I was pleasantly honored to participate in yet another of Alejandro's productions, Canary. When Alex contacted me to do a scene for this film I of course jumped at the chance to experience once again his "secret sauce" style of directing.

Having been already exposed to Alex's "secret sauce" by acting in his previous film, Around The Bay, here is what I think is his "secret" recipe (it may of course be completely wrong):

1) take one or more actors
2) do not show the script to any actor
3) do not explain the rest of the film to any actor
4) roughly describe to each actor their role
5) give unspecific description of the scene action
6) use more than one camera, more than two preferably
7) "mix well" all of the above
8) action! stay in character until "cut!"
9) repeat #8 once or twice, maybe

Alex's most important directing rule is for the actor to stay in character between the two directives: 'action!' and 'cut!' His second rule is to forget about the script, you're never going to see it, just focus on his instructions. At the same time, Alex is very open to hearing suggestions, as long as one doesn't try to usurp his directing power.

That style of directing gives a unique opportunity to the actor to showcase his/her ability to bring a character to life on the fly--think of doing a cold read where the actor gets only one chance to perform and he/she has to create their own sides, right there and then. That is both nerve-racking and exciting at the same time.

It was a bit stressful to come up with the character's action and dialogue right before the scene was shot, but once cameras were rolling I was committed to my "creation" so I just tried to relax and went with it. Then, after the scene was done, I started second-guessing everything, my interpretation of the character, the delivery, was it close to what the director wanted, etc. The director of course said that it was great...and asked me to do it again.

The beauty (or the horror) of the improv acting is that each take will be a little or a lot different from the previous one, each next one altered by all that second-guessing I mentioned above. With a little retrospect I think that the best take is either the first one or the last one, and all of the in-between are just "practice." I should also mention that having more than two cameras is a must for improv scenes as it would be very hard, if not impossible, to reproduce the action and dialogue for multiple sequential shots from different angles.

Alex actually made it easy for me. He gave me a role that I'm very familiar with, where my real life experiences mirrored the character description. My role was to be a father of several kids where I get overwhelmed with having them follow my rules of the house. That mirrors my real life of having four kids of various ages and although I never get overwhelmed, I do get stressed a bit sometimes when the older ones try to push the limits of their "perceived" independence. What made this scene more real, or surreal, is that one of the "kids" roles was performed by my real life teenage daughter. On top of that, our improvised interaction in the scene mirrored our minor "conflict" the day before. Those two facts made it very easy for me to "step" into the desired role, I just had to be myself and talk to my daughter as I sometimes do for real, and pretend that the other two kids were also mine and bring them into our "conflict." My daughter also thought that it was funny how the scene ended up being so similar to our interaction the day before.

Above situation actually made it a bit hard for me to stay in character, even though the character was almost identical to real me. I had to prevent myself from having too much fun and try to keep a straight face and especially not to make my daughter burst with laughter, i.e., to help her stay in her character. To help my daughter and the other two kids with their performances, I passed to them a valuable lesson I myself learned on the set of Around The Bay, from Steve's amazing performance. The lesson is simple, between the directives 'action!' and 'cut!' nothing matters except staying in character. It is imperative, though hard, to ignore all temptations to stop acting and ask the director if the action/dialogue is what he wants.

On the set of Canary I learned another important lesson, call it a realization. Right after the first take I understood (realized) that in an improv scene, one actor has to be the leader, the driver of the scene's direction, and be in charge of dialogue's evolution. In Around the Bay, Steve was that leader, his acting shaped the whole scene, and forced me to adapt to the scene's dynamics and helped me stay in character. In the Canary scene I finally understood that need for a "leader" and applied that lesson immediately to the subsequent takes. While Alex wasn't looking I secretly "directed" the kids to simply follow my lead and play off my acting and dialogue.

I'm very thankful to Alex for letting me participate in his project, again. He took a big chance on me by casting me for a role in Around The Bay, and another chance by casting me in Canary. I hope I fulfilled his expectations and of course I know that both films will be great hits!