The actor gives the soul to a character

by Iile Lempiäinen

It’s important that the director is familiar with the characters of the story. She knows what their part of the plot is, why they are there and who they are. When it comes to choosing the actors – the actor, with her dedication, gives birth to a character. This is something that the director must understand and accept. She must be satisfied how the character comes out now, when it has a body.
                      This “new body” brings the soul with her and thus creates the final form of the character. The director has to feel the chosen actor is the right one.  I believe all actors have their own personalities and every time they bring something new for the character the director has been working on.

When I started working with a short movie Savu (A Smoke) I was excited that I had a script which needed me to fully focus on the actors. Not that there would be some other way to do it, ‘cause there wasn’t enough time to do much else.  I trusted the group to take a big responsibility and using free range with their own departments while I was focusing on the actors.
                      First thing was the casting, which went very well. All actors we found were natural choices for the characters. One of the most important reasons who would be chosen as an actor was that there would be something similar between them and the characters.  Some of them just felt exactly as the characters the first time I saw them.
The most time I had to spend was with the main character Pyry, played by Nestori Kyyrä. Pyry is trying to take responsibility and a role as the head of the family at young age. He wants to protect her mother Silja , played by Minna Hämäläinen, from his alcoholic and narcissistic father Petri, played by Esko Hörkkö. Pyry is really sensitive. He has grown up without self-esteem and is a very shy boy, considering himself as “a nobody”. The only important thing for him is his mother – when she dies, what will Pyry do? Is there any sense in anything anymore?
                      Nestori was the youngest and most inexperienced of the actors, but he gave his full attention to this film. He took his job seriously, speculated his acting and always asked help if some scenes were worrying him. I was very happy and relieved that we found such a proper young man as the main character. Young actors worry me the most, but usually everything went great with Nestori.
                      Interaction between us worked well. Nestori was a great listener and even with small tips he managed to change what he was doing. It was fascinating to see how Pyry started to come alive through the actor. At first it was tense to work together. Rehearsing was somewhat stiff and the tight schedule was disturbing on the back of my head. We had to fit our schedules together very fast and rehearsals started immediately. That was little unnerving for Nestori.
                      Soon we started to trust each other. I noticed Nestori found a way for himself to work with the character. I was confident every morning we left for the shootings. Afterwards I still hope there would have been little more time with Nestori. Some halftime would have helped me to see him with new eyes and I could have helped him come even closer to Pyry. But because there wasn’t more time and we had to work so intensively I had to trust him and be there for him.

                      We kind of became friends during the film which I think helped Nestori a lot to relax on the set. I wasn’t afraid to be outspoken and both of us could laugh to ourselves in front of each other. This was the greatest thing – as a director I always would like to come closer to the actors and feel relaxed near them.
                      The last scene was the hardest for Nestori. He had a difficult line in it. He was meant to say “I want to die” in a really comical situation. I prefer black comedy and wanted to break the line of the film with totally different scene where Pyry finally meets the girl that will change his life.
                      We talked about that scene night before as Nestori was feeling really nervous about it. I explained the comical setting, so he wouldn’t be so afraid. In the shooting I ended up asking him to just saying the line with low voice, cause yelling that reply just didn’t work. Maybe it would, if we had had more time and Pyry would have been even more sensitive and kind of totally break in pieces in this scene. But I have seen the scene in edit and I think it will be hilarious this way.

Considering the tight schedule it’s amazing how everything went so fine. I think Nestori did his best and managed well. We had some luck finding such a great casting fast and been able to practice every scene at least once.  There were some hard moments, but I can’t remember being stuck with any of the actors.  They asked good questions about the characters and their relationships. It felt comfortable working with them and they all understood very well what I was looking for. I learned a lot working with five different actors, with very different methods.  I was able to trust all of them to create the characters their own way.