"He/she can't act."

Perhaps playing a bunny-murdering lover-turned-stalker who set feminism back 20 years?

Why, for instance, is Kevin Spacey considered a better actor than Zane Phillips?

No really what is it? Not knowing where to place your hands? Weird eye movements? Self-awareness?

Not demonstrating personality. Being wooden.

See: Madonna

Emily Dechanel and Jim Pardons both played iconic logically stiff characters. Jim Parsons was a member of the lucky club as, subsequently, he has played every character just as flat. Couldn't act his way out of a bag.

Emily took the money and ran. Good for her.

I hate that phrase. Everyone can act, some better than others, but it comes down to a good script and good instincts.

A bad actor makes you feel as if you're watching a person pretending to be someone else and just reciting lines. A good actor makes you feel as if you're really watching the character they're enacting and that their lines are springing naturally from within.

Uncontrolled voices. See Madame Web as a recent example. Bad movie. Bad acting.

Glycerin Tears

Pia Zadora in “The Lonely Lady” was bad acting. I giggled throughout her dramatics. But there are worse. If you’re familiar with RiffTrax.

Usually, it’s speaking with a lack of conviction.

In life, people usually believe what they’re saying. But non-actors can’t “sell” what they’re saying… it never becomes at all real for them.

As much as saying this makes me want to punch myself in the throat, it's the lack of "authenticity" which creates the distinction.

Whenever we interact with other people, we exhibit a multitude of both conscious and unconscious movements and modulations in our voices.

A good actor mimics more of both the conscious and unconscious movements. A great actor knows which of those need to be exaggerated to enhance the performance to convey both the text and subtext of the interaction.

That's my untrained two cents.

I put Ali McGraw in that category.

McGraw's director/husband wanted her as Daisy in The Great Gatsby. Thankfully, Mia Farrow got that role. At least she can act.

Being an actor myself, good acting can sometimes be as simple as standing on your mark and saying your lines.

[quote] Being an actor myself, good acting can sometimes be as simple as standing on your mark and saying your lines.

Got it. Thanks!

Waiting for the other actor to finish speaking so they can recite their lines at them, no sense of it being a natural conversation where both parties are listening to each other. Daisy Ridley did this in the Orient Express remake.

Whoa ! When you looked like this acting was irrelevant dude.

"Acting? Never let them catch you doing it."

OP - watch ANY Madonna film. Question answered.

We, actors, call that 'dovetailing' or 'impulsing,' R 17, meaning jumping in to speak on the tail end of another actor's lines and maybe even cutting off part of a word or looking for the earliest reason to speak (sometimes this means not quickly responding, but pausing). It makes dialogue sound very natural and like real conversation. However, this is not something an actor can just do. It depends on the environment that the director sets and how freely this is embraced on a particular production. And I should also note that sometimes it's not the way to go. Joaquin Phoenix sounded way too modern in Bonaparte. I was frequently taken out of the story because he was talking as if the story took place today.

If you follow the Meryl Streep method, it’s just putting on a bad accent, an even worse wig and collecting a paycheck.

Masterclasses in bad acting:

Elizabeth Berkley in Showgirls

Hayden Christensen in the Star Wars prequels

Sofia Coppola in The Godfather III

Bennifer in Gigli

Mariah Carey in Glitter

John Travolta in Battlefield Earth

Andrew Shue.

Bette Midler is Gypsy

I always think it's funny when people say that listening is important to acting. To people listen in real life? That is what we are striving for.

The listening part really has more to do with it than you think, R26. In a play, you've studied the script and you know what the other actor is going to say. Not so in real life. A good actor listens so they can respond appropriately to the tone, phrasing, and nuances of the other person's speech. Just because they said a particular line a certain way last night doesn't mean it's going to be that way tonight. For example, I've been onstage where another actor has inverted their lines, so that in order for my character to agree with them I have to say "no" and not the "yes" in the script. Or maybe they leave out something that your next lines are a direct response to. If you just say your lines as written, YOU end up looking bad because the audience sees you as not paying attention. Yes, actors are supposed to say their lines exactly as written and rehearsed, every performance -but shit happens. As someone pointed out above, your job is project reality, that you are that person and you believe what you're saying. You don't have to go all method and live in character offstage and all that crap, but you have to put the work in during rehearsals learn who your character is, what they want, and how they go about getting what they want.

The hallmark of a good actor is versatility. Let's take the example of Jim Parsons from R5. On Big Bang Theory I totally believed him as Sheldon. He always acted in line with who Sheldon was. Since I don't know him personally, maybe Parsons was just being himself. The test of him as an actor is, when he is playing a different character is it still Sheldon Cooper that we're seeing? I can't say because I've never seen him in anything else. (He'll always look like Jim Parsons, and have Him Parsons' voice, so don't go by that. )

Indicating, mugging, and shirking lines. Want an example? Go see "Appropriate." Except for the son and the hippy chick, who had a semblance of normalcy, all the experience adult actors should know better.

I think Jim Parsons is skilled at playing every character like Sheldon, to a shocking degree really.

Mary Louise Parker can only play her one, low-energy character. She's literally giving the same line readings in everything. I can't believe she gets hired.

R29 = Billy Crudup

They add nothing other than being a physical human being reciting lines to other more competent actors. They are not at all plausible, let alone believable in their performance. They seem like they would be awful at taking direction.

[quote]R15 Being an actor myself, good acting can sometimes be as simple as standing on your mark and saying your lines. — C-list actor

But even in an attempted neutral state, actors do not simply “say lines” the same way. A performer’s delivery is instinctual as well as calculated. They bring individual looks, thoughts and presence to a role that will convey things beyond their control.

So even if someone like Spencer Tracey would like to humble brag congratulate themselves on some sort of non-acting, the totality of who they essentially are is bringing something to the drama.

Yo, it isn't saying lines. It isn't dialogue. it's action....every line has an intent. Just like in life. That's why I agree with Marlon. We are all actors. Or maybe manipulators

Well, Uta Hagan-Daz Martha, Jesus H. Christ. You hit the head on the nail

Bad acting is when you can tell the actor is thinking about what to do, and not being, or inhabiting the character. They look uncomfortable, out of place, and emotionally wooden, or alternatively, overemoting.

R5 I fkin love you bro or sis. You are hilarious and spot on.

Roy Jones Jr must have one helluva agent. He is god awful in The Matrix sequels.

Saw a fascinating interview with Dirk Bogarde recently. He mentioned how the camera photographs thought. Which is another way of saying that good actors fully inhabit their characters and thus make their being and words authentic.

Brilliant acting right here. Dorothy Dandridge gleamed from the skies above.

[quote]Yo, it isn't saying lines. It isn't dialogue. it's action....every line has an intent. Just like in life. That's why I agree with Marlon. We are all actors. Or maybe manipulators. —Uta Hagan-Daz Martha

The problem with Uta’s method was that you always had to be physically doing something. That’s why she was never good in the movies. Her performance in Reversal of Fortune is pure ham because you can’t be knitting like Madame Defarge in a closeup.

Good acting in my opinion is where I forget I am watching people act at all. Bad acting is where I am constantly aware of who the actor is. Lana Turner and Justin Timberlake pop to mind because they are two people who can't act. Why? Because it is too much about themselves - they can't feel for the character because they don't have the ability to really understand other people or emotions that come from a different space. So they recite their lines, they can even get emotional, but it feels forced and overstated because it is clear they aren't " in" character. Lana was probably lucky because she came up in a system that rewarded a star for projecting an image - over and over - that the public liked. Timberlake came after Brando, and real acting is more demanding, and he is just incapable of it. That shows in his music too. The real reason his shit sucks is because it lacks any real emotion pull. Teenage girls don't know that but adults do.

Good actors make you forget they are acting and you’re watching an actual character. With bad actors all you see is the actor trying to act.

“I know it when I see it.”

Ashton fucking Kutcher owns this thread.

Thread closed.

I agree with you, R41, but this means that Tom Cruise is a bad actor. Now matter which role he plays, he is always Tom Fucking Cruise. Which is why I don't watch movies he is in.

IMO, a lot of "bad acting" relates to the voice. Some actors just have a voice that sounds flat and not resonant. I would put Madonna and Sharon Stone in this category. If an actor doesn't have a good voice, that's already a strike against them, IMO.

I think it's a waste to have stars like Michelle Pfeiffer (voice) on animated TV shows and movies. Nobody gives a fuck about their voices. It's all visual.

As stated above, Madonna is also very self-conscious. You can see that she wants to present herself (vs. the character) in a certain way.

[quote]McGraw's director/husband wanted her as Daisy in The Great Gatsby. Thankfully, Mia Farrow got that role. At least she can act.

Yes she can act, but unfortunately as Daisy she squeeked and squawked through the entire movie.

To R23's list I would add Isabelle Adjani in Possession - in fact she would top the list.

Most often the real test of talent in the foreign actor is, How do they fare in the ultimate test, The American Film?

Not all are given the chance, mind you. Oh no. But usually an important award nomination (or win) will bring a scattering of American crumbs, at which a lucky alien like Dench or Smith might pick - and perhaps prove themselves. More often, however, the foreign star fumbles embarrassingly, and it’s back to the art house forever with them.

Isabelle was given her test with THE DRIVER in 1978. And failed.

If I can tell the actor is thinking about what they are doing rather than "being" their character, I consider it bad acting. Madonna is a perfect example. With very few exceptions, you just can see how she is trying to act, and there is nothing natural about how it comes off.

Have you seen Collateral, r45? I can watch that movie without thinking of him as Tom Cruise. I think he achieves the gold standard of acting in that one.

R50 yea he truly was. Everyone was dam good in that film even the insufferable JPS.

Or, R1 doing an IMPERSONATION of a beloved TV food icon instead of a performance?

This is great insight into bad acting.

You can see a lot of bad acting in porn (unsurprisingly). I am talking about the ones where there’s a script. Most of them can’t open a door or ask for the plumber convincingly. Acting naturally takes work.

Any Tori Spelling performance.

R55 Mother can I play with danger

I thought Tori was passable in House of Yes.

Tom Cruise is also very good in Magnolia.

R58 And Vanilla Sky. People stay hating on Tom.

Agreed, r58. He's good in about 10% of his movies.

tom cruise was good in Born on the Fourth of July

Alright, I confess! [italic]I like him in ‘Jerry Maguire’!

January Jones. Thread closed.

Tom Cruise is one of the greatest mainstream leading men actors of all time truth be told.

I was in a play once where there had been a lot of cuts. I joined the play fairly late in the rehearsals. Opening night I went onstage and after some dialogue, the other actor suddenly went into a whole cut speech. Then he looked at me like I was supposed to say something. So I just said "What?" because I was listening and that seemed to be what my character would say. After we both got offstage he apologized and I said "I hope what I said was okay." He said "That actually was the line." (My line in the cut part of the scene.)

R65 reminded me of a horrible experience -going in to replace an actor in a new, original musical when they decided to extend the run a few weeks. I was given two (2) 90-minute rehearsals to learn six songs and a pile of dialogue before going on. It was one of those shows where nearly everyone played multiple characters, and I had massive makeup changes throughout that had to be learned as well. My biggest scene was playing a butler and doing a duet with the maid. The scene leading into the song was heavy plot exposition, with me in the role of questioner. The CUNT I was stuck working with hated me from the get-go, and refused to rehearse with me (said I just needed to learn the lines on my own). During performances I was unsteady as so many of my lines were similar to each other -and she wouldn't respond unless I delivered them exactly as written. So if I said, "You don't mean he never told her?" instead of "He never told her, did he?" she'd just scowl at me and leave the audience hanging. The worst part was the song. A flirtation duet where she was supposed to tickle me with a feather duster. Instead, she would hit me with the wooden handle (actually leaving bruises). I told the director I was quitting after two performances because she was impossible. He begged me to stay, saying he'd get her to straighten up. I said I'd file a complaint with Equity if she ever hit me again. Worst three weeks of my professional life.

While I slogged through Wonka, I could almost hear Ratface saying, "Look at me acting!" It's very distracting when there is a tryhard performance.

I am glad you have a place to unburden yourself, R66.

You were abused!

I had to replace someone in the lead of a production of Terrence McNally's It's Only A Play, with only about 4 days of rehearsal, while trying to learn all the lines. During the first performance, I said the wrong line and skipped the play ahead to where a character didn't get to make his entrance (and it was his whole part). After this happened once and I felt terrible, I said to the other actor, "If it ever happens again, just come through the door anyway. I'll figure out how to bring it back to that point." Well, I did do it again (on the closing night) and the guy didn't come on. He could only come on with the exact cue. Damn!

I just saw Jim Parsons in Mother Play on the last show of the run. He was enjoyable, they were all warmly received and it was an emotional story many of the audience had lived through. Honestly, he was a version of Sheldon with his jumpy delivery, this time obsessed with something other than physics.

I did like his disco posing in his open shirt, leather and oversize aviators with attached sideburns. Jessica had a cute pink and grey polyester pantsuit and other marvelous clothes; she is top tier and can change her delivery and vocals. I agree with the poster who thinks voice is the key.

Outer Critics Circle Awards...Outstanding Lead Performer in a Broadway Play - Jessica Lange

Previews were held from April 3, 2024 and the play officially opened on April 25, 2024. The play is currently scheduled for a limited run set to end on June 16, 2024 (the day of the Tonys).

He had a hot ass, but Christopher Atkins was a truly TERRIBLE actor. He richly deserved all those Razzie’s back in the day. Possibly the worst actor to achieve any semblance of mainstream success? His female equivalent was Bo Derek. My God she stunk! Both gorgeous, but completely devoid of talent on the big screen.

Kevin Kline's entire career. Including the Oscar.

I am never really sure what people mean that someone cannot act. I am simply not skilled enough to see the craftsmanship of peoples acting - or the lack thereof. And then there are those who are good performers but not good actors, those people who bring their own strong personality to every role without changing anything. Ted Danson = great actor; Fran Dresher = great performer. I can enjoy a great performer just as much as a great actor as long as the role is tailored to the performer.

R72 worst than Ben Affleck?

Bad acting 1. Unconvincing listener: An actor who seems checked out when others are in the same scene sticks out. Most children are like this. They just wait to say their line instead of making adjustments to what was done or said. Most silent comedians were great at seeming like they're experiencing something for the first time. Good noir/crime films depend on people listening, like Double Indemnity.

2. Stiffness: Monotone voice, standing weirdly still at the wrong moment. Even old school actors who didn't train in the method know how and when to move appropriately. They don't indicate/overemphasize like a manipulator : it's someone smacking their head and then shouting "Oh I forgot his birthday!" when a simple hanging of the head and muttering will do in that scene. Some directors give line readings (say it and do it exactly like this), though most adult actors don't like it.

Some action movie actors are desperate to look in control all the time and act stiff.

3. Constant confused look or inflection in the voice: The person literally doesn't seem to understand what they are saying or what is happening. Bad writing can do this, such as when a lead character just asks questions and is dragged through the plot by others. This is prevalent in scifi/fantasy movies where there are a lot of unbelievable elements/worlds to deal with. CGI doesn't help, unless the actor has a great physical sense and direction.

All of these things can be overcome by a good director, UNLESS that person is Mark Wahlberg or a tired kid actor. Source: too many movies

Someone who can't be still or tries to hard or mugs to show how cute she is..

Watch this scene. Glenn = bad acting Betty = good acting

Meghan Markle

Watch the show “Versailles” to understand bad acting, bad direction, bad editing, bad cinematography, bad costumes, bad makeup and hair.

Another example. You can tell that they’re reciting their lines and don’t understand what they’re saying.

It reminds me of when I had to memorize monologues in theater in high school and would do short group plays where I didn’t care about being a character or knowing the story, it was about knowing I had to act.

It’s almost like these actors didn’t do any research on the story or the people they were playing. They’re playing this scene as if they got hired the day before and jumped into it.

Another example from this horrible show.

[quote]Another example from this horrible show.

Christ, that’s bad. It doesn’t even look like it was rehearsed because that one actor keeps brushing his wig away. And the choppiness of the line delivery is annoying.

But I’m…in a more…romantic mood.

Obviously not because you say it like a grocery list. I’m buying butter and, let’s see, eggs and, oh yes, tea.

Choppiness in dialogue is always a sign of bad acting.

Here is a great example and bad acting.

The actors have no idea what they’re talking about.

It’s as if they got the script the day of shooting and had to memorize it.

It’s bad because you can see them all trying really hard to stay on task and juggle plot information and “entertainment” amongst 8 actors which is probably really tough doing, especially with bad writing.

R83 It’s also bad film blocking by the director.

I think what happened is the scene started too far away from where the scene was ending.

They start the scene in the middle of the courtyard and have to make their way over to the bench in one take and there wasn’t enough dialogue during the “race” to the bench. You can even see they’re trying their best to hurry up to the bench.

And notice how his choppy dialogue ends once they reach the bench because he doesn’t have to focus on spreading out his lines out while walking over to the next spot.

Just the fact that I can recognize it shows how bad it is.

I’m sure actors face this all the time but good actors can pull it off.

I think too much blinking while you say your lines is also a sign. It makes you look self conscious. Or looking upwards like a little YouTube gayling.

I was never impressed by Jodie Foster’s acting style. I find her wooden and emotionless.

About the Versailles clips: How much of that mess was caused by bad acting or bad directing? Could a good director - with enough time in a shooting schedule - have saved the scenes by guiding the actors better?

R88 That show is all of the above. Everything about that show is terrible. But the acting is still terrible.

They’re bad actors because they still can’t present any depth to their characters.

They’re just reciting lines in bad wigs. There’s no emotion or reaction. That’s not the directors fault.

This makes me remember my favorite DL post, about the straight actor auditioning for a gay part and putting the emphasis on the wrong word in the sentence “Get her.”

R73, River Phoenix should have won Kline's Oscar.

Watch River in Running on Empty if you want to see an example of "he CAN act".

Absolutely brilliant performance.

Acting is extremely subjective and depends on what exactly the play or film is trying to get across. If the point of the film is to convey a sense of artificiality, a naturalistic performance doesn’t make any sense, for example, and isn’t “good” acting. I’ve also noticed on DL people tend to underrate subtlety - I’ve heard Catherine Deneuve called a “bad actress” because she very deliberately under reacts in most of her films, but it almost always fits the kind of character she plays - emotionally distant and cold women. And even after all this it is mostly a matter of personal taste for the viewer.

The majority of actors need a good script and to be properly cast/well directed - even nominally “wooden” or “mediocre” actors have given good performances (Andie MacDowell in sex, lies and videotape is a good example) with great direction or writing. There’s some performers who I would say are almost always good regardless of these factors, but they are in much lesser number than has been touted on DL.

OP, see the way Kevin Kline ruined "Sophie's Choice".

BACK TO KRAKOW!

Two words that explain it all: Keanu Reeves.

^Nope. Keanu Reeves has been a very effective actor in the right parts. Yes his range is limited. Yes he’s a “Movie Star” more than an actor. But the “Keanu is the definition of a bad actor” trope is so tired.

No, it isn't. He is sometimes a good model but can't act.

Perhaps watching anything featuring Ali McGraw in it, OP?

[quote]You can tell that they’re reciting their lines and don’t understand what they’re saying.

Tragically, this is the mark of practically every theatre company designed to perform Shakespeare for school students. I'm sure generations of kids have had their suspicions that Shakespeare is deadly boring confirmed by incompetent teaching on the one hand and visits to these theatre productions on the other.

It's almost always the director's fault. There are not many actors, especially young actors, who can work Shakespeare speeches out for themselves.

The point about listening is not only not looking as though you just can't wait to say your own line, it is about reacting. A lot of actors, especially on stage where there is no special "reaction shot", are uninteresting while another actor is talking. You shouldn't upstage, obviously, but in a real room everyone who can hear is having some reaction or other. Good actors act ALL THE TIME. Not necessarily busily, but they are constantly being the character. I saw one of those Russian companies that play the same three plays in rep for three years at a time do Chekhov, and it was a revelation because everyone was so great at this. Because there is a lot of speechifying in Chekhov, they revealed you can create at least half your character out of what s/he is doing during others' speeches.

Another point: there is an increasingly common trend, especially on TV, for bad actors to put a comma in a part of the sentence where it would never go, for the clear reason that they're trying to remember what comes next. Unless you're watching prestige TV you see it so often it's become normalized.

R99 My high school theater teacher told me she knew I would be a great actor someday because I literally felt and exuded the words Othello was speaking.

It's interesting to watch actors from the silent film era acting alongside later actors (obviously I'm mainly referring to the 1930s and 1940s). The silent film actors tend to show their character being aware and engaged with whatever the other actors are saying or doing, while later actors tend to just wait, with a non-committal expression, for the other actor(s) to shut up so they can yap their own lines and then return to looking non-committal.

Emily Dechanel spoke with such a weird speech pattern on Bones it was distracting and irritating. I guess she was trying to sound Aspergers-ish because her character was a genius, but more often than not, it just sounded like she couldn't remember her lines.

It is exceedingly annoying that all geniuses now have to be portrayed as though they are on the spectrum. Many geniuses throughout history have been personable and excellent communicators.

WHY ARE YOU ALL LOOKING AT ME????

Trust, Kevin, nobody's looking at you under the term "genius".