How Do You Differentiate Good Acting From Bad Acting?

Slate ^ | 2014 | Marcus Geduld

[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.

[mfish13]

I think that was Harry Carey Jr.

[Inyo-Mono]

transformational actors, who fully disappear into their characters...

Like Val Kilmer as Doc Holiday in Tombstone.

[ClearCase_guy]

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.

[Beowulf9]

And his was later replaced by another actor:

[equaviator]

There is some bad acting in The Godfather. Not by John Cazale or Al Pacino or Robert Duval, or Diane Keaton, Richard Conte’ and Brando...Michael’s bodyguards in Sicily, Don Tomasino, Appolonia, Abe Vigoda, Al Letieri, Richard Castellano, Sterling Hayden...But some of the scenes involving Connie Corleone, her husband Carlo and James Caan are a little cringeworthy...In Godfather II, you had the guys who played Frankie Pentangeli, Rocco, Al Miri, Sen. Geary, etc. who were all great...Hyman Roth’s character though, is somewhat lackluster which is surprising because he was played by Lee Strasberg of all people!

[nopardons]

A "good" actor or actress BECOMES the person they are portraying; a bad actor or actress usually in not capable of doing that.

OTOH...some "famous" and well paid actors and actresses of ANY era, are only one dimensional, BUT that is the "act", because they are NOT that person in real life....it's the "mask" that they wear when "acting". So this is a many faceted subject! And, re films, there are those who get "type cast".

Would anyone believe John Wayne as say FDR? Probably not, but he was still a good actor.

Robert Montgomery, Paul Lukas, and William Powell, for example, could and DID play many different types of roles and were believable in every one of them!

Bad actors and actresses "break the 4th wall", so detract from the film or play.

[catnipman]

“How Do You Differentiate Good Acting From Bad Acting?”

easy: brilliant actors make their characters so real that you don’t even realize that they are acting ...

many of the best Brit shows are filled with great actors, and not just the leads, but EVERYONE in the show!

and one of the very best Brit shows for characters who seem totally real is “Midsomer Murders” ... at least until the lead, John Nettles, retired and the entire show subsequently turned into caca ...

[jackibutterfly]

Yup, you’re right. Thanks.

[catnipman]

“Christian Bale is a phenomenal actor. Might be the best in the business right now.”

yep, and he gave one of the all time greatest performances ever in “American Psycho” ... somehow his face seemed like it was made of rubber that radically transformed itself depending depending upon what level of normalcy or insanity his character was at ...

[Psalm 73]

"How Do You Differentiate Good Acting From Bad Acting?"

Well you would start with a base-line of known great actors:

Jimmy Stewart
Cary Grant
Gary Cooper
Humphry Bogart
Marlon Brando
Robert Mitchum
Henry Fonda

All of them could easily carry a movie by themselves, didn't need a great co-star or leading lady or high-tech special effects.

The very best (Stewart and Grant) were great with ANY type of film - comedy, drama, spy-intrigue, thriller.

Sure, Deniro and Hoffman are fine actors - but cannot hold a candle to any of the above.

[Mr. N. Wolfe]

“There are two main types of actors: personality actors, who essentially play versions of themselves across roles (like Clint Eastwood or Jack Nicholson), and transformational actors, who fully disappear into their characters (like Gary Oldman or Daniel Day-Lewis).

Both styles can be powerful—one draws on authenticity, the other on versatility.”

Well said. I totally agree.

[al baby]

Albert Finny was awesome

[al baby]

Indeed

[RoosterRedux]

Brad Pitt is very good. Particularly in Snatch (2000), directed by Guy Ritchie. Pitt played a fast-talking Irish Traveller boxer with an accent so thick that his fellow characters (and most viewers) could barely understand him. I had to rewind through the film to sort out what was said.

Jason Statham is also in it.

Great film.

[Dr. Sivana]

Bad acting stands out when it is surrounded by good acting. T Take three exceptional actors: Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier, Katherine Hepburn . . . and ask Katherine Houghton to hold her own, and it is just awful. A formulaic, and bad, script buttressing a weak story doesn't help. Now, take a great movie, and even the bit actors are excellent. Great directors can even take someone who is not a great actor (Lenny Montana as Luca Brasi in the Godfather) and mold the part to make it work (unfortunately, Winona Rider bailing out on Godfather III was too much to patch up on a tight schedule). When you have a baseball team, you can have great players who have a limited range. You need a home run? You bring in Dave Kingman. You need a glove at third base? Brooks Robinson. Similarly, Humphrey Bogart was a great actor with a somewhat limited range. Gregory Peck pretty much has to play sanctimonious good guys. Jimmy Stewart, Burt Lancaster and Marlon Brando (outside of that idiotic Superman script part of Jor-El) had surprising range. Sort of like a Babe Ruth who can pitch as well as hit. Katherine Hepburn, not so much, but is unmatched for the right part.

Every great actor in drama roles has to convince the viewer that he is watching a three-dimensional person. Unless the person really isn't three dimensional, like Norman Bates, Norma Desmond, or James T. Kirk). In Godfather I & II, we watch Al Pacino develop from one kind of man into another, never losing sight of the fact that it is the same man.

"That's my family Kate, that's not me."-->"I don't feel I have to wipe everyone out -- just my enemies -- that's all. "

[VTenigma]

My favorite movie scene is Robert Shaw (Quint) in Jaws recounting delivering “the bomb”.

[MuttTheHoople]

I think Gregory Peck could've played more villianous roles. His only bad-guy was as Josef Mengele in "The Boys of Brazil".

Peck had the dark eyes and brooding countenance that could've carried a movie as a heavy.

[Beowulf9]

That is what I was going to say. They become the person they are playing, even thinking as them and it’s readable. It’s amazing really.

There are many scenes in I Claudius that actors do just that, impressively so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNEJ6ahD7J0

[HombreSecreto]

Or Edward Norton in Primal Fear.

[grey_whiskers]

Billy Bob Thornton in "Landman" on wind turbines vs. oil.

Language warning.