Editing Alfred Hitchcock (section)

===Relationship with actors===
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 |quote = I told her that my idea of a good actor or good actress is someone who can do nothing very well.&nbsp;... I said, "That's one of the things you've got to learn to have&nbsp;... authority." Out of authority comes control and out of control you get the range&nbsp;... Whether you do little acting, a lot of acting in a given scene. You know exactly where you're going. And these were the first things that she had to know. Emotion comes later and the control of the voice comes later. But, within herself, she had to learn authority first and foremost because out of authority comes timing.
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Hitchcock became known for having remarked that "actors should be treated like cattle".{{sfn|Truffaut|1983|p=140}}{{efn|Hitchcock told Fallaci in 1963: "When they [actors] aren't cows, they're children: that's something else I've often said. And everyone knows that there are good children, bad children, and stupid children. The majority of actors, though, are stupid children. They're always quarreling, and they give themselves a lot of airs. The less I see of them, the happier I am. I had much less trouble directing fifteen hundred crows than one single actor. I've always said that Walt Disney has the right idea. His actors are made of paper; when he doesn't like them, he can tear them up."{{sfn|Fallaci|1963}}}} During the filming of ''[[Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941 film)|Mr. & Mrs. Smith]]'' (1941), [[Carole Lombard]] brought three cows onto the set wearing the name tags of Lombard, [[Robert Montgomery (actor)|Robert Montgomery]], and [[Gene Raymond]], the stars of the film, to surprise him.{{sfn|Truffaut|1983|p=140}} In an episode of ''[[The Dick Cavett Show]]'', originally broadcast on 8 June 1972,  [[Dick Cavett]] stated as fact that Hitchcock had once called actors cattle. Hitchcock responded by saying that, at one time, he had been accused of calling actors cattle. "I said that I would never say such an unfeeling, rude thing about actors at all. What I probably said, was that all actors should be treated like cattle...In a nice way of course." He then described Carole Lombard's joke, with a smile.<ref>{{cite web|title=Alfred Hitchcock Talks About His Relationship With Actors {{pipe}} The Dick Cavett Show|website=[[YouTube]] |date=11 May 2019 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuD1yloq5pY|access-date=11 February 2023}}</ref>

Hitchcock believed that actors should concentrate on their performances and leave work on script and character to the directors and screenwriters. He told [[Bryan Forbes]] in 1967: "I remember discussing with a method actor how he was taught and so forth. He said, 'We're taught using improvisation. We are given an idea and then we are turned loose to develop in any way we want to.' I said, 'That's not acting. That's writing.'"<ref name=HitchcockForbes>{{cite web |title=Alfred Hitchcock |publisher=British Film Institute |url=http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/interviews/hitchcock.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080210051052/http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/interviews/hitchcock.html#actors |archive-date=10 February 2008}}</ref>

Recalling their experiences on ''Lifeboat'' for Charles Chandler, author of ''It's Only a Movie: Alfred Hitchcock A Personal Biography,'' [[Walter Slezak]] said that Hitchcock "knew more about how to help an actor than any director I ever worked with", and [[Hume Cronyn]] dismissed the idea that Hitchcock was not concerned with his actors as "utterly fallacious", describing at length the process of rehearsing and filming ''Lifeboat''.<ref>{{cite book |title=It's Only a Movie: Alfred Hitchcock A Personal Biography |publisher=Simon and Schuster |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oKRhkdxsFs8C&pg=PT133 |isbn=978-1-84739-709-6 |year= 2008 |access-date=14 December 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191222214437/https://books.google.com/books?id=oKRhkdxsFs8C&pg=PT133 |archive-date=22 December 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Critics observed that, despite his reputation as a man who disliked actors, actors who worked with him often gave brilliant performances. He used the same actors in many of his films; Cary Grant and James Stewart both worked with Hitchcock four times,<ref>{{harvnb|White|2011|p=184}}</ref> and Ingrid Bergman and Grace Kelly three. [[James Mason]] said that Hitchcock regarded actors as "animated props".<ref>{{harvnb|Whitty|2016|p=263}}</ref> For Hitchcock, the actors were part of the film's setting. He told François Truffaut: "The chief requisite for an actor is the ability to do nothing well, which is by no means as easy as it sounds. He should be willing to be used and wholly integrated into the picture by the director and the camera. He must allow the camera to determine the proper emphasis and the most effective dramatic highlights."<ref>{{harvnb|Truffaut|1983|p=111}}</ref>