John Badham On Directing | 040 - Actors Talk - Come Inside The Acting Business

NOTES FROM THE SET OF SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, WAR GAMES AND MORE
My guest for this episode of Actors Talk with Tommy G. Kendrick is film and television director John Badham. Most listeners will know Badham from his films Saturday Night Fever with John Travolta, War Games with Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy, Short Circuit with Ally Sheedy, Stakeout, Another Stakeout and Whose Life Is It Anyway all starring Richard Dreyfus and many, many more.

Purchase JOHN BADHAM ON DIRECTING with this Amazon affiliate link and help support Actors Talk Podcast. A small commission goes to support the podcast at no additional cost to you. Thank you!

A MATTER OF TRUST
"Why do we care about the trust? We care because a trusting person is going to give you more of their creativity. A person who doesn't trust you is going to say I"ll
just give him what I know is safe. "
In his new book, John Badham on Directing, Badham picks up where he left off with his prior book, "I'll Be In My Trailer. " Through his own experiences and those of his many contributors, Badham tackles the issue of TRUST between directors and actors. And how trust, of the lack thereof, can win over the actor and help him/her to give their best performances or fracture the relationship and result in a working experience and that is anything but optimal for either director or actor. And that's just the first part of the book.
DIRECTING ACTION AND SUSPENSE
The second section deals with directing acting and suspense. Badham relates experiences, the good and the bad from his films like Blue Thunder, War Games, The Hard Way and those of many contributors like Steven Soderbergh, Richard Donner, Taylor Hackford, Jodie Foster, Sydney Pollack, John Frankenheimer and so many more.
THE DIRECTOR'S CHECKLIST
"Before you start rehearsals, any rehearsals, what questions have to be asked?...Whether you've directed no films or a hundred films these are the basic tools that help deconstruct a script or a scene, looking for what makes the film or the scene either work or not work."
The final section of John Badham On Directing is devoted to what Badham calls the director's checklist - twelve questions to assist the director in breaking down each scene in a film:

What happened before the scene - What does it add - What's different at the end -Whose point of view - Where are the beats - Where is the tipping point in the scene - What do they want - What do they expect - What's at stake for each character - What's stopping them - How do they try to get what they want - How does each character look at the other Each question on this list is examined in detail, often using examples from films such as True Grit, Kramer vs Kramer and Juno.
NOT FOR DIRECTORS ONLY
One thing: Don't be misled by the title. This is not a book for directors only. Fellow actors, you do immediately see the value in this material for us, right? Significant portions of the 'director's checklist' material sound awfully familiar to the kind of work we actors do when we're breaking down scenes, working on our characters. In fact, there is no section of this book that won't benefit the actor as much as the director.

Here's a suggestion. Listen to the podcast. Hear John Badham discuss some of this material with not only is own words but in his own voice...literally.

Purchase JOHN BADHAM ON DIRECTING with this Amazon affiliate link and help support Actors Talk Podcast. A small commission goes to support the podcast at no additional cost to you. Thank you!

A LITTLE BACKGROUND
John Badham was born in England and grew up in Birmingham, AL where his stepfather had been transferred as a military assignment. Badham's mother Mary was an amateur actress who subsequently went on to a long career in radio and television broadcasting in the Birmingham market.

Badham's sister Mary was cast to play Gregory Peck's daughter Scout in th...