Naked Cinema: Working with Actors (Pre-Owned)

by Sally Potter

What really happens between a director and an actor — from one of cinema's most distinctive voices.

Sally Potter has been renowned for her rapport with actors and the luminous performances she draws from them. In Naked Cinema, she strips bare the art and craft of directing actors for the camera — from casting through to the moment of first public screening.

The book moves through the full arc of filmmaking — from casting, financing and rehearsal through framing, blocking and editing — always with an eye fixed firmly on the actor/director dynamic at every stage of the process. Potter writes in prose that is both unsentimental and inspired, tracing the energies that pass between actor, director and audience — the acts of transmission and imagination, performance and witness, that together make up a film.

The book also contains in-depth interviews with actors Potter has worked with, including Julie Christie, Jude Law, Judi Dench, Annette Bening, Timothy Spall, Steve Buscemi, Riz Ahmed, Elle Fanning, and Lily Cole — each offering a candid counterpoint to Potter's own perspective on the creative process.

Potter is the award-winning writer/director of Orlando, The Tango Lesson, The Man Who Cried, and Ginger & Rosa, and was awarded an OBE in 2012. This is her most sustained and generous reflection on her craft.

Essential reading for directors, actors, screenwriters, and anyone fascinated by the invisible architecture of great filmmaking.