Legendary actor Robert Duvall has condemned “the great Stanley Kubrick” as an “actors enemy”. The fiery exclamation came during a round table interview with THR after it was revealed that director David Fincher frequently took around fifty takes to get the perfect shot whilst filming The Social Network. Fellow interviewees Mark Ruffalo and Jesse Eisenberg laugh (perhaps with disdain?) as Duvall compares Fincher to Kubrick. No doubt a comparison like that would normally be considered flattering, but Duvall continued, dismissing the performances in such classics as The Shining and A Clockwork Orange as “the worst performances I’ve ever seen in movies”. Hit the jump for more.

As some consolation, Duvall does admit that both films “maybe were great movies”, but questions the value of multiple takes during shooting, saying, “Why would anybody do that?…I don’t quite get that.” He brands the resulting performances as “terrible”. For the record, both movies received massive acclaim and currently sit at spots #49 and #52 respectively on IMDb’s top 250 films of all time.

It seems Duvall was getting a kick out of being provocative during the round table, and he definitely appears to wind up Eisenberg as the star describes himself as very “self critical” and Duvall nonchalantly interrupts “why?”

Earlier in the interview, Duvall shows that he may be a little out of touch with modern cinema after asking, “Who’s the director?” [of The Social Network] and questioning his directorial prowess, “How does he know the difference between the first take and the seventieth take?” I wonder whether Fincher would be prepared to give any feedback?

To watch the full video, which I highly recommend, click here. Other actors on the panel are Colin Firth, James Franco, and Ryan Gosling.