Excerpt from Conversations with Wilder
[Lemmon’s] first day on a sound stage, with George Cukor directing, he’s all revved up. He rattles down half a page of dialogue, rararaaumphrara, and then there’s “Cut” and he looks at Cukor. Cukor comes up to him and says, “It was just wonderful, you’re going to be a big big star. However … when it comes to that big speech, please, please, a little less, a little bit less. You know, in the theater, we’re back in a long shot, and you have to pour it on. But in film, you cut to a close-up and you cannot be that strong.” So he does it again, less. And again Cukor says, “Wonderful! Absolutely marvelous, now let’s do it again, a little bit less.” Now after ten or eleven times, Mr. Cukor admonishing him “a little less”, Mr. Lemmon says, “Mr. Cukor, for God’s sake, you know pretty soon I won’t be acting at all.” Cukor says, “Now youre’ getting the idea.”
