Actors/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

** I get what you're saying, and this is a true sore point for me w/Pacino, but [[Meet the Parents]] was pretty darned good and [[Insomnia]] wasn't too half bad.

** Man, I know what you mean. I see Leslie Nielson in Seltzerberger movies and I throw up a little bit. Not quite on the same tier as your other examples, but still...damn.

** Two words: [[Ham and Cheese]].

* Why is it people seem to think Actors don't do any "real" work. That acting is something that A) is something that anybody can do and B) requires less effort than most other jobs. These stereotypes are a load of rubbish and need to be dispensed with. Actors who are worth their salt spend endless hours studying techniques and doing research for roles, devote time to character study and the necessary memorisation of lines (for shows with lines). Not to mention the fact that work days for an actor can be incredibly long and tiring, for certain roles on TV or film you may be needed on set pretty much all day, early morning (7am or earlier) to late evening (whenever), if you're in a complex costume or makeup then even longer (some makeup or prosthetics for more SF shows can take upwards of 4/5 hours to apply and slightly less to remove). And on stage you may be expected to give the same performance with the same level of energy, twice a day for a period of months on end! It's seriously hard work and deserves more respect than it gets.

** Film is a hugely collaborative medium, far more so than any (only opera comes close), so it's foolhardy to elect any one participant as the "most important factor." This is even true of the director, whom the studios often treat as a wholly substitutable functionary of the process of filmmaking. There is this need on the part of many people to exalt the director into a figure of absolute authorship, but this is based on a false analogy with literature (and even literary authors are less "authors" than people generally think, as any editor can tell you) and ignores much about how filmmaking actually works (barring, perhaps, certain traditions of amateur and avant-garde filmmaking).

** Let me suggest, too, that you are confusing "actors" and "stars." Nobody thinks actors are that important, but -- within Hollywood and other mainstream cinemas worldwide -- the star is indeed extremely important much of the time. Stars are known quantities with built-in box office appeal. For a slightly offbeat project, the presence of a star is often the only thing that will convince a studio to finance it. Attach a star and a screenplay must be tailored to his or her screen image (to a way of thinking, this fact does indeed cement the star as the single most important element of the system). Let's face it: it's the stars' world. We're merely living in it.

** Although such vitriol against the specific actor you speak of is irrational and intolerable, MOST actors have very short-lived, shallow, or even STAGED relationships lasting three years at the most and a few months on average. Such relationships truly bother the fans of the actors involved. It's as though the true purpose of marriage--the sacred union of two people's lives--is worthless in the eyes of the actors involved. Yes, divorce happens in real life. Yes, a lot of the time it's a good idea. But if you've been married seven times in four years, half of them to the same person, then you obviously do not view marriage with the sobriety you ought to. And that PISSES PEOPLE OFF.

*** But why is it anybody's business what they do with their lives? I can understand if it was their friend talking to them, but most of these people don't even personally know these actors.

 

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