Directing actors in a realist film by Lukas Agelastos I am intrigued by watching “slice of life” dramas, as this naturalism makes me identify with the protagonists. Like Ken Loach and Mike Leigh, in my films, I want to give ordinary people depth to unfold their stories. For example, Loach’s marginalised but jovial characters resonate with the people I met in Scotland as a student in my teens and twenties, and Leigh’s three-dimensional personalities make me think about the way we deal with each other. Leigh wants the viewer to come away from a film “reflecting on the way we live from various points of view” (Leigh in MacGregor 2011). But as a film director interested in doing Social Realism films, how do you direct actors? This was a question that I constantly worried about when I was moving from documentary to fiction film. This article deals with the research I did prior to embarking on my own journey into directing actors while studying towards the MA Film at Raindance ....