WORKING WITH A GREAT ACTRESS

Southland Times, Issue 23987, 30 November 1939, Page 14

WORKING WITH A GREAT ACTRESS

Impressions Of Garbo’s Director

Although I knew Greta Garbo personally, I never directed her until Metro engaged me for Ninotchka. The subsequent experience has given me a certain impression of her characwrites Ernst Lubitsch, famous director, in The New York Times. I believe that Garbo is probably-the most inhibited person I have ever worked with. The next most inhibited person I found to be Gary Cooper. These are two people who never could throw their emotions right on Broadway. They can’t get up in front of a

crowd and make a display. They aren’t exhibitionists in any sense, pus kind of actor must be coaxed into playing a situation. But when the scene is finished it is distinctive, not routined. You feel it is being bom for the first time—has a freshness. And I think this is one reason for Garbos unique appeal. - She is a very unusual girl. She gets quite worried about scenes. She had to play a drunk, for instance, in “Ninotchka” and do the scene in a public restaurant. But I realized soon that she was full of inhibitions and disliked playing the scene in front of all the extras. So she came to me and said, “I don’t think that I can play it.” That was my signal for action. “Look here,” I said. “I’ll do anything you want; I’ll change the script, the dialogue, but this can’t be changed. Too much depends on it. You must make up your mind that you’ll have to play it.” After that, of course, she had to continue. MAKING A SCENE So I waited two weeks before starting that particular scene. When we did get to it, she was very—afraid is too strong a word—timid. But finally I got her to relax completely by talking to her and being patient. I would yo to her with a suggestion, saying, “This is how I see the scene., Now you go away and think it over.” And she would go into a comer, all by herself, and brood. Then she would do the scene again. If it still wasn’t right, I d say—just casually, passing by her, “Very good, but if you could just do—. Then I’d leave her alone again. Thus I gave her confidence, gradually, so when she came to the drinking scene she was completely at ease. When you see it in the picture you’ll find that she plays it delightfully. So real. Not the routine of an actor who uses the customary tools. That’s why it’s charming. And this principle is true to the whole picture. When I started, my idea was to keep the comedy scenes and serious scenes balanced, not half humour and half Dostoievsky, to get the right balance in her performances. And I must say it wasn’t difficult at all. I think she responded to every suggestion. There were a _ few lines in the picture which she didn’t want to say and also a word here and there. When these weren't essential, I changed them. I think Garbo has no routine whatsoever. She doesn’t rely on technique. She might at first be inhibited, but when finally you break through this and she really feels a scene, she’s wonderful. But if you don’t succeed in making her feel it, she can’t do it coldbloodedly on technique. Nor can Cooper. This is why, for instance, Cooper is the antithesis of a typical actor. Cooper’s success relies on the fact that you never feel you are confronted with an actor. He’s just a man. And Garbo’s reactions are the same. With any actor, with any real artist, I’ve never had trouble in my life. There might be a difference of opinion as to how a scene should be played, naturally, but never a disagreement with a real artist. If a sincere he feels that the man who directs him

knows what he is talking about and he relies on him like a child. It is not at all difficult to work with Garbo. To be sure, there is the fact that she breaks at 5 o’clock and nothing can make her work after this hour. Even if the scene is not done it has to be postponed till the next day. This might sound at the first moment annoying to a director, as if she were arbitrary. Yet on the other hand she is ready to shoot, dressed and made up, at 9 o’clock in the morning. She feels that working from 9 till 5 o’clock is all she can stand physically. Having worked with many women stars, I have found that one of the difficulties with them is their slavish devotion to the mirror. Some of them take a terribly long time to powder and make up between scenes. They are so much concerned about their looks that they exhaust their vitality. In the eight weeks during which I worked with Greta Garbo, she never looked into the mirror once unless I told her to do so. Nobody but the moving-picture director can appreciate the significance of this fact. Garbo never looks at rushes. She feels that in doing so she might be so depressed that she couldn’t go on. Therefore, she relies entirely on what the director tells her the next morning. The first time she saw her work in “Ninotchka” was at the first preview after the picture was cut and edited. When I asked her, "Do you like yourself in it?” even then she didn’t seem to know if she was bad or good. ___