It's a simple, perhaps unexpected, way to coax a different kind of a performance from an actor. "I have an answer in my back pocket [as a director], but it's probably not going to be as connected to you as the one you [the actor] have right here. So tell me what you think."

Baker said that that sort of question requires a lot of trust: trust from the director in his or her actors, and for an actor to trust themselves to come up with a character-appropriate response. It also takes humility on the director's part, knowing they won't always have the best ideas on-set.

"For me it's asking questions, being open to the answer and not just trying to lead people to your answer," Baker said.

But that gets tricky when you're playing a principal role both onscreen and behind the camera. Baker admitted he needed a lot of direction with the Talion we're seeing in Shadow of War. He couldn't quite call Druckmann for help on that, so Baker relied on writer Tony Elias to keep him on task and his performance true to the script. That was in addition to regular consultations with Ethan Walker and Nate Hendrickson, from Monolith's cutscene team, watching a take after take from a monitor right after yelling, "Cut!"

"The hard part was not viewing my performance [as an actor], but as a director, just seeing Talion," Baker recalled. "It's super easy to nitpick and say, 'I want myself to do something differently or better' as opposed to a director being objective and going, 'No, it works. Get over yourself. It's not about you, it's about this scene.'"