Jim Sheridan, a filmmaker responsible for bringing to life films such as My Left Foot, In the Name of the Father and In America, and also the director of Jake’s upcoming film, Brothers, spoke to the journal of the Directors Guild of America about the actors he has worked with, including Daniel Day-Lewis, Jake’s co-stars in Brothers, Tobey Maguire and Natalie Portman, and Jake himself. Take a look:

“I’m not even sure actors are directable. I think the more you know, the less you try to direct them. The more you just try to not impede.” The goal is to encourage spontaneous discovery in the act of making the film.

“I invite a certain dissonance with the actor,” says Sheridan. “Most times, you want the actor to push back. Daniel is so focused, so organized that he’s like a balance for my chaos. He will just do it exactly the way I imagined it when I was writing, without having to ‘direct’ him. Natalie is a very classical actress, very sure of where she’s going—her only difficulty was her tremendous young age, being 26 years old and playing a mother of two, but she made the stretch. Tobey’s very controlled, a thinking actor. Great actors on film, you always know what they’re thinking. Jake’s a thinker too, but more like me, questioning everything, improvising. But actors generally have got to be allowed to push back, otherwise you’re just trying to fit them into a pictorial composition.”

Source: DGA Quarterly