The TAKEHOLLYWOOD Academy
at TAKEHOLLYWOOD.COM asks five questions to blockbuster director Jon Turteltaub whose credits include Instinct, Phenomenon and National Treasure I & II.

In this raw and highly entertaining interview, Mr. Turteltaub lays out the difficult and beautiful relationship between actor and director as well as truly invaluable advice for young actors about breaking into the business.

For Jon Turteltaub's complete filmed coaching session click on
http://www.takehollywood.com/core/tatv/coaching/Jon-Turteltaub

TAKEHOLLYWOOD: HOW DO YOU SEE YOUR ROLE IN THE FILMMAKING PROCESS?

JON TURTELTAUB: The question of what's my role, you know, how do I see my role in the filmmaking process? Frankly as the director I see my role as the filmmaking process. I'm supposed to be the filmmaking process. Everyone else on the film is working towards that vision, that design, that blueprint that the director is supposed to have.

Directors have a weird job. The director is both the artist and management. And the director, especially in the film, has to walk that line. The director is responsible for that budget and that schedule and is dealing with salaries and has responsibility to deliver the film for a certain amount of money and all that, but the director is also an artist. As dumb as this sounds, I see directing as being Captain Kirk on the enterprise. I remember the old Star Trek, captain Kirk knew absolutely everything about that ship and he was the one who decided where the ship was going and what was going on. And he was the one who always put his life in danger, he was the one who if Scotty needed help in the engineering bay he went down. He knew everything and the director is the same way, he has to know or she has to know everything there is to know about sound and light and wardrobe and performance and at the same time nothing else can be more important to the director than the movie. If you as the director let anything matter more to you: if you go home early cause you have some other thing to do then you are really not quiet getting done what you need to get done. That's the ugly truth, that's the bad marriage part of it. You cannot put anything ahead of making that movie or it won't be as good as it could be.

TH: WHAT'S THE FUNDAMENTAL THING TO KNOW BEFORE EMBARKING ON AN ACTING CAREER?

JT: There is so much you got to know before you start so that you are emotionally equipped to handle it. Being an actor is like going on a series of first dates and the person never calls you again. (Laugh) That's it! It is a life of rejection. It's a life of being told you're too tall, you're too short, you are not my type. On occasion, it clicks. And it might be great it might not be great, you don't know. So you better really love this. You have to love being an actor. You have to love the acting part, you have to love the being on a set part, you have to love the auditioning part because there is not much else there to love. The reality is: it's an awful job. The job of an actor is to not work. The most brilliant thing on this subject I heard was said to me by John Ashton who I did Instinct with. John's been in a million things and he'd been on the set for about 4 hours that day. I told him to be there early like 7 in the morning and by 11 o'clock we still hadn't used him. I went up and I apologize to him. He said, “Jon, don't worry you pay me to wait, the acting is free”. If that's not your attitude, you shouldn't be doing it.

TH: WHAT ARE ACTOR'S COMMON MISTAKES IN AN AUDITION?

JT: Actors come into auditions all the time with certain huge mistakes that most of them have learned and been told to do. I think actors get a lot of bad advice. Now this is me, another director may feel differently but the advice don't memorize the part make it look like you could be much better than this: dump. Memorize it. Why give yourself more work? Why look like you don't really care about that part? Why look like you didn't prepare and it didn't matter to you? Why not have the lines memorized so you don't have to think about them during the audition so you can be better? Your audition is your shot. Come in. Play the part. Don't sort of play it, don't sort of audition. Play it! Directors are lazy. I want someone to come in the room and be great, and need no direction, and I'm just gonna say “action”, they are going to walk on the set in a better hat and that will be the end of it (Laugh). All right. So memorize it, prepare. When you walk in the room you have to be prepared for two other things. One, you got to be prepared to chitchat if the director wants to chitchat, and you got to be prepared to just go. If you could only audition if you have time to catch your breath and do a little acting exercise before hand, then it's a huge mistake. If that's what you need, then you need to go work more. At the same time if you can't talk, and you can't be a person, and you can't be comfortable with yourself it's going to look to the director like you're nervous, you are not feeling safe as an actor yet. I as a director I can't totally trust this person.

Don't come in fully wardrobed. Okay?  Then you just look like a crazy. If you're auditioning for a western, you don't have to come in a hat and spurs. That's just loony.

You can flirt. Make eye contact. Be a person! Make it look like you are comfortable being there and that you are not terrified of those people sitting there. Keep in mind you've been invited, they need you, they're sitting there thinking “Oh Christ, we are doing a movie in three weeks and we don't have anyone to play Eleanor the Queen! What do we do?” They are praying that you are good when you walk in. Fulfill that. You have the control in that room. You are the one who is in charge. Walk in, get a quick assessment of what's going on, and knock the socks off that audition. Kill it!

TH: WHICH IS THE HARDER TO DEAL WITH, SUCCESS OR FAILURE?

JT: Without question failure is harder, success is always better. It is in every single circumstance better to be successful than to fail. It's not that success doesn't have dangers. We know those dangers. I do agree with that statement that success just makes each person a lot more of what they already were. Pay attention to yourself.  When you have success, who are you? Do you start thinking you're pretty great? And your other friends aren't as great as you thought they were when you're successful. How do you go about spending your money? Are you sharing it with others? Or are you stupidly sharing it with others? Do you start getting snobby about the part you should take? All that stuff. You got to watch all of that. It's still better than failure. Failure's horrible (laugh). It hurts, that rejection hurts! And it's not something anyone looks forward to. Can you get up off the mat? Yeah!! That's the test of who you are. If you can't handle failure don't be an actor. It is 90% failure. The success comes in that 10% of the parts that you actually get that are right for you that people see. Most of it is failure. So you have to just accept that, as part of the job…. And then learn from it.

TH: WHAT'S THE SECRET TO CAREER LONGEVITY?

JT: I think the secret to longevity is the comeback. Because no one's going to stay. No one persists. It's always up and down. And people with long careers don't have steady careers, they have up and down careers. It's also about staying relevant. You need to understand what the world is at all times. So that as things change, as movie styles change, as theater styles change, you're still relevant. You're still useful. If you're a good actor, you're believable you'll stay relevant. But if you're a persona that belongs in one era, you're done when that year's done. So you just got to withstand the blows and be willing to dip when it dips and keep working. I don't believe there is such a thing as « we are sick of that guy » everyone is always sick of everyone until they comeback. There was no one in the world who wanted to work with John Travolta “Oh his career is done, he is over”…Everyone! Pulp Fiction comes out : “Oh he's so great .. I've always loved him”… No you didn't! You didn't go seeing him for three years. He was always that good. You just didn't go. Now he's back, now he's gone again, now he's back. He has a long career because he has kept coming back by not quitting, by continuing to work. He has a bigger choice on whether he works or not than other people. We all have a choice. Keep working.

These five questions are a transcript taken from the video archives of the TAKEHOLLYWOOD Academy at TAKEHOLLYWOOD.COM Copyright Chapter Five

TAKEHOLLYWOOD ACADEMY has built an exclusive archive of video coaching sessions where 80 (and counting) world class filmmakers, such as actors Robin Wright Penn, Lauren Bacall, Sophia Loren, Ted Danson, Patricia Arquette, and directors Rob Marshall, Mark Rydell, Stephen Frears, Jon Turteltaub among many others share their craft, practical insight and inspiring lessons on show business.
For more info go to http://www.takehollywood.com/core/tatv/about

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