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Aaron Marcus shares what it was like directing Judi Dench in Philomena. He avoided talking to her before one scene so she'd stay in character for a confessional moment. Dench's professionalism made the whole thing work.
Aaron Marcus shares what it was like directing Judi Dench in Philomena. He avoided talking to her before one scene so she'd stay in character for a confessional moment. Dench's professionalism made the whole thing work.
Hi, my name is Aaron Marcus, and I want to share with you a really incredible experience that I had working on a film fairly recently. I had the honor, the privilege, an amazing experience to work with one of the greatest actors, I think, working today. Her name is Judi Dench, and we were doing a scene in a church, and I was her priest, and she was coming in for a confessional. And so I made a very conscious decision, since we were hanging out in the church, you know, while everything is being set up, not to have any contact with her, not before we actually shot the scene. And I did that for a couple of reasons. One is, you know, in this scene, anybody who comes in for a confessional is supposed to be anonymous. You know, I'm not supposed to know the person, know anything about them. I'm not even looking at them. at her during the scene. And so I thought it would be better not to have any contact with her whatsoever before we actually shot. The other thing too is I was thinking I didn't want to get to know her, not from the character point of view, but from a human point of view. I was really concerned that I might get very nervous. She might say something to me that I might be thinking about during the scene. I see. I just wanted to be extremely focused on preparing for this scene and not think about this is this famous actor that I'm going to be doing a scene with. And so that was my strategy. And as it turns out, it worked out really, really well for me. I was not thinking at all about Judi Dench during the scene. It was just someone coming in. who wanted to— well, actually, I don't want to give anything away. The movie's called Philomena, and so I'll let you guys watch it. It's a very small scene, you know, and it's dark. At least I am, simply because I'm sitting in this booth, and it's really— it's about Judi Dench. And so— but I'll let you watch it. But I can tell you that after we finished shooting, then I walked over to her and You know, it's always so nice when you see somebody at that level who's just so gracious, so humble, so sweet, and so unbelievably talented. I mean, she had a really tough scene. And the director— I mean, he wasn't, you know, working her too hard, but, you know, he made her work very hard. I was shooting this very, very emotional, difficult scene over and over and over again. And it was a very cramped space. They built They built a confessional booth just for this particular scene. And so we were pretty tight in there and it was warm and she was just phenomenal. So it was just, it was wonderful just to see that there are, you know, famous people who are great. And we had a chance to spend a little bit of time after the scene was done. And like I said, she was, she was just amazing. So anyhow, if you're ever If you get the opportunity to work with somebody very famous, you might want to consider not having much contact with the person ahead of time. That might make things a little bit easier for you. But really, it's your call. There's no set rule on how to do this. I just wanted to share with you what I did, and I found it really, really helpful. If you have any questions at all, always feel free to email me at aaron@howtomodel.com. And also, please always check out my website for more acting and commercial print information. It's howtomodel.com. I'm Aaron Marcus, and I look forward to talking with you soon.
