Michael Caine – “No one’s going to kill you”

Excerpt from Michael Caine’s awesome book Michael Caine – Acting in Film: An Actor’s Take on Movie Making . This is awesome advice, and in my own experience I have found it to be totally true.

But whether you’re supposed to be tense or relaxed in a scene, hang on to the knowledge that everyone is there to get the greatest performance from you that you’ve ever given. Don’t be intimidated by anyone. Everybody’s on your side. They all want you to be great. I’ve produced movies and I can tell you that if I put you in a movie, I want you to be great, even more than you want to be great.

The electrician will scramble up on the catwalks to set the light so that there’s no glint in your eye; you’ve got seventy or eighty people concentrating on getting your best face on the screen and helping you say the line right. You may think, “I’ve got to do something, otherwise I’m not going to be interesting.” But if you can attain that basic relaxation, that’s all you need. Just block everybody out and relax. No one’s going to kill you; no one’s going to upset you. Everything is being done to help you do it right, because film acting is bloody difficult work, and everybody knows that.