“Mickey 17” director Bong Joon Ho is an obsessive storyboarder. He puts a tremendous amount of time and energy into making the film in his head before stepping on set, mapping out the precise compositions, movement, and edits — which, according to him, remain 99-percent intact in the final version of his films. But while a guest on the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast, director Bong explained that his attitude toward the actors’ work inside those shots is completely different.
“In terms of directing actors’ performances, I feel like if you’re Clint Eastwood, or if you were a great actor before directing, then you can do it,” said Bong on the podcast via translator Sharon Choi. “But I feel like acting is totally an actor’s realm, the director can provide inspiration and set the general direction of performances.”
The director explained that having a detailed visual plan ahead of time relaxes him, freeing him up on set for discovery of the characters with the actors. For Bong, this approach is vital for his films, as that human element grounds movies that effortlessly shift among satire, pathos, action, and genre.
“I don’t think it’s good to control [actors] like marionette puppets,” said Bong. “I want to make sure that the performances don’t feel controlled when you’re watching it on screen. I want it to feel alive and raw and very real. And, sometimes that comes into conflict with how meticulously and precisely planned my shots and designs are.”
Because Bong knows where he is going to cut, he doesn’t shoot traditional overlapping coverage where actors perform their lines and action across different types of shots. For actors working with the director for the first time it’s a big change to only perform one or two lines at a time — entering in the middle of a scene or moment — before moving on to the next shot. The director’s visual plan also calls for precise movement, physicality, and speed in the performance. In the “Mickey 17” press notes, actor Steven Yeun explained how the perceived contradictions is something actors can eventually find freedom in.
Said Yeun, “When you’re dropped into a moment, a specific frame, he’s looking for a type of visual that your body language shows, or a kind of energy or vibe. Sometimes it can be a challenge, because you want to free-flow and see what happens. But there’s also something so freeing about a very precise performance, like, ‘Hit this mark. Be here in this part of the frame.’ He’s not directing you, saying ‘I need this specific performance.’ I think for him, it’s like ‘Here are the parameters. Here’s your parameter and you’re free within those boundaries.’ I think it’s actually more liberating, because now I don’t have to think about a bunch of other stuff.”
It does take some adjusting though to get to this point, and director Bong warns actors at the beginning of their first film with him that it may initially be a shock to how they are used to working. While on the podcast, Bong shared a story from the “Parasite” set — and the moment he realized he would need to make adjustment of how he worked with actors — when he overheard a conversation between Cho Yeo Jeong, who played the wealthy housewife, and the film’s lead Song Kang Ho.
The actress, in her first few days working with the director, confided in the actor, a four-time collaborator with Bong, that she was overwhelmed. The director recalled overhearing her say, “‘He’s asking you to be there and take a step there and all the fancy camera movements, man. He has no idea how tough it is. Like you just memorizing the lines,’” to which the actor assured her, “‘It takes time, you’ll get used to it by the end of next week. It’ll be fine. You’ll be okay.’“
Reflecting on the conversation, Bong said there was a lesson he took away this, “I didn’t think I was saying things [that were] too complicated, but you know, [working] with actors, you can’t make all these requests to them all at once. You have to be very concise with what you tell them. When you go for a next take, there might be like seven things you wanna say, but you should choose like two or three. And even just getting those two or three would be a win.”
The director then made the connection to his next film, his first animated feature, which he is in the middle of working on right now (with a pause required for “Mickey 17” press), and how much he missed what actors bring to the table, and how difficult it is to try to control a performance when they are absent.
Said Bong of his biggest frustration making the jump to animation, in which he clearly misses his beloved actors, “Now I’m working on an animation [film], where you actually do have to control each character as if they’re puppets. And then so, because you have the opportunity to, and they’re not just living breathing creatures, I end up going into like how their joints should be moving. So it becomes too much of an obsession almost.”
To hear Bong Joon Ho’s full interview, subscribe to the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform. You can also watch the full interview on IndieWire’s YouTube page.
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