Film directors can be friendly or bossy, even insensitive and outright cruel. But how far can they go to beat their desired performance out of an actor working with them? It’s a question of directorial ethics and the dignity of the cast.
Last month, a fairly popular X account posted a behind-the-scenes story about legendary Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman’s work on the production of his classic drama Winter Light (1963). The movie’s protagonist Tomas Ericsson, a rural church pastor, is a dolorous character, played by Gunnar Björnstrand. The production story goes that Bergman felt Björnstrand to be too happy-looking for the role; so he got his doctor friend to make a false diagnosis of the lead actor with some serious disease. The sad news made Björnstrand really depressed and even put on medication. The result – Bergman got the expressions he needed from Björnstrand.
On this day, 63 years ago, one of the greatest films of all time & my favourite Ingmar Bergman movie, “Winter Light” (1963) was released in Sweden.
Here is a sad but interesting trivia about the making of the movie:
Ingmar Bergman felt Gunnar Björnstrand was too happy to play… pic.twitter.com/ubwSrxNCTf
— DepressedBergman (@DannyDrinksWine) February 11, 2026
Winter Light became a timeless classic with incredible emotional depth of character played on the big screen that made Björnstrand a legendary movie star. But was it ethical for Bergman to subject his actor to emotional pain to stoke his acting talent for a brilliant performance? The short and simple answer would be NO! (yes, an emphatic one with an exclamation mark). For any professional achievement, it would be immoral to knowingly put someone in harm’s way. Directors shouldn’t do it as much as actors shouldn’t allow it. Period!
Now there are shades of grey surrounding this matter – as there usually are in most/all matters. Many cases of directors overstepping the boundaries of their professional role in a production are known. The case of legendary British director Alfred Hitchcock is the most well-known and talked about in this connection. He was widely known to be cruel to his cast members, particularly to the women working in his movies. Hitchcock’s hatred of women in general made news and that puts his treatment of his female stars in context. His motive was not just to elicit the desired performance from the women but he actually wanted to hurt them because he hated women and wanted to dominate them.
Hitchcock’s motives were thus quite different from Bergman in that the latter subjected his actor to emotional pain out of “good” intentions without meaning to victimize him while the former actually hurt his actors because of an impulse to inflict pain. So hell of a difference here! Yet the question mark over the directorial ethics in Bergman’s story isn’t erased by an appeal to good intentions. The harm done to the actor – a man who was supposed to follow directions but only as far as it was fair – knowingly and willingly. Worse, it was done deceitfully in an act of betrayal of trust and violation of professional conduct, not only by Bergman but also by the doctor who played along. No medical professional should knowingly endanger their patients by giving false news of some horrible disease.
But how do directors get away with this kind of manipulation regardless of their actual motives? It happens that “regardless” doesn’t really work in such a line. The acting profession shares the same goal (or at least the most important one) as the director’s, namely success on the screen. Out of their career and/or artistic ambitions, actors can let directors go to great lengths to achieve their goals. They suck it up because they are happy with the end; letting the end justify the means after all.
Again we keep bumping into the same question: if the actor is fine with the director’s shenanigans and forgives his wrongdoer, especially one with good intentions, is it fine for the director to engage in victimization of his performers? My answer is still NO! (with the same caps and exclamation mark). Unethical conduct is unethical conduct and the real art of an actor rests in his/her ability to induce the desired state on his/her own talent and not by some off-screen personal-life circumstance whether that circumstance is concocted by the director (or anyone else on the team) or happened organically. An actor playing sad on camera while suffering from sadness in real life is not acting but just being filmed in the same state. The real acting talent shows when an actor otherwise feeling fine induces a state of sadness when it is required for a scene.
