So Why Act?

Leslie Howard was one of the few actors in Hollywood during the "studio system" to refuse long-term contracts. He had a specific idea of the types of pictures he wanted to make and he didn't want to be forced to do films he thought were beneath the audience. Howard took on the roles that other actors refused--roles they said the audience wouldn't understand. But Howard thought the audience was smarter than previously believed and that they wanted something different.

Howard wanted to direct. He wanted to make pictures that challenged the audience. He had written, produced and directed plays in school and on the stage in London and New York. He thought that to be a successful movie director "one should either write the story or collaborate on it." He didn't see his acting performances as accomplishments at all. But the plotting of pictures "according to scenic effects and camera angles" and seeing this through to production, that was an accomplishment. Acting was just a means to an end.

[Leslie Howard directing Spitfire, aka
The First of the Few, 1942]

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