George Lucas directing actors

What's interesting is this is a topic Lucas seems to like to keep under wraps. He never seems to talk about it, that I can remember off hand. And even the actors usually seem to dodge this particular issue when asked.

A great example being when Harrison Ford was asked the difference between George Lucas and Irvin Kershner and he merely replied, "Kershner is much taller."
In this interview

I think one the few comments I've seen (OT) actors make on this is Anthony Daniels who once said, "George's style of filmmaking was difficult, he never said anything. He never asked me to do a scene a particular way, he'd just say, "Action. Cut. Terrific." But actually sometimes he said "Terrific", sometimes he said nothing."
Star Wars - Omnibus BBC Documentary

Carrie and Anthony both mention the "Faster, more intense" thing in Empire Of Dreams.

Anthony Daniels: "George is notorious for saying, after a take, ya know, "Do it again, faster, with more intensity." He certainly said to me, was, "Terrific Tony, can you do it again faster?" I didn't get "more intensity". I didn't think 3P0 with more intensity would be bearable, do you?"

Carrie: George never talked, it was sort of, we felt he wanted us to hit our marks and magically accommodate our dialogue. And he lost his voice at one point and we didn't know that for days. And we wanted to get him a little board where it said, "Faster and more intense!" That was his main direction. He just wanted us to speed through it.

Mark: We all had to fill in a lot of the blanks. It was more a matter of, if we did something he didn't like, he'd tell us. Rather than telling us what to do.

Harrison: I think George likes people, I think George is a warm-hearted person. But he, ehh, is a little impatient with the process of acting; of finding something, you know. And he thinks it's there. "It's right there. I wrote it there!" ya know. "Just, do that." You know, sometimes you can't, just do that, and make it work.

Even our favorite Lucas commentator Ewan McGregor said, "He says he knows exactly what he wants, but he just has no idea how to ask the actors, he's just got no idea how to tell you what it is that he wants. Which makes for a lot of fun on the set.
Star Wars - Omnibus BBC Documentary

Which Hamill more or less corroborates in the first clip I posted. He says "Kershner is more vocal." Whereas Lucas would rather maneuver the actors into getting what he wants, without having to say, "Do this."


It's obvious that directing actors and scripting dialogue are not Lucas' passions when it comes to the whole filmmaking package, but I think that's part what makes his filmmaking so interesting and unique. Ultimately I don't think Lucas gives himself enough credit when it comes to his ability to write and direct actors. What ever it is he does, the final product, at least, sure seems to work. For me, at least. There's something very special and magic about the way it all comes together, in all six of his films. It's a subject I've never really thought about much, because the films play fine as they are.

Yeah, I think when it comes to the acting/speaking dialogue, it's more about a certain rhythm and melody he's looking for. He says the dialogue is like a part of the musical score.

When you see the unused takes you can get a sense of why they weren't used. The beats are off. They don't maintain the serial/comic strip/pulp pace of the film.

I think this whole topic has been blown out of proportion, solely based on the extremely troublesome shooting of ANH. Lucas was faced with a lot of problems while shooting the movie, he had to fight constantly to get it even made. The crew was partly hostile, the cast sceptical, nobody seemed to believe in the movie. He even had a complete physical breakdown once, IIRC. I just think he had no ressources left to get into details with all of the actors while struggling with so many things simultaneously - including pioneering technology from scratch.

That said, Lucas is certainly a director who thinks it's an actors job to... well, act... and he seems to have success with that approach once actors reach a certain level of experience, at least. Younger actors might struggle sometimes, but then again I consider Hayden's performance to be one of the best in the Saga and he was one of the youngest.

In the end, I think the "Chosen One" featurette kind of settled that topic for me. If you don't get to understand a character as an actor based on the direction Lucas gives as seen (exemplary with Hayden) in this documentary, the fault is all on you as an actor.