Re: Othello
Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2020 6:02 pm
Marsha Stephanie Blake on Daniel Craig’s Sky High Nerves During Her Audition for ‘Othello’
https://collider.com/daniel-craig-othello-marsha-stephanie-blake-interview/
As for working with Craig in particular, Blake was surprised by how nervous he seemed in her audition:
“What was wonderful about him, first of all, my audition with him, I don’t know why, but I went in and I’d done a bunch of Shakespeare and I was pretty confident with my Shakespeare stuff – and I don’t know if he did this on purpose; I should ask him at some point – he seemed so nervous that I ended up being not nervous. Does that make sense? He was sweating! We started doing the scene, he started speaking and he was speaking so low that I was like, ‘What? What are you saying? I can’t hear you.’ I was like, ‘Are you nervous? You need to speak up or something.’ And I found out later on [casting director] Jack [Doulin] was impressed by the fact that I wasn’t intimidated by Daniel and I was yelling at him right away to speak up.”
Whether you’re looking at Craig’s run as James Bond or the confidence he brings to most of his big screen roles, it could be easy to assume that Craig tackles everything he does with a degree of assuredness. Whether the sweat and nerves in this instance were manufactured or not, things wound up panning out great for both Blake and Craig on Othello.
“Maybe he was trying to make me feel less nervous, but can he manufacture sweat? I don’t know! Maybe it was a Shakespeare thing? Who knows? All I know is I went in there and what I saw was somebody who was like a deer caught in headlights a little bit, a little panicky and I immediately tried to make him laugh by yelling at him, and then we had the best audition. So we went from this very big audition and then [director] Sam Gold wanted us to do it as intimate, he was like, ‘Pretend like you’re in a movie and you’re just talking to each other right here. Don’t make it theatrically big, make it movie big.’ And we ended up doing this really emotional crazy scene like right up on each other and there you go. The rest is history. But he’s lovely. He’s just fun to be around. He’d be backstage playing his guitar and none of that big confident, as you say, James Bond personality at all. Except for when he was on stage and he had to be Iago.”
https://collider.com/daniel-craig-othello-marsha-stephanie-blake-interview/
As for working with Craig in particular, Blake was surprised by how nervous he seemed in her audition:
“What was wonderful about him, first of all, my audition with him, I don’t know why, but I went in and I’d done a bunch of Shakespeare and I was pretty confident with my Shakespeare stuff – and I don’t know if he did this on purpose; I should ask him at some point – he seemed so nervous that I ended up being not nervous. Does that make sense? He was sweating! We started doing the scene, he started speaking and he was speaking so low that I was like, ‘What? What are you saying? I can’t hear you.’ I was like, ‘Are you nervous? You need to speak up or something.’ And I found out later on [casting director] Jack [Doulin] was impressed by the fact that I wasn’t intimidated by Daniel and I was yelling at him right away to speak up.”
Whether you’re looking at Craig’s run as James Bond or the confidence he brings to most of his big screen roles, it could be easy to assume that Craig tackles everything he does with a degree of assuredness. Whether the sweat and nerves in this instance were manufactured or not, things wound up panning out great for both Blake and Craig on Othello.
“Maybe he was trying to make me feel less nervous, but can he manufacture sweat? I don’t know! Maybe it was a Shakespeare thing? Who knows? All I know is I went in there and what I saw was somebody who was like a deer caught in headlights a little bit, a little panicky and I immediately tried to make him laugh by yelling at him, and then we had the best audition. So we went from this very big audition and then [director] Sam Gold wanted us to do it as intimate, he was like, ‘Pretend like you’re in a movie and you’re just talking to each other right here. Don’t make it theatrically big, make it movie big.’ And we ended up doing this really emotional crazy scene like right up on each other and there you go. The rest is history. But he’s lovely. He’s just fun to be around. He’d be backstage playing his guitar and none of that big confident, as you say, James Bond personality at all. Except for when he was on stage and he had to be Iago.”