What makes someone an excellent actor or actress?

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I recently saw "Tar," which prompted me to think about this question that I'd love everyone to weigh in on. What makes someone an excellent actor or actress? What criteria makes something an excellent performance? I know this is subjective, but I'd like to see if we can get a consensus on factors that many might agree are indicative of excellent acting. How do we know this when we see it?

As an example, I think Cate Blanchett did give a good performance, but a lot of people are calling her performance a master class in acting, and I'd like to understand why. What made this performance stand head and shoulders above what would be expected from another actress? Are there common elements of excellent acting that she exemplified in the role? If so, what are they?

I saw Holden say in another thread when someone mentioned her as the best actress of all time that she hadn't given a really great comedic performance. Is that one of the elements? Variety and diversity of roles? Is someone who can do different kind of roles far superior to another actor or actress which are really excellent, but tends to do similar roles repeatedly? I agree Cate Blanchett is a good actress, but what makes her so much better than others?

I hope we can have a thought provoking and enlightening conversation about this. What does excellent acting mean to you, and why?



What makes someone an excellent actor or actress?
I've watched a lot of movies and have read about alot of actors/actresses. Often the most dynamic actors had a lot of pain and difficulties in their lives as they grew up. Which resulted in them retreating into another world and learning to be other characters in their own head, to help them escape the difficulty of their existences. That's one type of actor.

Another type of actor that can be excellent is the personality driven actor, think of someone like Cary Grant. Grant was always 'Grant' in his movies but his personality was so overwhelming confident, natural and exuberant that people loved him as an actor.

A third type is the huge ego actor, loving the spotlight and attention, think of mega narcissistic types. Some actors and public personalities fit this type.

A fourth type of actor is the painfully shy actor. So shy that they have a hard time being themselves and so learn at an early age to project themselves into other characters or 'channel other personalities'. Alot of actors are really shy.

I'm sure there's other types of actors too, but these four main types seem to be common for the truly greats.



I think the most important factor is usually how believable the performance is. Does it feel real? Does it feel honest? Does this seem like it could be a real person? Excellent performances have depth and complexity. It can't feel one dimensional. There are some exceptions, of course. If a film is satirical or a wacky comedy, the characters may intentionally not feel real or believable, but other than those exceptions, how believable a performance is is usually the main factor. Excellent acting should also be interesting and engaging. I don't have to like the character (or the actor), but I do have to be interested in them and what happens to them.



I think that a great actor is able to mesh their talents with the demands of the project. Bringing nuance to a role that requires bombast can be disastrous. Being bombastic in a role that requires nuance can also be disastrous. They are doing the work of bringing an idea---an idea that comes from a written script and the vision of the director--to life. I think that part of great acting is how they go about doing that.

I do think that there are also some technical elements at play. Things like being able to do a consistent accent, the ability to physically embody a character, being able to emote through facial expressions or movement, etc.

When you combine great technical skill with the above mentioned ability to mesh with the material, I think you get great performances.

I don't think someone necessarily needs to be able to do it all. We can all agree that a multiple Olympic winning sprinter is a great athlete. They don't have to be able to also be the fastest swimmer to be called such.



Looks -- Like it or not, you have to make the audience want to look at the screen. The actor must attract the eye. Conventional beauty is a given. Unconventional beauty is better. Signature ugliness, an interesting ugliness is also a draw. For our leads, beauty is more of a requirement (we want self-flattery to imagine ourselves beautiful). We are meant not only to identify with the actor (imagine ourselves in their shoes), but to see the actor a plausibly fitting the role. They are an attractive bridge to alterity. They must be a better looking version of ourselves that also seems to fit in the role selected. So, self-prejudice must be satisfied (beauty) and so too must conventional/cultural predjudice (what does a thief look like), which includes moral sensitivities like so called anti-prejudice (a thief had better not be POC!).



Repetition -- We are connected to the screen via imagined parasocial relationships. We want De Niro for a role not just because he say his line competency, but because he is familiar. He feels right, but we only feel him because we know him and we only know him because of his body of work, because he has repeatedly acted in front of you. Some of the most durable actors are people you would never be able to name, but whose face you've known for decades. These are the background players, the supporting actors, that familiar carpet that holds the room together.



Cultural Standards -- What counts as "good" acting in one era is "bad" acting in the next. The exaggerated mannerism of silent film. The high pitch of the transatlantic accent in the films which replaced silent films. Artistic standards are variable which is proof that, to some extent, they are culturally constructed. And this means that "good acting" is some extent relative. Tell me when you live and where you live and we can excavate these cultural standards.



Leonard Lyons offered the following advice in 1954.



The only advice I ever give actors is to learn to speak clearly, to project your voice without shouting—and to move about the stage gracefully, without bumping into people. After that, you have the playwright to fall back on—and that’s always a good idea.



Be pretty. Be lucky. Be morally flexible (the casting couch is real and your politics may be dictated to you -- see John Cena). Learn your lines. Hit your marks. Hope that the dupes confuse your desperate prestidigitation with actual magic and associate your behavior with that mythical romantic property known as "talent." After that, hope that you don't land the wrong roles or turn down to the right ones.





It seems like for some, versatility is one of the hallmarks of an excellent actor, while for others, it may not be as important. It also sounds like another key component is that you believe them as the character, and not necessarily as someone who is playing a variation of themselves, and that the actor adapts what he does best to the nuances of the role rather than adapting the role to fit their own persona.

Yoda, what do you mean by sincerity being a key factor? How would you know that an actor had sincerity in their performance?



Corax, I think I understand looks and repetition, but what do you mean by the actor fitting cultural standards? In our current time, what do you think the cultural standards are that an actor has to be able to live within, or embody, to be considered an excellent actor?



Yoda, what do you mean by sincerity being a key factor? How would you know that an actor had sincerity in their performance?
Oh, the quote is just a joke.

To answer the question anyway, sincerity is not something you can know, just something you can feel is there or not. Perhaps incorrectly (hence the joke).



Blanchett's performance in 'Tar' IS a masterclass in acting. Although I don't think she's 'the greatest of all time'. As soon as I had finished the film, I googled whether she was German / could speak German / grew up in Germany etc. The delivery of German language by Blanchett was so convincing that it made me question the performance and want to research it. I wanted to know more. It turns out that she learnt German just for the role. I'm not saying that this is the definitive element to a brilliant performance, but it is things like that that make the viewer sit up and take note and almost get taken out of the film, because they are thinking about the performance.

There are very few of these but when they occur, I feel like I am watching that character for the rest of the film in a different light. Transfixed on what they are going to deliver next and trying to figure how they are doing it and what is transfixing me. Sometimes it's not learning another language, it's the use of eye movement. Or gestures.

Some examples:

Gena Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influence
Juliette Binoche in Three Colors Blue
Maria Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc
Aleksei Kravchenko in Come and See
Harriet Andersson in Cries and Whispers
Toshiro Mifune in Throne of Blood
Robert de Niro in Raging Bull
Ulrich Muhe in The Lives of Others



Corax, I think I understand looks and repetition, but what do you mean by the actor fitting cultural standards? In our current time, what do you think the cultural standards are that an actor has to be able to live within, or embody, to be considered an excellent actor?
One the one hand, this is an easy enough question to interrogate. We can do survey research, for example, and find what standards are publicly avowed by the viewing audience to reveal excellence. Want to know what people like? Ask them. Also, we can look at the recorded work of those who win awards, like Oscars. The Academy not only reflects but directs judgments of quality (how many online arguments have reverted to "wins" and "nominations" as proof of acting quality?). Critical reviews may be mined for "ups" and "downs." Critics are also an engine and a mirror of opinion. We can act as anthropologists of our own culture and find your answers.

On the other hand, our constructions are often built on constructions, a sandcastle with a cloud-ladder climbing into the sky towards the moon. There is a whole ontology associated with the picture of art of a given age. The twentieth century basically picked the rug out from art in an all-out assault on beauty and essence. If the cosmology of your aesthetic universe is subjectivist through-and-through, then there are no solid standards for adjudication. Even if the Golden Ratio is an objective standard, if your generation does not believe in it, then its influence will only be dimly felt through preferences that betray its presence. Likewise, if there are biological foundations of aesthetic judgment (the ideal forms of Plato taken from the heavens and placed in the Earthy soil of our DNA), it is still possible to see war waged against the universal cognitive categories and psychological needs. Even if method acting is bulls**t, if people believe in the method, and if they believe that an actor, like a diligently suffering saint, who endures the method approaches greatness (the thespian's stigmata), then this will be taken as a sign of proof of excellence under vague romantic notions of pain, feeling authenticity, and truth.

Thus, you ask a simple and a complicated question. And it is one that deserves a bit of deflation, because the more seriously we take it the more we spin more mythological tales about quality and why we like what we like. We won't find answers, but more puffery, Tarot Readings, signs in the sky, portents, etc. Taking the question too seriously invites comedy.



I think the question was about what makes a great performance. Not a request for some completely soulless and cynical take on why nothing matters and nothing is artful.


Just because some people's minds collapse in on themselves at the threat of such a question as this, doesn't mean others are fools or 'inviting comedy' if they want to discuss it seriously.


Absolute nonsense by someone who has never demonstrated the slightest notion they have ever listened to any take on art that isn't at the basement level of interest. Who thinks they are some kind of authority because they have the desperate need to mark the value of art on a chart, and discuss it through surveys.



I'd expect better art analysis from a ****ing corpse.



mattiasflgrtll6's Avatar
The truth is in here
So, self-prejudice must be satisfied (beauty) and so too must conventional/cultural predjudice (what does a thief look like), which includes moral sensitivities like so called anti-prejudice (a thief had better not be POC!).
I don't understand this part. Why is a criminal character not allowed to be a minority?
Kumail Nanjiani made a good point about this recently, that he feels restricted to playing mostly goodhearted characters and never allowing minorities to play villains can come off (if unintentionally) as a new form of discrimination. And I agree with him. The audience should be smart enough to know one villainous character isn't meant to represent every single person of that group.
__________________



I think the question was about what makes a great performance. Not a request for some completely soulless and cynical take on why nothing matters and nothing is artful.
And as if on cue, crusty curmudgeon crumbsroom arrives to scold and pontificate. A point we will explore in a moment.

By way of introductory apologia, however, I should interject that I did not say that nothing matters and that nothing is artful. Indeed, I offered some rather useful categories.

My take is lighthearted, I'll grant, but the mask of tragedy finds it's foil in the mask of comedy, and vice versa. One is a remedy for the other. When a moment becomes overserious, it may be punctured with non-seriousness.



On the other hand, if our affairs become too impious, serious man may intrude to make matters properly serious again.

William of Baskerville : But what is so alarming about laughter?

Jorge de Burgos : Laughter kills fear, and without fear there can be no faith, because without fear of the Devil there is no more need of God.
And so here you are like Burgos, acting as if I just violated the thread like Jodie Foster on a pinball machine, as if all possible discussion is now impossible. The Crumb doth protest too much.

The trick to the cut and thrust of repartee is proportion and subtlety. In you rush to give it to me with both barrels, you've taken a comedically serious stance.
Just because some people's minds collapse in on themselves at the threat of such a question as this, doesn't mean others are fools or 'inviting comedy' if they want to discuss it seriously.

Absolute nonsense by someone who has never demonstrated the slightest notion they have ever listened to any take on art that isn't at the basement level of interest. Who thinks they are some kind of authority because they have the desperate need to mark the value of art on a chart, and discuss it through surveys.
If we want to know what people find great about acting, that is an empirical question. We can actually research it and see what people say. Empirical questions have empirical answers.
I'd expect better art analysis from a ****ing corpse.
Subtlety is not your strongsuit, Borgos.

Have you ever considered touching grass? Is it worth it to get this worked up over conversation?



You're such a dork.
That's more like it. Keep it light, man.



There are all sorts of elements that can make an actor good at what they do. It depends on the intent of the film. It also never hurts to place the performance in context. Approaches to acting, just like in any art form, change over time. This, of course, isn't conceding to any notion that the acting is some kind of phoned in craft. That because it doesn't have an absolute form it doesn't have value as a method of artistic expression. It actually means actors are responding to their times, and pushing against the form to find new ways of depicting the human experience. Of course, if all we think to consider when evaluating acting is its adherence or lack of adherence to realism, we might have an incredibly naive and deeply ignorant analysis of what is good and what is maybe not so good. Thankfully, some people put more work and thought into these things though.



Some good acting simply knows how to stand out of the way of a well written script. Such an actor may be primarily focused on not breaking the spell of realism. They hope to appear natural and uncluttered from actorly affectations. Maybe a not a lot of spark to such an approach, but there is value to be found here. They do not distract from the character work that has been put into the lines they speak.



Other actors build character through research and backstory and total immersion into a character. They find nuance in the smallest of mannerisms to expose buried elements of the character that might not necessarily be implicitly written in the script. They explain to the audience what is happening in the characters head and their relationship to the world around them through such things as the way they choose to hold their hands together, walk into a room, their nervous tics, vocal affectations, the use of the eyes, the way they stand in relation to the camera. They are masters of saying a lot through body language. They understand their character in a way that makes it clear they understand their character still exists even in the scenes they aren't in. They treat them like real people who will continue to exist when the cameras have stopped rolling. We respond to the force of their personality. Their artform is knowing how to grab our attention and keep it. This may be less learned than most approaches, but is still an art form in its own way. The art of instinct.


Then there are the big actorly personalities. Maybe not great actors, or maybe okay actors, but this isn't their primary focus. There purpose is to emit whatever peculiar charm they have about them on camera. Tom Cruise, whatever you think of his actual acting (I think he stinks most of the time), is mostly paid to be Tom Cruise on camera. Even some great actors, who have done legit character work, who are legit great at the craft of acting, are mostly paid to just be themselves. Jack Nicholson would be one of these. Great actor? Yes. But even when slumming, he can get our attention just but unleashing the Jack when the camera is turned on.


Then there are the improvisers. What happens on camera is only part of what they do. They develop their character in tandem with the directors and screenwriters. They work shop scenes and find who they are going to be playing by living in the moment with their character. Figuring out what they will even say. This would be the territory of all of Mike Leigh's actors. He creates the concept and they figure out how the characters will respond and talk and move. They are the deciders of what motivates them.


And finally there are those that don't play themselves, don't seem to improvise or character build, and maybe aren't even terribly natural on screen. We might call some of this camp performance. We might just call them bad actors. But they can embody the vision of a director by living up to whatever spectacle the director is creating with their films. John Waters' use of Divine might be a prime example of this. Divine isn't a real person, doesn't pretend to be one, and doesn't come up with his own lines. But this monstrosity he created embodies the grotesque world that John Waters creates in his movies and absolutely essential to those films working. A weird kind of alchemic wonder.


There is also the use of non-professional actors, which are less actors then ambassadors from the real world. They frequently flub line readings, or stand awkwardly in frame, and frequently do everything wrong from the stand point of a professional actor. But they are our human access to the place this movie is being filmed in. Their talent is mostly existing and not letting the burden of cinema affect their behavior at all. They might as well not even be in a movie.



All of these approaches have different kind of value for the audience. They allow us to recognize ourselves. To aspire to be something better. To gawk in confusion. To reacquaint ourselves with the real world we sometimes go to the movies to leave behind. It's a noble profession clearly filled with more than luck and good looks and casting couches. Just because some people don't understand this, and get flustered when they don't understand how others can be moved or stimulated by such things, doesn't mean they don't exist or aren't important or can be done with by anyone with a pretty face. Just because they come from a world of smoke and mirrors doesn't negate them as artforms that can have a profound effect on people, not just in the movie world, but in the real one as well.