When Tommy Lee Jones came and talked at my grad school, he was asked how he prepared for his role in The Fugitive. He said he talked to a US Marshal and basically got the expected answer … “I don’t care if you’re innocent. You’re supposed to be caught and it’s my job to make sure you’re caught.” But Jones said the main way he “prepared” was: “I paid attention to Harrison Ford.” They only had the one scene together, but he elaborated: “He was a leader on the set. My job was to support what he was bringing to the story. So I just paid close attention to him. He was never far from my mind.” This, of course, is the Marshal’s single-minded focus for the entire movie: the fugitive.
His comment always struck me, in terms of super smart acting technique, technique indistinguishable from story smarts. His approach was so simple and yet so effective.
Why I thought of this was because of watching Tár.
Nina Hoss is a brilliant actress. A leading lady. She’s proven that time and time again. She’s one of my favorite actresses working today.
She plays an important role in Tár, Cate Blanchett’s long-time girlfriend, but she doesn’t have much dialogue. As a reminder to the idiots who count up lines and then write “thinkpieces” on how Martin Scorsese “erases” women by not giving them enough lines … the effectiveness of a performance is not in how many lines a character has. Literally any actor would tell you this. In every scene in Tár, Hoss is reacting to Blanchett. It is her sole purpose and it works on multiple levels. The character is extremely concerned, she’s recognizing the signs, she’s hurt from the past, and she sees the past might be rising up again. She doesn’t speak this out loud, but we understand it because of how Nina Hoss looks at Blanchett. It’s more revealing than Blanchett’s behavior – mainly because Lydia Tar is so armored, to say the least. Armored by success and ego. Nina Hoss’ job is – of course – to immerse herself in the world of symphony orchestras, in the world of top-tier violinists, etc. – and she is completely believable in that aspect.
But that’s not the sole purpose of this role. In fact, it’s secondary. It’s background noise.
Her job as an actress – her mAIN job – is to pay close attention to Cate Blanchett.
Nothing can happen without her attention. Her attention tells us all. It helps us understand that what Lydia is doing is part of a pattern. It’s not out of the blue. It’s like a monster emerging from the shadows again.
Hoss’ role and the playing of it is an object lesson in the idea of what it means to be “support staff”, a character actor, there to ground the story in reality, backstory, history, context. If you aren’t doing that, if you are only focused on yourself and giving your own little good performance, then you are not doing the job. This is why the number of lines is irrelevant. We got the whole story of De Niro in The Irishman from his daughter’s traumatized dissociative silence.
Mike Nichols fired someone on the first day of rehearsal for a Broadway show because the actor was futzing around figuring out “business” to do during the star’s important downstage monologue. This “business” pulled focus from the main event, which was the star and the monologue. The actor also also asked a question about whether or not they would be seen by the audience if they were placed in that section of the stage. Nichols didn’t say anything directly to the actor, but murmured to the stage manager, “Fire her.” The actor was fired during the lunch break.
Harsh, yes? Nobody said show business was kind. And certain things are elementary, and should be present if you expect to be playing at the highest level. Because if you don’t get that your job during the star’s monologue is to stand still and not pull focus and pay close close attention to the star … then you don’t get story and you don’t get collaboration, which means that you don’t understand your own job. It’s not about YOU.
Look at this screengrab above. Hoss’ eyeline – and the intensity of her gaze – draws us to what is most important.
This is amazing to see, as I mentioned, because since Nina Hoss is the compelling central figure in Christian Petzold’s movies, a ferocious on-the-edge leading lady in the Gena Rowlands vein. There, she is not support staff at all. In those movies she’s the Blanchett figure. Here, it’s not about that. And she knows it.
And so she takes all of her intense talent and concentration and does what is necessary for the story. She pays close attention to the central figure, helping us understand what is really going on.
