Definition of Good Actor

How would you define good acting? bad acting? Please leave your opinions. Thank you.

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Somebody who makes you believe they are the character they are playing is a good actor. You can incrementally increase "good" up to "great" based on their inspiration and their affinity for the character. Bad acting is somebody lazily playing themselves or totally unconcerned that their character comes off as a schizophrenic Martian. Either that, or somebody trying to cash in on a "one-hit wonder" or my 15 minutes of fame.

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Good Actor for me is that he/she is versatile and you can feel the character he/she portraying...

I think you are describing good character acting, not necessarily good acting over all. I would say that a good, even great, actor is one who commands your attention whenever on screen and who's performance leaves you with a sense that, without that actor, the role would not have had the same impact.

I'd say Val Kilmer is an exceptional character actor, for example. Some underrated actors that I would say are good, if not great, are Helen Hunt, Bruce Campbell, and even Mel Gibson (I know I may take heat for this one).

This is all just my opinion, of coarse.

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a good actor can portray any character. he can do drama, comedy, action etc. in other words, he should be flexible.

Someone that can really make you belive they are someone else.

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In my humbly honest, honestly humble opinion, a good actor makes you feel something.

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Which is really just a continuation of Mr Eff's point - If you didn't believe the character being portrayed it doesn't matter how much 'presence' an actor has on screen.

Now, if I was writing an essay on what makes a good actor I'd start off with a few paragraphs on what I considered bad acting (a couple of Tom Cruise movies should suffice - just mention him clenching his fists, looking at the ground and shouting. If you need specific examples then just photocopy his filmography and throw a dart at it with your eyes closed). It's pretty easy to move upwards once you're scraping the barrel's bottom.

To be honest, the whole thing is so subjective (once you get past obvious choices like Oscar winners - everyone else will write about them) then you can go in whatever direction you like - charisma, perceived versatility, pathos, whatever - as long as you can back up your choices with some good examples.

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I think a good actor should be able to portray different characters. Just making a character could be a good performance or even a coincidence...a good actor should be able to act in different roles in different scenarios. For example, I thought Keanu Reeves was good in The Matrix...but all he had to do was look pretty and confused and do a bit of Kung Fu. I wouldn't say he was a great actor.

A good actor to me is someone who can go beyond making the part real for the audience member. Also a good actor chooses and succeeds with roles that are not stereotypical for that actor(Ex: Johnny Depp)

Anyone that puts you right in the film with them. Someone who can influence your emotions with their performance.

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Good actor means whatever role play by actor, should fit in that and melt according to role himself.

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I think good actors makes you able to suspend your life and watch a film without thinking of anything else. I also think that 'screen presence' can be a drawback in some films - some actors are larger than life and have such magnetic presence that they constantly remind me that they're acting although I couldn't call him a bad actor Christian Bale does this for me. I still think his best role was Jim in Empire of the Sun.

A good actor knows his lines, shows up on time, hits his marks, and talks and listens realisticly to the other actors in the scene. You believe what he (or she) says or does because he/she and the other actors on screen also believe it. A good actor never lets you catch him acting because what he's doing appears to be straight out of real life.

And the best actors will add an unscripted piece of business that focus attention on him (or her) when other characters are speaking: See James Dean with that piece of rope in that conference with Rock Hudson and a roomful of veteran character actors in Giant,or Spencer Tracy fooling with that toothpick during a long speech by Robert Ryan (another very good actor) that totally focuses attention on the silent Tracy in Bad Day at Black Rock.

Then Hollywood is full of "good" actors who make my butt ache while I'm sitting through their boring films.

Personally, I don't know know how to describe a good actor, for me i just "feel" if he is the "right" actor for role or no. And after the movie, I can say to you, if the actor was good, or bad.

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in my own opinion, good actors are those who portray their characters with their heart and for me that actors can be called as versatile actor.

Good actors are those who can put their selves to the character that they're portraying..