11. "Whole-hardheartedly disagree. " In response to In response to 6 Tue Jul-21-15 09:10 PM by Buddy_Gilapagos
I think you are conflating two different skills that people have on camera.
One is great acting and the other skill is being a natural, charismatic person on camera.
I think there are a lot of people who have the second quality who get mistaken for good actors. These people are often accused of playing the same character over and over again (like Kevin Costner) which is a fair assessment in my opinion.
They are also accused of not acting but just being themselves on camera and I think that's not a fair critique. Most people like that aren't like that when the camera is'n't rolling. Instead they have created a character that works, and they use that character over and over again in movies.
I think the biggest thing that made me come up with this distinction is reality tv. We talk trash about them but not everyone can do what the "great" reality tv stars do. They create a persona that people want to watch. There is a skill and talent there, but I wouldn't call it great acting.
The other thing that makes me believe this is seeing how hard it is to actually be on camera. I've seen huge personalities absolutely shutdown when cameras start rolling. I've seen interesting people become completely uninteresting once on camera.
I also think a good director can make a non-actor look good. Lawrence Taylor was great in Any Given Sunday. But we know he shouldn't be playing shakespeare in the park.
All that to say, the camera loves Halle Berry, but she can't act her way out a paper bag.
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