"Yeah, he can't act, but that's what makes it work."

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Alfred Soto just said on the Gus Van Sant thread that Keanu Reeves puts in a successful performance in My Own Private Idaho thread because his usual callowness is actually an asset to his character.

What other actors/actresses, who are usually bad or irritating or whatever, have been able to corral their "unique" qualities into a good performance once or twice?

I nominate Rebecca Pidgeon in The Spanish Prisoner. She generally has this halting, mannered way about her (hi, I'm David Mamet's wife), but I think this works fantastically in this film because there's something that's supposed to bit a bit off about her, that Campbell Scott's character can't quite put his finger on.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 25 July 2005 18:02 (twenty years ago)

natalie portman in her early roles

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Monday, 25 July 2005 18:03 (twenty years ago)

I don't know what the general consensus on Jeff Goldblum is, but he acts like a FREAKIN WEIRDO and that usually manages to make his characters more interesting.

― matlewis (matlewis), Monday, 25 July 2005 18:05 (twenty years ago)

Jack Nicholson seems to turn his irritating-ness to his advantage a lot. I had a hard time believing him in About Schmidt.

― Truckdrivin' Buddha (Rock Hardy), Monday, 25 July 2005 18:07 (twenty years ago)

Alfred Hitchcock to thread! He was infamous for it.

Using a performer's limitations is a time-honored way to get what you want. Every good director understands this. Here's a couple off the top of my head:

– Jack Lemmon's mannered, hammy, stuttering geezer (which he is probably his version of sincerity) was put to good use in Glengarry Glenn Ross.

– Katherine Hepburn's Boston Brahmin diction and angular looks.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Monday, 25 July 2005 18:07 (twenty years ago)

I so love The Spanish Prisoner.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 25 July 2005 18:08 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, it's great.

What about the way P.T. Anderson used Tom Cruise in Magnolia and Adam Sandler in Punch-Drunk Love?

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 25 July 2005 18:12 (twenty years ago)

Keanu in Matrix 1.

fred thompson as nothing but frumpy authority figure in every single role he's even been in, including U.S. senator (R-TN).

― kingfish (Kingfish), Monday, 25 July 2005 18:14 (twenty years ago)

Keanu's naive non-actingness has been taken advantage of lots of times! See Dangerous Liasons, Bill & Ted, etc.

xpost

― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 25 July 2005 18:14 (twenty years ago)

I love the Spanish Prisoner too .. partly because the dialog is so forced.

Christopher Walken strikes me as being a (not bad, but) strange, unconventional actor.. Like, I can't tell if he's really bad at memorizing lines, or if that's really just how he chooses to deliver them.

― geyser muffler and a quarter (Dave225), Monday, 25 July 2005 18:19 (twenty years ago)

kidman in to die for?

― 2, Monday, 25 July 2005 18:21 (twenty years ago)

her entire recently career busily proving she was in on the joke

― 2, Monday, 25 July 2005 18:21 (twenty years ago)

Walken is a brilliant actor (on stage he's won major awards playing Hamlet and Coriolanus) often typecast as a weirdo. The only films that show the extent of his talents are Pennies From Heaven (great dancing) and The Dead Zone.

Jaymc otm on Tom Cruise in Magnolia.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Monday, 25 July 2005 18:22 (twenty years ago)

crispin glover in back to the future

― mark p (Mark P), Monday, 25 July 2005 18:22 (twenty years ago)

Jerry Seinfeld! If your list of criticisms of his show includes the fact that "Seinfeld can't act" maybe comedy just isn't your thing.

― tremendoid (tremendoid), Monday, 25 July 2005 18:23 (twenty years ago)

tom cruise sucked in magnolia, can't agree there.

― mark p (Mark P), Monday, 25 July 2005 18:23 (twenty years ago)

No. He only sucked when called upon to deliver an Oscar Worthy Moment, during Jason Robards' death scene.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Monday, 25 July 2005 18:25 (twenty years ago)

that's really just how he chooses to deliver them.

one by choice.

the story is that whenever he gets a new script, he goes thru & removes all the punctuation marks.

― kingfish (Kingfish), Monday, 25 July 2005 18:25 (twenty years ago)

the only scenes he is good in are the ones that require him to be overblown and arrogant. the interview scenes where the journalist is meant to be 'getting to him' are horribly overacted on his part. lots of eye twitching and subtle head cocking, of the I Am A Bad Actor And You Are Getting To Me variety.

xpost

― mark p (Mark P), Monday, 25 July 2005 18:28 (twenty years ago)

cruise is, however, completely AWESOME in that movie where he plays a creepy, closeted, power-hungry nutbar.

― mark p (Mark P), Monday, 25 July 2005 18:30 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, but Mark he's SUPPPOSED to look lke a bad actor when being interviewed! That's the point! The reporter's getting under his skin and that Tom Cruise Smile & Twinkle begins to look like the horrible put-on it always was.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Monday, 25 July 2005 18:32 (twenty years ago)

I can never tell if Scarlett Johannsen is a bad actor or just keeps playing remote characters.

― miccio (miccio), Monday, 25 July 2005 18:35 (twenty years ago)

even if that's true, i don't think the film's any better for it. (unless it was pta's explicit intention to inject that scene with the magic of days of thunder, in which case, mea culpa.)

― mark p (Mark P), Monday, 25 July 2005 18:38 (twenty years ago)

xpost i always wonder the exact same thing. much more so after seeing In Good Company last night.

― matlewis (matlewis), Monday, 25 July 2005 19:08 (twenty years ago)

I wish there was more good criticism of acting, specifically.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 25 July 2005 19:19 (twenty years ago)

Alfred OTM on Cruise/Magnolia (he acted pretty damn similarly on The Today Show).

Obv answer here is Kim Novak in Vertigo (since her character

SPOILER

acting

all

the

time)

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Monday, 25 July 2005 19:28 (twenty years ago)

Kyle Mclachlan in Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet, especially the latter. Not in Dune, though.

― Adam In Real Life (nordicskilla), Monday, 25 July 2005 19:31 (twenty years ago)

let's not confuse "bad acting" with "acting in a non-realistic stylee" plz!!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 25 July 2005 19:35 (twenty years ago)

word! pre-method acting to thread! holla!

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Monday, 25 July 2005 19:49 (twenty years ago)

Lorraine Bracco - every time she speaks it's as if she pronouncing each word for the first time in her life. But for some reason, I find this kind of mesmerizing.

― darin (darin), Monday, 25 July 2005 19:52 (twenty years ago)

Ralph Fiennes in any number of films. Even in Schindler's List he played the first (and best) in a long line of snivelling, opaque weaklings.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Monday, 25 July 2005 20:03 (twenty years ago)

every baby in every film ever.

― mark p (Mark P), Monday, 25 July 2005 20:04 (twenty years ago)

Paul Verhoeven to thread!

― C0L1N B... (C0L1N B...), Monday, 25 July 2005 20:10 (twenty years ago)

Quentin Tarantino?

― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 25 July 2005 20:12 (twenty years ago)

"I wish there was more good criticism of acting, specifically."

Jaymc - David Thomson and Pauline Kael were marvelous critics of acting. Thomson's esays on Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, Kim Novak, and Ronald Reagan are as good as criticism gets.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Monday, 25 July 2005 20:21 (twenty years ago)

Yes, I've always meant to read more Thomson.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 25 July 2005 20:21 (twenty years ago)

Alfred Hitchcock to thread! He was infamous for it.

I dunno about this. He certainly played on actors' limitations, but slocki is OTM about confusing "acting in a non-realistic style" with "bad acting". There are certainly a number of instinces where bad performances really hinder Hitcock films--notably Ruth Roman and Farley Granger in Strangers on a Train.

― C0L1N B... (C0L1N B...), Monday, 25 July 2005 20:25 (twenty years ago)

Oh, that's certainly true; look at Robert Cummings in Dial M For Murder. But I don't think anyone will defend Kim Novak as a good actress. She could be very effective in a dumb-numb sort of way (she looks like a glum drag queen) and both Hitchcock and Otto Preminger (in The Man With The Golden Arm) found a use for her.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Monday, 25 July 2005 20:28 (twenty years ago)

Billy Wilder could be a slovenly director of actors. He tends to concentrate on the principals to the exclusion of everyone else; he couldn't be bothered.

Look at Double Indemnity. Every performance outside of Stanwyck, MacMurray, and Robinson's is shamefully fourth-rate. Or Some Like It Hot, Sunset Boulevard, One, Two Three...

For an acknowledged fan of Ernst Lubitsch, it's disgraceful.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Monday, 25 July 2005 20:31 (twenty years ago)

Actually, are there any directors who do this more than (post-immigration) Verhoeven?--Arnold in Total Recall, Elizabeth Berkeley in Showgirls, the whole cast of Starship Troopers...

― C0L1N B... (C0L1N B...), Monday, 25 July 2005 20:35 (twenty years ago)

Yes, I've always meant to read more Thomson.

Start with Desert Eyes!

― Adam In Real Life (nordicskilla), Monday, 25 July 2005 20:37 (twenty years ago)

Ewan McGregor is great in Trainspotting and a smug, self-indulgent carb-faced wanker in everything else. Maybe when he was an unknown he had some hunger and less ego?

― Markelby (Mark C), Monday, 25 July 2005 21:05 (twenty years ago)

there are lots of good articles/books about film acting. start w/james naremore's "acting in the cinema"

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Monday, 25 July 2005 21:07 (twenty years ago)

"carb-faced"?

― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Monday, 25 July 2005 21:42 (twenty years ago)

Ryan O'Neal in Barry Lyndon
Tom Cruise in Eyes Wide Shut

― Alba (Alba), Monday, 25 July 2005 22:32 (twenty years ago)

Ryan O'Neal in Barry Lyndon

Best example yet.

― Truckdrivin' Buddha (Rock Hardy), Monday, 25 July 2005 22:34 (twenty years ago)

Woody Allen in every Woody Allen film.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Monday, 25 July 2005 22:43 (twenty years ago)

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