"do you find actor trademarks distracting?" Fri Sep-19-08 09:48 PM by spirit
say an actor has a particular trademark, like talking with their hands or fussing with their hair or something they do throughout their filmography...does this ever distract you or take you out of full enjoyment of that person's films? because technically each film character is supposed to be a unique person and there should be no continuity of personality traits across films.
(somehow i would like to think eddie murphy's laugh does not count...lol) ___
5. "Denzel distracts the hell out of me. So does Wendell Pierce, actually." In response to Reply # 0 Fri Sep-19-08 10:13 PM by ActWon
Every time I see him, he's The Bunk (always a cop, or a cigar-smoking cool dude in a suit). Even as a preacher, I guarantee there's a deleted scene in that movie of him huffing a cigar.
7. "Did Steven Seagal cut off his ponytail yet?" In response to Reply # 0
Because that thing is really keeping me from not seeing Steven Seagal as simply Steven Seagal.
On a somewhat related note, his minibiography on imdb starts like this:
"Steven Seagal is a striking and somewhat boyishly handsome looking (often with ponytail) and usually impeccably dressed action star who burst onto the martial arts film scene in 1988 in the fast-paced Warner Bros. production Above the Law (1988)."
Steven Seagal is a striking and somewhat boyishly handsome looking (often with ponytail) and usually impeccably dressed action star who burst onto the martial arts film scene in 1988 in the fast-paced Warner Bros. production Above the Law (1988)."
because >technically each film character is supposed to be a unique >person and there should be no continuity of personality traits >across films.
is this written in the Big Book of Acting somewhere? 'acting' is one of those abstract concepts that isn't really defineable in a concrete way and there's no rule book. you just do it however you do it. some actors study a method, some don't. some actors live their characters, some just pretend to. good or bad acting is subjective, isn't it?
humans are doing the acting and if some of the person's personality comes thru, i don't think that's a big deal. what matters to me is that they sell the performance in that particular piece...that they deliver believeable emotions at the appropriate time
16. "each character exists in their own universe" In response to Reply # 14
it's a generally understood rule of film. each film, unless it is a sequel, is a standalone 'world' separate and apart from other films by the same actor. that's why it was so funny to see the trading places characters reappear in coming to america (i think i got the right films). they're not supposed to 'be' there and are breaking the fourth wall in a way, a metaphorical wink to the audience that is familiar with eddie's filmography.
each film is like an alternate universe to itself (sequels are another story in the same universe)
17. "i understand what you're saying" In response to Reply # 16
but i also believe that if yo look at the filmography of every actor that we would consider 'great', and really scrutinize their performances, you will find that every single one has some personality trait of the individual that is consistent throughout. because we are humans. we can't 100% supress the self. that's all i'm saying
28. "not talking about 'really scrutinizing' this is about..." In response to Reply # 17
...blatantly obvious recycling of 'patented gestures'.
really great actors keep this to a bare minimum, which is how people 'forget' who they are in a role.
sure, if you did some type of frame-by-frame analysis, you'd catch everyone repeating something...i'm talking about personality traits that are easily visible to even the casual moviegoer as 'ah there goes actor x doing trait y again'. a good example is all those 80's films with the patented swarzenegger one-liners. how likely is it that any given 20 people in 20 different situations would all have the same terrible sense of humor in response to people dying in grisly ways? LOL. ___
24. "I don't know.....he was bookin' in MI3 too..." In response to Reply # 22
But Abrams exaggerated it too much with the blurred background. I was in the theater SMH like, "I know Tom Cruise can run--but he ain't running that fast."
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