How much should an actor do for a role?

[General Zod]

I don't think an actor should ever endanger their health/safety for a role. Especially when you can do so much to alter someone's appearance with makeup/CGI.

On the other hand . . . CGI can be more a lot expensive than just putting the actor through an intensive workout routine and easily inflate a movie's budget to unaffordable.

[The Romulan Republic]

I still don't feel that attaining a certain look is worth risking ones' health. There's a reasonable degree of effort to change ones' appearance to fit a role, but I hope we can agree that at some point there's a line.

[General Zod]

I still don't feel that attaining a certain look is worth risking ones' health. There's a reasonable degree of effort to change ones' appearance to fit a role, but I hope we can agree that at some point there's a line.

I think that should be an individual call. I hate to say it but I'm actually in agreement with Purple. I'd totally put myself through hell for six months if I got offered a big enough part in a film with a sizable payday.

[Ziggy Stardust]

It should obviously be an individual's call.

From a pure audience perspective, there are times that it really, really changes the movie, when an actor is that dedicated. Look at "Lincoln," for example (or, for that matter, just about any movie with the famously insane method acting of Daniel Dey Lewis involved). Or, hell, look at "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," a popular but relatively low-budget TV show on a lesser cable network; one of the actors/producers intentionally gained a large amount of weight (essentially for a season full of fat jokes), and then lost all that weight for the following season. And, say what you will about that show, but it was actually a really good gag that wouldn't have been the same with a fat suit.

I don't think an actor should ever endanger their health/safety for a role. Especially when you can do so much to alter someone's appearance with makeup/CGI.

Meh, CGI still can't do that much on its own, yet, and makeup can only go so far. Fat suits, for example, still have a tendency to look super fake (which is one reason you don't tend to see them used outside of low-brow comedy movies). And 90% of CGI is used on small details to augment practical effects, anyway. Recent attempts to rely more heavily on CGI alone have looked terrible (young Jeff Bridges in "Tron: Legacy", etc.).

[Elheru Aran]

Applying CGI to people tends to either breach the Uncanny Valley or look super-fake, or both. It's best when used very sparingly or skilfully; see Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart's flashback scene in X3, but I suspect a good deal of that was makeup as much as CGI.

Which is another thing: makeup can add a lot to a performance. Ron Perlman's Hellboy would *not* have been the same had they CGI'd the character rather than putting him through four hours of makeup every day. It can't do everything-- there's a reason there's a market for stuntpersons missing a limb or two-- but it can do a hell of a lot. It can't *totally* change someone's physical type, though, and that's why there's also a market for actors in certain brackets. Big funny guy (John Goodman, Chris Farley, John Belushi), short comedian (Rick Moranis, David Spade), to name just a couple.

[Captain Seafort]

Applying CGI to people tends to either breach the Uncanny Valley or look super-fake, or both. It's best when used very sparingly or skilfully

Or, conversely, when there's masses of it. Look at Bill Nighy in the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean films. When I saw Dead Man's Chest I though they were using animatronics.

[General Zod]

Applying CGI to people tends to either breach the Uncanny Valley or look super-fake, or both. It's best when used very sparingly or skilfully

Or, conversely, when there's masses of it. Look at Bill Nighy in the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean films. When I saw Dead Man's Chest I though they were using animatronics.

It can look seamless like the Matrix sequels, but you need an insane budget that most movies just don't have available to them.

[Elheru Aran]

Applying CGI to people tends to either breach the Uncanny Valley or look super-fake, or both. It's best when used very sparingly or skilfully

Or, conversely, when there's masses of it. Look at Bill Nighy in the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean films. When I saw Dead Man's Chest I though they were using animatronics.

It can look seamless like the Matrix sequels, but you need an insane budget that most movies just don't have available to them.

Yeah, Disney is one of those companies that can just throw money around.

Mind you, it's also much easier to animate non-human creatures/characters and have them look realistic than it is trying to animate actual human characters. A shark-faced man-fish hybrid with barnacles growing on his face, no problem. A plain human... ummm... well just look at the Robert Zemeckis version of Beowulf.

[Ralin]

I still don't feel that attaining a certain look is worth risking ones' health. There's a reasonable degree of effort to change ones' appearance to fit a role, but I hope we can agree that at some point there's a line.

I think that should be an individual call. I hate to say it but I'm actually in agreement with Purple. I'd totally put myself through hell for six months if I got offered a big enough part in a film with a sizable payday.

Being wealthy does have all sorts of health benefits that should be taken into account, after all.

Plus I'd assume actors like Christian Bale are really dedicated to what they do and are willing to go to crazy lengths for that reason alone

[General Zod]

I still don't feel that attaining a certain look is worth risking ones' health. There's a reasonable degree of effort to change ones' appearance to fit a role, but I hope we can agree that at some point there's a line.

I think that should be an individual call. I hate to say it but I'm actually in agreement with Purple. I'd totally put myself through hell for six months if I got offered a big enough part in a film with a sizable payday.

Being wealthy does have all sorts of health benefits that should be taken into account, after all.

Plus I'd assume actors like Christian Bale are really dedicated to what they do and are willing to go to crazy lengths for that reason alone

I think method acting is ridiculous, but I can get behind the need to change your physique for a certain look.

[Ziggy Stardust]

It can look seamless like the Matrix sequels, but you need an insane budget that most movies just don't have available to them.

I wouldn't call the CGI in the Matrix sequels "seamless" by any stretch of the imagination. It was better than most, I'll admit, but I remember seeing them in theaters and thinking how crappy some of it looked.

[salm]

Just remember that all CGI you see is bad because if it´s good CGI you don´t see it so your perception of CGI might be selective.

[Lord Revan]

also in some cases the "bad CGI" was in fact bad practical effects or bad model work (probably not in the case of matrix films but still), you got remember that "bad effect"=/="CGI"

as for the OP for me as long as the actor is not forced to do it and it's not totally crazy (like hacking of a limb to play a chacter that has lost a limb) I'm ok with it most actors are adults after all and adults are allowed to do stupid things if they want to.

[Elheru Aran]

It can look seamless like the Matrix sequels, but you need an insane budget that most movies just don't have available to them.

I wouldn't call the CGI in the Matrix sequels "seamless" by any stretch of the imagination. It was better than most, I'll admit, but I remember seeing them in theaters and thinking how crappy some of it looked.

It was fairly decent for the time, IIRC (early 00's). By modern standards it's not that great, but then, modern CGI is ridiculously advanced compared to even 10 years ago.

Like I said... it's a lot easier to CGI non-humans, animals, terrain, ships etc. Trying to CGI people on the other hand is where things get a lot more sticky. They ran into some of that with the Matrix movies. You can see it in other places like Tron Legacy.

It does occur to me that there's one good example of a CGI effect on people that's fairly recent-- The Wolverine, in the opening scene where he helps a Japanese officer survive the bombing of Hiroshima. Wolverine gets burned to a crisp, and they animated the burns slowly moving over his body as he healed up. That looked pretty decent and would have been almost impossible to achieve with practical effects, without some very careful editing and very lengthy makeup work.

Another example-- don't know how well this works for some-- was the CGI in Terminator 3, on Arnold's Terminator. A good few of those effects were green-screened in. That's machine parts being animated though so it doesn't quite apply, I suppose.

[General Zod]

It can look seamless like the Matrix sequels, but you need an insane budget that most movies just don't have available to them.

I wouldn't call the CGI in the Matrix sequels "seamless" by any stretch of the imagination. It was better than most, I'll admit, but I remember seeing them in theaters and thinking how crappy some of it looked.

The Wachowskis spent millions to get the CGI looking as good as it did in the sequels. The point is that most movies don't have that kind of budget.

[biostem]

Didn't Tom Hanks first gain a lot of weight, then drop a lot, for his role on Cast Away?

As for the Terminator thing - I can accept that the actual Tech-Com soldiers would get the best food/more rations, since they had to actually fight all the time - the noncombatants would get limited rations, as they're basically dead weight.

Also consider the amount of makeup and prosthetic work some actors go through for their roles...

[Joun_Lord]

As for the Terminator thing - I can accept that the actual Tech-Com soldiers would get the best food/more rations, since they had to actually fight all the time - the noncombatants would get limited rations, as they're basically dead weight.

This was mentioned in the I think the other thread about Genisys (anytime I type that the only thing that comes to mind is that weird alien in the bar in Star Trek III screeching GENESIS!!!) much the same thing happened in Europistan and Soviet Russia during WWII. Soldiers got the best rations and civilians got what was left. When well fed American farm boy soldiers came over to kick Hitler in the cunt and win the war all on their own with nobody elses help they thought Europeons were just all skinny little shits because even the best fed people were malnourished. That wasn't just civies but the French, Brit, and Commie devil soldiers they were fighting beside and the Jerry troops they were fighting against.

That is when there was still factories and farms growing shit in pretty large quantities. After the bombs there shouldn't be anything but maybe some can food that survived and rats and roaches. The only factories operating would be in the hands of the enemy and those are making robots and not chow, farms would be big inviting targets for the killer brobots to target, and considering the entire world was nuked most likely nobody is going to be sending them food, atleast not in big quantities.

I could see maybe later on after contact is reestablished some countries like in South America which would probably escape major hits start sending the Resistance in America some supplies and troops but even thats would probably only happen in large quantities later in the war when Skynet has lost most control. Before that sending around big cargo ships full of dudes and munchies would be sending a load of dudes and munchies on a one way trip to the bottom of the sea. Any supply runs would be small that could escape the notice of the machines, akin to modern drug runners.

Maybe they got access to massive stocks to pre-war supplies in government bunkers, like government issue MREs, weight rooms and steroids, but I'd think any buried in a government bunker wouldn't last very long trying to feed an army. They'd limit rations of the food and injections of muscle building serums to the butt to make it last longer, enough for troops to fight and survive but not enough where they'd be well fed. This is especially true being combat troops who will burn sometimes several times the normal daily allowance of calories, feeding them enough to stay bulked up would be near impossible.

[Korvan]

How much should an actor/actress change for a role? To what extent should we forgive, because of the reality of life? I just saw the new Terminator movie, and while I did like it, I had problems with how big and muscular Kyle Reese seemed to be since they were in a world post-nuclear apocalypse and food would be scarce, as they would be constantly running and hunted for termination. Should the actor have tried to lose 30 pounds of muscle so that he could look like he was from a world where he was almost starving? Michael Biehn wasn't a twig, but he was small and wiry, so you could believe he wasn't lifting during his off hours.

Compare and Contrast:

On the other hand, the new Reese has hair better suited to post-apocalypse conditions. Biehn's Reese must've found a huge stash of hair spray somewhere. I wonder who does his highlights?

[Elfdart]

How much should an actor/actress change for a role? To what extent should we forgive, because of the reality of life? I just saw the new Terminator movie, and while I did like it, I had problems with how big and muscular Kyle Reese seemed to be since they were in a world post-nuclear apocalypse and food would be scarce, as they would be constantly running and hunted for termination. Should the actor have tried to lose 30 pounds of muscle so that he could look like he was from a world where he was almost starving? Michael Biehn wasn't a twig, but he was small and wiry, so you could believe he wasn't lifting during his off hours.

Compare and Contrast:


Another example would be Christian Bale, who has gone to extreme lengths to achieve the look of the role he is playing. Losing or gaining up to 70 pounds for a role.

In contrast, for the Hunger Games series, Jennifer Lawrence refused to starve herself and lose weight to properly convey someone who is starving in an apocalyptic nation, though she did make the choice to dye her hair for later films in order to match the character better.

None of these things change the actor's performance, but as film is a visual medium, it is something that helps portray the world or circumstances they are in.

What are your thoughts?

I used to nitpick this kind of thing, but nowadays it seems rather silly to worry that the new Kyle Reese is more muscular than the old one. It didn't bother me one bit that the new Mad Max looked nothing like Mel Gibson.

I don't care that Hugh Jackman is tall and Wolverine is short. I don't care that Daniel Craig is blond and James Bond is described as having dark hair in the books. Ditto for Sharpe. Now if they cast Wesley Snipes as Rommel, I might find it amiss. Or not -Laurence Fishburne played Henry II on stage, so who knows?

Method acting is silly and pretentious, but since they are pretending, maybe there's a uh, method to the madness. I found Olivier's quip to Hoffman ("Just learn your lines!") funny because I always considered him a ridiculous, Shatneresque overactor. Overall, I prefer Robert Mitchum's approach:

"I have two acting styles: with and without the horse."