Eric Balfour Quotes
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Stepping out of the director's chair completely and into a scene as an actor was weird. It was more excitement about directing than anything, but I was on a high from being a director and enjoying that process so much that going back to being an actor was almost secondary because I really was loving directing.
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I already love acting and I love actors, so being able to communicate with actors and to bring performances out of them, and to tell a story and aid them, is really exciting for me.
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I think directors can be a little insensitive to how vulnerable an actor is, when he's giving a performance. Part of the job of an actor is to invite scrutiny, but with that, the people around them have to nurture that and put them in an environment where they feel safe and they feel like they can risk something.
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The stories that I like to tell and the movies I like are always grounded in the emotional arc of the characters.
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As you get older and you hopefully battle your own demons, you find other reasons why you want to be an actor. The people that I truly admire do this because they love telling stories and they love the make-believe of the moment and not so much the gratification afterwards.
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I actually like acting in things that I'm directing because I'm able to control the tone of how a scene may go and I know, very clearly, what I want from myself in that scene and what I need, as far as from a directorial standpoint.
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The beauty of every experience you have is that hopefully you'll learn something from it.
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I would really like to focus on directing features, and then eventually take that skill set back to television. On features, you have more control. On television, the producers are the creative forces behind it. Directors come and go on television.
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As an artist, you're always trying to reach a new height, do something new, try something you haven't done before, and push your boundaries.
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One of the greatest things I've learned, as an actor, was how to talk to actors.
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At a certain level, great actors who are successful actors don't have to worry about it. They can just go for it because they believe in themselves.
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Unless you're a directing producer of a television show, for the most part, the director comes in one week to direct and episode, and then leaves. I'd much rather produce television and occasionally direct an episode of a show I'm producing, then just come in as an outside director.
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I'm not a trained chef, so I end up making stuff up. It either turns out brilliant or an absolute disaster. I just go for it.
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Having been an actor, I always want to leave room for the actors to find their comfort zone, so I don't like to be too rigid in how I plan my shots. It's different if you have weeks to rehearse and you can rehearse on your sets or in your locations and you can plan that out with your actors, but in modern independent filmmaking, you don't really have that time. You have to have a certain level of improvisation.
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As an actor, most of the time, you only have so much say in how, what and where things go. As a director, you really get to paint a bigger picture. You have many more brushes to use.
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The minute you try to do something that is not true to you, is not something that you really know about, and is not a lifestyle or world that you live in or can relate to, it's going to come off as false.
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Nothing is worse for me, as an actor, than when I walk on a set and the director goes, "Okay, you're going to be standing here, the other person is going to be standing here, and you're going to move to there and then do the scene." That doesn't help actors.
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I've had the experience of seeing what makes life easier for an actor and for the crew, and what makes it feel bogged down and challenging. We're all really fortunate that we get to make our living as artists.
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As a director, you want to be really connected to every part of your set, from your actors all the way to your camera operators. Everybody is a part of the creative process, and if they feel like they're part of a team versus just being a tool, they're going to give you something special.
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Skyline is an alien invasion film that really takes an interesting look at the genre. The writers did an amazing job of creating a new take at how life from other planets come and plan to invade Earth.
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Directing is something that I'd been wanting and hoping to do, as I've grown into myself.
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I'd love to say that every move I make is completely calculated and I'm sitting on a pile of scripts, sifting through them for the perfect role, but the fact is that there are a lot of talented people out there and there's a lot of competition in our business.
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As an actor, I've always paid attention on sets. I've always watched, learned and listened, and you start to see things differently. You always leave yourself an out.
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There are always going to be people who are more famous and more bankable than you, and then conversely, you may be more famous and more bankable than other people. But, there was a time that I would take jobs because they were there.
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A lot of why we become actors is to fill a void that we have and a part of that void is to live out and tell stories that we've lived or that we hope would have been different in our own lives.
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If you felt like you've done the best thing you could possibly ever do, it's probably time to hang up your spurs because there's not much else to do.
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I believe in my own abilities and my future enough that I will not take a job that could hurt the integrity of my long-term career.
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