Malcolm McDowell Grilled on the 40-Year Anniversary of 'A Clockwork Orange' | The Wrap Movies:
"Based on the materials on the disc, it’s easy to assume he wasn’t an actor’s director, he wouldn’t talk about character.

No, he wouldn't at all but that doesn’t mean to say that he’s not an actor’s director because it just means to say that he didn't really know."

So many myths about Kubrick but this one really irritates: that he was rigid, dictatorial, un-collaborative, had a fixed idea in his mind of what he wanted before he shot the film. Perhaps once he got a specific idea he was adamant that it was the best way to get the shot, but in all his films he was very open to serendipity on the set.