When a scene calls for full-on romantic tearfulness, he gives it his all, every time.
In another instance, a scene called for Garland to exit the saloon, jump on a horse, and ride out of town.
When a scene calls for actors to sit or lie, they ease down onto the floor or drape their legs over its elevated edge.
"If a scene calls for an improviser to play a different gender than they identify with, not only do they need to inhabit that new gender pretty quickly, but it has to be nuanced and genuine, or it will read as caricature and throw the reality of the scene," she said.
It is helpful, Mr. Lepage said, to have people come on board in the middle of the process: "Working on a scene called 'P for Papa,' two actresses immediately go into a psychological relationship with their father.
You can take the picture as just another piece of Hopper shtick, with soundstage spots, an actor in place, and a director shouting for silence on the set as a scene called "Sadness" starts.
At a production meeting for his show "narcs," sound and prop designers discuss the show, including hiring a small adult for a scene that calls for a kid, and using realistic, bioengineered skin for a scene where the bad guy gets caught in a sugar-cane harvester.
It was a perfectly rousing scene (one of Wayne's personal favorites), enhanced even more by the fact that the actor, then 61 and long able to command $1 million-plus-per-picture, still refused to permit a stand-in — even for a scene that called for his horse to be shot and roll on top of him.
When a ski scene calls for a winter mountain, they converge on Aspen.
