He almost demanded that you argue with him, but it was never a question of whose ego was in charge. We often had very creative fights over how a scene should be played. He had strong convictions and stuck with them unless you showed him he was wrong. I could stand toe-to-toe with him and tell him he was wrong and he never held it against me. He had the sense to remove his ego from the conversation, and if you convinced him you were right, he’d let you do what you wanted. If you proved you were right, he was the happier for it. “For Chrissake,” I’d say, “you can’t do that; it’s not going to work, people won’t believe it. It’s no good. Nobody behaves that way, but okay, I’ll try it your