What?

Daniel Kaluuya told an excellent story in an interview with Rick Rubin. It was from his time acting opposite Josh Brolin in Sicario. I have not seen the film at the time of writing. 

The story he told was about attention. It reframed the ‘people are just waiting for their turn to speak’ idea. Daniel Kaluuya is from Brixton. He mentions this when stating that in the scene, the American accent he was using came out a little strange. He fumbled his line delivery Josh Brolin said:

“What?”

He says it was a moment that fundamentally changed his life as an actor. It took me (and Rick Rubin I think) to get the point of the story, but it is as simple as it sounds. Josh Brolin knew his lines. He knew the script. He didn’t need to hear Daniel’s line before delivering his own. But he really was listening. He was paying massive attention.

I love stories like this. I don’t think of myself as a good listener. Some of the team I work with are the same, they ask questions that cut right to the core of the problem we are contending with. It is not random. It is the result of massive attention and deep listening. “What?” – it is an excellent question.