10 More Actors Who Made Sure They Weren't Seen In Movies

Now for the curious case of Donald Sutherland and pretty much every movie he's ever made - but not quite how you might think.

In a 2020 interview with Collider, Gillian Anderson said that Donald Sutherland confessed to her that he has a most peculiar - yet quite ingenious - stipulation built into his movie contracts.

The stipulation dictates that the scenes he shoots in the first two weeks of production are only ever from the middle of the script.

Sutherland rationalised that the early days of a film shoot are when an actor finds their character, and so it's better to have these scenes be the less-impactful ones in the middle of the film.

As such, by the time he shoots his scenes from the beginning and end of the movie, he's truly found the character and is able to make a stronger opening and closing impression.

In Anderson's words:

"He said, 'Because if the audience believes you for the first period of time, you can not necessarily be all there in the middle and they'll buy it because you've gained their trust in the first third of the film."

Sutherland basically ensures the integrity of his performance is protected. By having the more awkward feeling-out period of discovering his character happening in the middle of the movie, we're all far less likely to notice any growing pains or actorly machinations from him at all.

Considering that he's been an S-tier talent for over 50 years, it's tough to fault his method.