E211 - The Art of Performance with Brian Gilbert - Part 1

The Directors’ Take Podcast

This is Episode 11 in the second season of The Directors Take Podcast.

In this week’s episode your hosts Marcus Anthony Thomas and Oz Arshad are joined by Brian Gilbert, a BAFTA and Oscar Nominated Director and one of the lead tutors at the National Film and Television School, who specialises in the art of performance and working with actors.

Your ability to draw performances from actors is at the heart of the directors’ job, so we brought on an absolute expert in Brian Gilbert to break that all down for you all.

PART 1 covers…

-How did he get into filmmaking as a practice?

-How did he get his first break as a working director?

-How does he work with high profile actors?

-How should you communicate with actors?

-How can you change the energy of a performance?

Our wonderful sponsor for this episode is The National Film and Television School.

Biography

Brian Gilbert started out his career as a child actor, appearing several times on Australian television before earning a scholarship to read English Literature at Oxford University, where he began directing plays. After this he travelled for a while as an actor, before being accepted into the National Film and Television School where his graduation film, THE DEVOTEE won several awards and got him industry attention. From here he went on to make several feature films such as Sharma and Beyond, The Frog Prince, Vice Versa, Not without my Daughter, Tom and Viv which starred Willem Dafoe and Miranda Richardson and picked up two Oscar and two BAFTA nominations before making WILDE. A Biopic on Oscar Wilde starring Stephen Fry and Jude Law amongst others.

In 2004 he began working at the National Film and Television School and became a key figure there as it went on to establish itself as one of the top 15 film schools in the world as said by The Hollywood Reporter. As a lead tutor he has overseen the development of some of the UKs most exciting filmmaking talent such as Nick Rowland, Mahalia Belo and Rose Glass, and he specialises in the art of performance on screen.

Credits

Music by Oliver Wegmüller

Socials

The Directors' Take: Twitter (X) & Instagram

Marcus: Twitter (X) & Instagram

Oz: Twitter (X) & Instagram

If you have any questions relating to the episode or have topics you would like covering in future releases, reach out to us at [e-mail]