r/directors

i made the grave mistake of meeting with an actor and offering them a role without seeing their previous work. i was told by multiple peers that he was very good and had a great work ethic.

i asked him if he could send me a video of him reading a scene from the script and what he sent was fine, but missed the mark on the emotion that the scene needs. it felt off to see because he’s a very convincing facial actor, but his tone never changed and i don’t think its something that direction can fix. it looks like he’s trying to maintain an image to the scene instead of fully giving to it.

am i a terrible person and director for taking a role from him? i genuinely feel terrible for it, but he just does not fit what i’m looking for and what i thought he was gonna give me?

I'm working on a 0-budget webseries with a decently small team. However, there are a few issues. They aren't responding to my messages, completing work on time/meeting deadlines or answering in polls. I can't afford to kick out anyone and I can't give them money. And we need to make a specific date, we also have an audience waiting, so we can't exactly delay too much. Are there any other ways to motivate them to push the production forward? Any tips?