Lumet – director who could draw the best out of his actors

Connery has never been shy of expressing his opinions and without hesitation he said: “Sidney Lumet”. And Connery wasn’t alone in his appreciation of a filmmaker who knew how to get the most out of his performers.

It’s a cliché today but Lumet, who died last weekend aged 86, really was that rare creature: an actor’s director. A former thespian himself – his parents were distinguished players in the Yiddish Theatre – he once remarked: “I was an actor, therefore I know where it hurts”.

And he did. Crucially he delved deep into his actors’ souls to draw from them some of the best performances of their careers.

In Connery’s case he burst out of the straitjacket of 007 to deliver what many – me included – believe to be his very best performance: as the ex-RSM serving time in a brutal army prison camp in The Hill.

In that conversation long ago Connery praised Lumet for his foresight in seeing beyond the star. He stopped short of describing the cultured Lumet – his elder by six years – as a mentor, but he had a great deal of time for a man who had offered him an escape route out of typecasting.

Connery, in danger of being seen only as the suave secret agent, desperately needed someone like Lumet to take a chance on him.

Over more than a quarter of a century they made five films together, including another hard-hitting drama, The Offence, in which Connery excels as a policeman who kills a paedophile.

Of course, few of these films made any real money, but to actors like Connery – and Rod Steiger in The Pawnbroker and Peter Finch in Network – they represented opportunities that studio pictures denied them.

Lumet’s gift was his vast experience of live television in the 1950s and his appreciation of combining theatrical intensity with cinematic scale. Thus 12 Angry Men is a powerhouse of emotion confined almost entirely to one small set.

Henry Fonda came out of that one with kudos, but Lumet did it for his stars over and over again.

A lot of stars gravitated to Lumet because of his skill for turning stage intimacy into credible on-screen energy.

Many had roots in the Method, or the Neighborhood Playhouse or, like Richard Burton, the Old Vic. Paul Newman spotted the potential of The Verdict and bagged an Oscar nomination. Ditto Burton for Equus. And Steiger for The Pawnbroker.

Then there was the double-whammy of Al Pacino in 1973’s Serpico and, two years later, Dog Day Afternoon. Lumet was like a conveyor belt of quality; they just kept coming.

He directed his repertory of stars to 19 Oscar nominations. He himself never won – he accepted an honorary Academy Award in 2005 – but the films he made are a testament to the durability of his talent.