It is dangerous to have actors so obsessed with competition because they will find themselves afraid to take risks with their performances.

Give them permission to take chances. This is the trick:

Give every actor on your set an Academy Award before you even begin filming. What is the point of receiving an award far after the fact aside from vanity? 

Actors live in an atmosphere of backbiting, subservience and status seeking on a day to day and are then asked to give great performances on command. When a director gives them an Oscar ahead of time he supports them to achieve the ultimate dream, gives them a possibility to live into instead of live up to.

The “Automatic Oscar” aligns the director with each actor and makes striving for it a game to play and a goal to achieve, brings them together under a common purpose. 

When you work with actors of varying experience level, some who actually have won big awards or command big salaries and some who are complete novices working for scale you automatically judge them against certain standards set by the industry, unfair standards that pull the wind from their sails.

But when you give everyone an Automatic Oscar those standards fall away and you treat each actor equal.

Plus, the actor on the set who is “Oscar-winning” is the one the director will truly listen to, seek advise from. So make that every actor. You’ll be surprised what you learn.

And give yourself the Academy Award for Best Director before you begin shooting. This isn’t about boosting self-esteem it’s about lifting the success/failure quotient from your thoughts and allowing you to go for broke, take chances and learn something about yourself.