Posted on 05/04/2025 1:03:40 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
There are many ways an actor can surprise. Jack Nicholson surprises by being … surprising. Even though he’s not a chameleon like Oldman or Depp, you never know what he’s going to do next. But whatever he does, it’s grounded in psychological reality. It never seems fake. Christopher Walken, Glenn Close, Al Pacino, and many others have a surprising danger in them… you feel they might jump you or blow up at you at any time. They are ticking time bombs. And, many comedic actors (e.g., Julia Louis-Dreyfus) surprise us in all sorts of quirky, zany ways…
Some people think acting is good if they like the movie. Keanu Reeves, in my mind, is a horrible actor—it often seems as if he’s reading from cue cards rather than saying words that are his. There is a difference between playing an undemonstrative person and being a wooden actor. In fact, playing someone who is reserved is very difficult…But some people like Reeves because they think the Matrix films are cool.
Lots of people think an actor is great if they like his or her character…Or they think she’s good if she pulls off some impressive effect, such as gaining or losing a lot of weight or pretending to be handicapped… If you forced me to rank Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man versus Dustin Hoffman in Kramer vs. Kramer, I’d say he did more exciting work in the latter. In Rain Man he was able to hide behind some stunts. In Kramer vs. Kramer, he just had to be truthful.
Tom Cruise… rarely surprises me, and he doesn’t seem to dig deep into a anything raw or vulnerable inside him. He seems guarded. The must vulnerable I’ve seen him is in Eyes Wide Shut…but it’s not the norm.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
Pitt has really grown.
Maybe Dennis Farina’s best role as Cousin Avi…..
Maybe the last TV series with a large slate of good actors was Breaking bad.
Brad Pitt is surprisingly good.I remember when he started out there seemed to be the idea that he was just a “pretty boy” and there was no need for him to act. But he now has an impressive body of work. Good movie choices, varied roles, solid contributions.
As much as I don’t like him, Leo DiCaprio has really grown as an actor as well.
Off a FR thread:
“[I am] fed up to here with the whole Bond bit,” Sean Connery once told The Guardian, also adding, “I have always hated that James Bond. I’d like to kill him.” Fellow actor Michael Caine even cautioned others about bringing up the character in Connery’s presence. “If you were his friend in these early days, you didn’t raise the subject of Bond. He was, and is, a much better actor than just playing James Bond, but he became synonymous with Bond. He’d be walking down the street, and people would say, ‘Look, there’s James Bond’. That was particularly upsetting to him.”
I don’t know? I just know there’s actors as characters in movies or television shows that are very believable and you actually get caught up in their stories. Don’t knock me, Costner and Jones in Field of Dreams was one example😄
I read Ian Fleming’s Bond books and he was the exact picture that I imagined from reading...He may not have liked it, but he was damned great at it...
He was also a great Russian submarine commander...
I was reading David Mamet’s book recounting his adventures in Hollywood and he recounted how Gene Hackman would be loitering around the setup, talking with crew and various people and the ‘Action’ call came and he would seamlessly transition into acting without a hitch.
In real life DiCaprio is a hypocritical environmental nutjob but there’s no denying his acting talent.
Actors I’ve worked with:
Bruce Willis - method actor, he’s always “John Mclane”
Raymond Burr - phoned it in and struggled when he was older.
Tom Bosley - no range, grumpy.
Dick Van Dyke - good at turning dialogue into his own.
Kiefer Sutherland - “let me do a line of blow, first” (at least in his younger years)
Richard Herd - one take wonder, photographic memory.
Steve Railsback - super intense, a far cry from his nice, humble persons.
Scott Baio - “Hey, Kiefer, pass me some of that blow... Let’s get this done, I have chicks to hit on!” (I know. He’s grown out of it.
Dennis Franz - short range, great at dialects, great guy.
Wes Studi - short range, needs a good director, nice guy.
Dennis Hopper - method actor, great focus, top pro.
When you are watching George Scott playing Gen Patton and your mind says...”that’s Patton.”
When you watch De Niro doing a lousy job in Godfather and your mind says...Robert De Niro
THAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GOOD AND ROTTEN ACTING.
IMHO
So I’m watching The Mummy, the new one. Tom Cruise is flying thru the air, special effects out the kazoo.. Acting, meh.
Then, out of nowhere, Russell Crowe changes from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde and the whole screen lit up, electrically! The best acting in the movie! I swear, a spin-off franchise could have been created from that scene alone!
Agree with you! That guy is the #1 most overrated actor, ever!
No way I could do that
“break the 4th wall” — I totally forgot about that saying! Says it all.
Hepburn imho could never act. The parts were built around her limited range.
Brando ONLY "played to type", which isn't really all that much of a stretch, re acting. From the black leather jacket leader of a motorcycle gang, to his role in ON THE WATERFRONT, to a brutal, nasty man screaming at his wife in "A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE", to a Mafia "DON" are all roles more or less in the same genre.
Brando as Napoleon,Mark Anthony,a Japanese conman of sorts? All utter disasters!
Now compare him to someone like Sir Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Robert Montgomery, William Powell, or even Clark Gable....NO COMPARISON; all of those actors could and DID play many different roles and were believable in every single one of them!
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