ADMIRABLY BOLD. There's something grand about the film's sincerity and the intensity of its emotions and something fresh and bold about the way director Gray uses the conventions of romantic melodrama.
We make a contract within ourselves as actors or directors or writers about how much of ourselves we let into projects. You can actually figure out before you work on something how much blood you will have to let emotionally.
Actors aren't stupid, mostly, and if there's a sensibility and an aesthetic that a director's going for, if you're aware of that too, you can do things to help that.
I understand the directors much more. I was always rebelling against them when I was a youngster, I didn't want to be told what to do. I had no identification.