The world of the stage and screen was never far away for Michelle Danner. “I grew up in Europe,” Michelle Danner told TVBrittanyF.com during a spotlight interview. Danner explained that after “My father opened the very first William Morris Agency in Paris,” she could recall playing under his desk as a little girl, sitting in on a lot of his meetings. “A lot of big stars would come in and discuss their dreams.” In the years since, Danner has thrown herself into making sure that her dreams come true.
An experienced actor, acting coach, and director, Michelle Danner spoke with TVBrittany about how her drive to tell stories comes from this period of her life, and how it’s impacted her approach to teaching, directing, and life. “I went to the library a lot. Books, books, books, lots of books. I read a lot. I went to the theater, I went to the movies. That was my upbringing. It was very rich in terms of the arts. I think that was what catapulted me into wanting to be a storyteller.”
Danner shifted into directing 20 years ago, revealing that this creative shift came from “a desire to really sign the work. I realized, after being on a few sets, that when they said, ‘It’s a wrap,’ I could go home and have post-partum depression, you know, as opposed to theater. The director usually tells the actors opening night, ‘Take it, the show is yours.’”
An experienced actress and host of weekly acting classes, Michelle says that working with actors on set is very different from teaching. “You know you want to give notes to an actor. You can’t do it in the way you would in an acting class. It’s a completely different process.” She does believe her skills as a teacher do help her on set, as her extensive experience with different technique “helps me to say the right thing.” Danner is currently traveling the festival circuit with a new film, The Italians. The family-centric romantic comedy focuses on a traditional Italian-American family meeting their son’s new non-Italian girlfriend played by Abigail Breslin.
Danner’s seen recent directorial success with a range of films. Prominent among them is Miranda’s Victim (2023), a dramatization of the landmark trial following Ernesto Miranda’s victim, Patricia Weir (Abigail Breslin). “I’m proud of that movie. It’s about a story that had never been told, about how the Miranda Rights came about. It hadn’t been told in a documentary or TV show.” It especially stood out to Danner because it had been a plot point in a previous film she appeared in, The Runner. “In the very first scene, ‘You have the right to remain silent.’ I never questioned, where did that come from? How did that come about?”
Michelle is herself an accomplished actress, having studied under legends like Stella Adler and Uta Hagen. This has fed into her special relationship with actors. In her teaching, Michelle employs an eclectic pedagogy, which she calls “The Golden Box.” The approach encourages actors to freely employ a wide variety of techniques. Danner shares these ideas with students from across Hollywood, teaching from the Los Angeles Acting Conservatory and Edgemar Center for the Arts.
Danner’s professional coaching work extends over more than a decade. She has worked privately with Christian Slater, Salma Hayek, Gerard Butler, Seth MacFarlane, Penelope Cruz, Chris Rock, Gabrielle Union, Zooey Deschanel, Henry Cavill, Isla Fisher, and James Franco. “I think what the actors that I love have in common is that they have passion. They’re just passionate, and they’re wonderfully sensitive, vulnerable beings. I think that is the gold you need to be creative.”
When asked what success means to her, Michelle doesn’t sweat reviews — even when they’re overwhelmingly positive, as they’ve been with The Italians. “Whether it’s critically successful or not, I don’t really care so much about that.” She explained that “I care how a movie is released. I care about the marketing of it. As I move forward, I really want to nurture how a movie comes out. There’s so much content nowadays that you have to be smart about a strategy of when a movie should come out and how it should come out, and what kind of marketing it should have.“
“So I do care about that, I care that people see it.” When asked about the state of the industry, Michelle has a blunt view on the future of film. “There should be, across the board, more incentives for independent filmmakers. I think that as we’re pointing to the future of movie making, of television shows, it’s clear that the studios are the ones with the bandwidth, the manpower to get it done.
“In Los Angeles, if you’re making a smaller movie between 2-5 million, you can’t get a tax incentive. I feel like something needs to change in terms of that. It should not just be the big studios… There’s a lot of wonderful little kernels of gold, independent projects that deserve a chance.” This coming September, Michelle will be celebrating independent film with the 9th annual Cinema at the Edge Festival. Founded by Danner in 2015, the festival showcases films of any genre for their vision, voice, and as a challenge to the expectations of the medium.
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