Zach Braff’s Directing Trick: Pretend the Stars Aren’t Famous
Asked how he avoids acting starstruck while directing people like Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Harrison Ford, Zach Braff says he uses his acting skills to pretend he is not, and treats them like normal people.
His reasoning is that every actor wants a leader: someone who knows the script really well, has a plan for how the scene will be executed, and, in comedy, knows how to make it funny. The last thing those actors want, he says, is someone coming in starstruck and wide-eyed.
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The trick is a performance of calm, and it is aimed at the cast as much as the interviewer: Braff is using an actor’s tools to give other actors a steadier room.
Calm alone is not the job. Braff’s own description puts script knowledge and a scene plan first, so the unstarstruck act only works if there is preparation underneath it.