Student ,'Touched'
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
Hey -- White Noisier. Or maybe, Noise Harder?
As a friend of mine was lamenting that Andre Braugher, an actual Good Actor Who Deserves Better Work, was featured in the remake of The Poseidon Adventure, I explained that Braugher has little children who need to be clothed, housed, and fed. But she's not buying that...
I always remind people that Laurence Fucking Olivier did Clash of the Titans.
That usually shuts down the argument.
When Good Actors Do Bad Movies
He has three. With his acting-school sweetheart. Aww. Maybe he's got tax problems...even with his time in The Box, he can't beat the IRS. But, I totally feel your friend's sentiment."Thief" is good, though.
I used to be appalled at what some actors would take for a job, but I've now worked long enough in the business to know that all you see is the end product. You never know how good the script the actor originally read was, how badly it was mangled, either during shooting or editing, or what the actor's bills are or how tongue in cheek they thought they were being.
And some actors just like to act. Maybe they even thought it would be a challenge to deliver a decent performance in a really crappy movie.
Hell, maybe they just have no taste.
Occasionally, you have to check to see if they're blinking "T O R T U R E" at the camera.
I just think of all those British actors like Vincent Price and Peter Cushing that maintained their dignity through hundreds of cheap, hokey movies.
Vincent Price was a brandname, and people hired him wanting Vincent Price. Fred Not-Established Actor has to do what the director tells him to, or he won't get work. If the director wants a caricature, that's what you deliver.
I just think of all those British actors like Vincent Price and Peter Cushing that maintained their dignity through hundreds of cheap, hokey movies.
Vincent Price was a brandname, and people hired him wanting Vincent Price. Fred Not-Established Actor has to do what the director tells him to, or he won't get work. If the director wants a caricature, that's what you deliver.
Also (to be pedantic), not British, but from the South (Georgia, if I remember correctly). Christopher Lee would have been the pick there (though certainly the keeping your dignity in appalling circumstances applies to Price in SPADES).
There is, I believe, a certain "Braugherness" that people pay AB to deliver...he has an ability, rather like Morgan Freeman's, to make really dumb dialogue sound like something that means a whole hell of a lot. But it's true that:
a. Frank Pembleton was the icon, not necessarily Braugher.
b. I would probably rate that higher than the industry does because I am a big old fangirl and would be thrilled to hear my name in the Voice, right? And "Please don't be an idiot. Thank you." changed my life. Which is something your Piven-style agent is not going to cop to.