Typecasting

Speaking of douchebags....

 

How Do You Differentiate Good Acting From Bad Acting?

I've always wondered why some actors you don't think much about, suddenly get a big role and achieve stardom, while some you think who are just as good (or better) still get the regular TV or movie supporting gig - but never "break through." Did anyone see Leonardo Di Caprio on Growing Pains? Or Jesse Plemons having the best post-FNL career of the younger actors on that show?
This is a pretty good analysis from a director. Brings up something I hadn't thought about - the ability to surprise. The actor knows the lines, but he or she still need to "act" as if they don't know what happens next and convey that to the audience. It kind of relates to being real and vulnerable.

 

Thanks for sharing that, @DanOregon.

Love and respect for the written word helps, too. I've worked with actors who thought it was okay to paraphrase, rearrange, and just do away with their sides of the script. This left their castmates at their mercy.

The last and most egregious was one of the leads in a production of a darkly comic thriller. I was the stage manager and the director was desperate to be one of the cool kids who wouldn't ask people to, oh, I don't know...do their jobs?

The Sunday before previews, I found out she'd only blocked the first twenty pages of the script. They read through the whole thing for the first time that Sunday afternoon. Previews were the following Thursday.

Mister "You need my animal energy more than I need the playwright's stoopit WURDS or the ability to turn in a consistent performance so my castmates wouldn't flail all over the place" screamed at me that I was picking on him, WHIYYYYYEEE did I always pick on him?!?!?!

What I was doing was stopping him and correcting his line reads. I also told him that his character, a young Jewish man from Brooklyn, would be more likely to use the Yiddish expletives than to yell, "Holy shit, y'all!"

Him: I don't know these words. I can't...I can't internalize them.

Me: I have pronounced them for you and told you what they mean.

Him: How do you know what they sound like? It's not like there are Jews in Tennessee.

Me: You're saying that with a straight face?

Director: You're crushing his spirit.

Me: We've talked about this. Your character is from a working-class family in Brooklyn He went to a fairly selective school with people he sees as his betters because of their wealth. His speech is more stilted and exacting because he is self-conscious and trying to fit in. What did you do to research this part?

Him: I walked around Montgomery Bell Academy and read Jewtopia.

Me: Dear God...

Director: Where is the rest of the blocking?

Me: We'll talk about this at dinner break. (She never did it. In fact, the night they read through the rest of the play, was the first time she'd read it since she paid for the rights.)

Him: What does he (the playwright) know about how people talk, anyway?

Me: He's won a couple of Obies and shared Emmys for his work on Treme, Homicide: Life on the Streets, and The Wire.

Everyone went on break, Director started to scamper off "with the kids." I asked her to stay and talk to me. It was then director told me the play had been moved to a new location, so none of the blocking mattered anyway. After lunch, we drove to the new location, it was an art gallery shaped exactly not the way she blocked the first 20 pages. They ran through the play -on book- and announced they were done for the day. She asked them if they're going anywhere and they told her to meet them in the parking lot and they'd all go together.

As they started toward the door, she turned to me and said, "As of Thursday, you're the stage manager, I've done the direction, all of this is on you."

I took a deep breath. I wanted to tell her she was old enough to be the cast's mother and to quit chasing after them begging to be liked. I wanted to tell her I didn't CARE if she once got a pep talk from Paul Giamatti. I wanted to tell her the playwright would be mortified to see what they'd done to his script. I wanted to say so many things.

All I said was, "I quit."

As I walked out the door, the stupidest of the three actors tried to grab my arm.

Him: You can't...

Me: Wanna get pashted? Keep grabbing my arm. You're lucky I haven't ripped off your punim and worn it as a mask on a bad hair day, you fakakta idiot!

Him: I don't know half of what you're saying.

I left. The director called me multiple times every day from that afternoon to previews. I have no idea if they even did the show.

 

My dad has done a lot of community theatre and I always enjoyed his stories. I imagine the drama behind the scenes is as good as what ends up on stage because people aren't being paid and their careers don't depend on it.

 

You have the best stories.

 

Aw, thanks!

 

Around here, everyone thinks they're thisclose to being discovered. The plumber has a demo to leave with you. Just in case. The waitress sings your baby back ribs to the table... (Yeah, I know that commercial is old. Dunmatter.)

 

Shit, I was going to post the exact same.

 

Thanks, man!