Need to get a great performance from people who are not professional actors?
You're not alone. This is one of the huge challenges for many DIY and indie filmmakers, especially when we have younger roles in our scripts.
I was lucky enough to see The French Kissers (Les beaux gosses) recently at the French Cinema Now festival in San Francisco. The film has been an indie hit in France, telling the timeless story of two self-involved teenage dorks obsessed with girls.
Director Raid Sattouf was at the screening and during the Q&A afterwards, revealed that none of the kids in the film were professional actors. He had specifically asked the casting director to find non-actors that looked right, to avoid the ambition and scrubbed look of most young actors. In his own words, he wasn't interested in making High School Musical 3.
Curious to know more about his process, I raised my hand and asked how he got such great performances from these kids. He said that this was a real problem; at first, the young actors were extremely stiff.
His solution was brilliant.
For rehearsals, he brought the kids together with the professional cast as well as main film crew (himself, the dp, the sound mixer, etc.). Together they all pretended they were monkeys and eventually even acted scenes as monkeys with monkey-talk ("ooo-oo-oo ah ah"). This helped them get more free and more physical -- and by including the crew, created all-important trust and safety.
On location, he said they often would "do the monkeys" before a scene or if a scene wasn't working right.
The proof is self-evident: the performances in the film are fantastic and natural. The monkeys did the trick.
Interestingly enough, only one of the professional actors (a big name in France) refused to do the monkeys, and Sattouf confessed unequivocally that the actor's performance was the worst of the film.
So, if you're working with non-actors (especially if they are kids), bring out the monkeys. And avoid any professional actor unwilling go ape.