How much should an actor do for a role?

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How much should an actor do for a role?

Post by FaxModem1 »

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:
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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?
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Re: How much should an actor do for a role?

Post by Purple »

Personally I think that as a visual medium movies have completely lost their way when it comes to picking actors. Instead of choosing an actor who looks and feels like the character as much as possible they instead go for big and well known faces for the sake of ramping up popularity. That's why you get such stupidity such as the Jennifer Lawrence thing you mentioned.
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Re: How much should an actor do for a role?

Post by Napoleon the Clown »

Jennifer Lawrence not making a bad health decision for a movie role is stupid... Okay, sure. We'll let that slide because I'm really not going to bother.


My stance is that, so long as it's not harmful to the actor's health whatever amount they go for is their decision. Even if it's bad for their health, it's their decision but I'll consider it to be a poor decision. Picking someone who has about the right body type needed for the role would be a good choice, letting them adjust things if needed. Changes in hair color... Those are something that generally won't hurt the actor long-term. Constant dye-jobs can utterly destroy hair, but the hair will grow out over time so whatevs.
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Re: How much should an actor do for a role?

Post by B5B7 »

One hears of actors who engage in extreme behaviour in gaining or losing weight for a role. There is one, I forget who, who has a cycle of large weight gain and loss for various roles. One can admire their dedication to their chosen career, but should not deride those who choose not to do such.
There are many cases of miscasting with movies, and this is only one possible aspect of that.
A very good actor can make you believe they are the character even if physically not completely suitable for the role.
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Re: How much should an actor do for a role?

Post by Joun_Lord »

I think an actor should do as much as they feel comfortable and as much as is healthy. Someone losing 20 pounds or bulking up a bit without steroids isn't too bad. Drastically physically altering yourself is dangerous even if the results have film critics blowing their loads about how dedicated an actor.

I don't blame Lawrence changing herself to fit the role. She was hired despite not looking much like the character, heck the parody film had an actress that looked more like how Katness was supposed to look, so thats really on the people making the film and not her. Maybe they hired her because her acting was good enough to make up for the obvious problems in her appearance but either way she should be altering herself for a role.

The Terminator Genisys thing was I think another thing of casting a "popular" actor in the lead role despite not fitting. I put popular in quotations because pretty much everything I've seen him in or now about him being in is shite (Die Hard 4, I, Frankenstein, the rip-off of Hunger Games). I think he is like Sam Worthington from Salvation, somebody in Hollywood is determined to make him a star despite him sucking hard at being one.

Courtney is a bulky dude built more like Arnie then Biehn. He should have been cast as a young Terminator, he has the wooden acting and build to make that work. They should have had the Doctor play Reese, Matt Smith is a skinny little dude I could believe is some post-apocalyptic fighter. But hell the dude playing John Conner would have made a better fit for Kyle over Courtney and considering he wouldn't have made a good fit that just shows how bad a fit Countney was for that role.

Hollywood just needs to cast actors that physically match their parts rather then expecting actors to change themselves or getting some random asshole who is popular to play the part.

Though I guess sometimes its okay to pick an actor who might not be physically a match for a character if the actor can make the character work still. Ildris Elba in Thor playing a guy that should be white. They altered the character to fit the actor and it worked. However this might work just because Elba is a pretty damn good actor and they only changed the race of the character, everything else from what little I know about Heimdell still fits.

Others like Missy in Dr Who which I was kinda meh about, it just didn't feel like the Master to me anymore but some person saying they were the Master and building upon that history while being a completely different character.

Micheal B Jordon in Fan4stic is another case of changing the character to fit a popular actor (and an actor the director has worked with before, sort of a Tim Burton Johnny Derp deal probably) though only time will tell whether this will be detrimental to the character (it will probably not be, despite the butt-hurt it causes internet trolls and canon whores Jordon is a decent enough actor to get into character and will probably be the least of the movies worries, the dumb story and 4Chan hacker not-Doctor Doom will probably fuck it, also the dumb ass name).

I think what I'm trying to get at is they need to remake Terminator Genisys with Matt Smith as Kyle Reese and completely dump any of the shit in the past and the near future or just say fuck it and not make the movie at all, maybe just bring out a special edition of T-1 and T-2 but considering the special effects in Genisys at times looked worse then the shit in those movies maybe fucking not.
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Re: How much should an actor do for a role?

Post by salm »

To me it isn´t really important. It sometimes depends on how the actor manages to pull it off but in other cases I can simply suspend my disblief easily enough.

A black Bond, a female M, white Native Americans. Who cares, they´re actors and they are portraying people whom they not really are anyway. I accept Aliens in Star Trek that are clearly played by humans so it´s easy to accept some bulked up gym bro playing a supposedly starved FARC rebell of the apocalypse.

I don´t care about the lack of trigger guards and flash suppressors either.
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Re: How much should an actor do for a role?

Post by K. A. Pital »

I cringe when white people are cast as characters clearly not white, like Khan. Still horrible.

Other than racial nonsense, it is more important to play well than to fit in the exact weight or the like.
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Re: How much should an actor do for a role?

Post by salm »

I only cringe if it´s for racist reasons.
From an artistic or artisanal point of view it is irrelevant.
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Re: How much should an actor do for a role?

Post by K. A. Pital »

It is for racist reasons. Hollywood thinks white sells. That is racist thinking. In fact, it is racist-capitalist thinking, so fuck 'em. :lol:
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Re: How much should an actor do for a role?

Post by salm »

Let me put it another way: I only cringe because of the racist reasons not because Cumberdude or whatever his predecessors name was can´t pull off a believable Khan because I think both were pretty good.

If you remove the racism and assume that there´s a movie that used people of whatever skin color to portray people of some other skin color due to non racism related reasons (low budget for example) it really dosn´t matter.
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Re: How much should an actor do for a role?

Post by Ziggy Stardust »

Hey, I wouldn't lose 20 pounds for a movie as outrageously terrible as the new Terminator or any of the Hunger Games series, either.
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Re: How much should an actor do for a role?

Post by Purple »

I can agree with that on principal and all that. But for the kind of money these people are paid for you'd expect them to. The pay from just one of those movies would easily set me up for life at my current life style. Loosing some weight is NOT too much to ask for when that kind of money is thrown in.
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Re: How much should an actor do for a role?

Post by General Zod »

Purple wrote:I can agree with that on principal and all that. But for the kind of money these people are paid for you'd expect them to. The pay from just one of those movies would easily set me up for life at my current life style. Loosing some weight is NOT too much to ask for when that kind of money is thrown in.
IF you get cast as one of the principal speaking roles, and if your agent can negotiate a good residual, but good luck with that. To put it in perspective, there's over 100,000 registered SAG-AFTRA members between New York and Hollywood. Which means you've got a lot of competition with plenty of guys that have a sizable amount of credits with ripped physiques.

Incidentally . . . the going rates for a bit-role if you get a speaking part on a TV show is about $800. But there's a lot of competition for those and they're not terribly common.
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Re: How much should an actor do for a role?

Post by General Zod »

K. A. Pital wrote:I cringe when white people are cast as characters clearly not white, like Khan. Still horrible.

Other than racial nonsense, it is more important to play well than to fit in the exact weight or the like.
Part of it is the ridiculous rules for joining SAG-AFTRA. Getting cast as a speaking role means you have to be in the union, and they have to go through every single union actor before they start looking to non-union actors to sign them. But even then if you get cast in a speaking part you're considered a must-join, which means you have to sign up for the union within 30 days of achieving that status. Plenty of actors don't want to do that too early on in their careers because it might torpedo their shot of getting other roles.
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Re: How much should an actor do for a role?

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Edit: Nah.
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Re: How much should an actor do for a role?

Post by Elheru Aran »

K. A. Pital wrote:I cringe when white people are cast as characters clearly not white, like Khan. Still horrible.
Ricardo Montalban was Hispanic, unless you're talking about the recent movie with Cumberbatch. In that case the explanation was plastic surgery... which was only elaborated in an accessory comic, not in the movie itself, so that's a valid complaint (and would be valid anyway because it's still fucking stupid).

To a large degree, performances are up to the actor themselves. The director has some control over the performance, but since all the legends about Kubrick and his ilk, they have tended to be hands-off; if the movie flops they can blame bad acting, if it succeeds they can try to take the credit for good directing.

Christian Bale is the one that's on a kinda crazy cycle. He lost something like 70 pounds for The Machinist, and then gained it back and then some for Batman Begins, then lost it again for some boxing movie, then gained it again... etc. Guy has an interesting concept of fitting his roles.
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Re: How much should an actor do for a role?

Post by General Zod »

Elheru Aran wrote:
K. A. Pital wrote:I cringe when white people are cast as characters clearly not white, like Khan. Still horrible.
Ricardo Montalban was Hispanic, unless you're talking about the recent movie with Cumberbatch. In that case the explanation was plastic surgery... which was only elaborated in an accessory comic, not in the movie itself, so that's a valid complaint (and would be valid anyway because it's still fucking stupid).

To a large degree, performances are up to the actor themselves. The director has some control over the performance, but since all the legends about Kubrick and his ilk, they have tended to be hands-off; if the movie flops they can blame bad acting, if it succeeds they can try to take the credit for good directing.

Christian Bale is the one that's on a kinda crazy cycle. He lost something like 70 pounds for The Machinist, and then gained it back and then some for Batman Begins, then lost it again for some boxing movie, then gained it again... etc. Guy has an interesting concept of fitting his roles.
It's a combination. If the director doesn't know what he wants or what he's doing it can lead to the actor being confused and not knowing what to do for a given scene. Especially if they shoot it out of order.
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Re: How much should an actor do for a role?

Post by K. A. Pital »

Yeah, I mean replacing Montalban with Cumbrbatch, that just felt so wrong and completely unnecessary as there are many talented actors who are not white.

I think what Bale is doing is simply not necessary and signifies the turning of humans into nothing but playthings for big money. Not that it was not the same before, but I still feel this is reaching a new level with the obsessive role-fitting unhealthy routines some actors take on,
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Re: How much should an actor do for a role?

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K. A. Pital wrote:Yeah, I mean replacing Montalban with Cumbrbatch, that just felt so wrong and completely unnecessary as there are many talented actors who are not white.

I think what Bale is doing is simply not necessary and signifies the turning of humans into nothing but playthings for big money. Not that it was not the same before, but I still feel this is reaching a new level with the obsessive role-fitting unhealthy routines some actors take on,
You should look up the workout routines some of the actors for the Avengers and Guardians went through to get their ripped looks. We're talking six months of brutal weight-lifting and diet control to get chiseled abs.
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Re: How much should an actor do for a role?

Post by Elheru Aran »

K. A. Pital wrote:Yeah, I mean replacing Montalban with Cumbrbatch, that just felt so wrong and completely unnecessary as there are many talented actors who are not white.

I think what Bale is doing is simply not necessary and signifies the turning of humans into nothing but playthings for big money. Not that it was not the same before, but I still feel this is reaching a new level with the obsessive role-fitting unhealthy routines some actors take on,
Reminds me of the story they tell about Laurence Oliver and Dustin Hoffman. Hoffman was going all method, getting ready for a scene, and Oliver is like, "Just act, dude". Except with a more posh British accent and probably a cup of tea, but you know what I mean-- that illustrates the two approachs acting can take. You can either try to really immerse yourself into the role, *become* the character (see Bale), or simply... 'act' (that is, pretend) temporarily. Both are arguably valid approaches; both have their drawbacks. I do agree that inflicting extreme circumstances upon yourself is a bit silly, but IIRC it's usually completely voluntary. Like Viggo Mortensen spent a few months learning how to ride horses for Lord of the Rings, spent that time wearing his costume and messing around with his sword, etc... he didn't *have* to do that, but he wanted to in order to give his character greater authenticity (in his eyes). I don't think anybody asked Bale to drop 70 pounds-- if anything they probably just said 'try to look kinda skinny, suck in the gut or something'.

For some films, like 300, well. A certain 'look' is more or less expected. 300 was slightly insane because you've got, well, what, 50-some buff male actors working out together in a gym at the same time (see the behind-the-scenes video). You can also look at Hugh Jackman's Wolverine from the first X-Men movie, and compare it to 'The Wolverine'-- far more ripped in the latter.
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Re: How much should an actor do for a role?

Post by Purple »

General Zod wrote:IF you get cast as one of the principal speaking roles, and if your agent can negotiate a good residual, but good luck with that. To put it in perspective, there's over 100,000 registered SAG-AFTRA members between New York and Hollywood. Which means you've got a lot of competition with plenty of guys that have a sizable amount of credits with ripped physiques.

Incidentally . . . the going rates for a bit-role if you get a speaking part on a TV show is about $800. But there's a lot of competition for those and they're not terribly common.
You completely missed the point. Completely.
The point was that for the kind of idiotically ludicrously high amounts of money top actors receive for their work I feel we should be entitled they also sacrifice a lot more than you would demand of someone working for average wage. Because that is the kind of money that can set a person up for a comfortable middle class life for the rest of their lives. And when you get that sort of money you dam well should earn it by putting in the equivalent level of work.
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Re: How much should an actor do for a role?

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Purple wrote: You completely missed the point. Completely.
The point was that for the kind of idiotically ludicrously high amounts of money top actors receive for their work I feel we should be entitled they also sacrifice a lot more than you would demand of someone working for average wage. Because that is the kind of money that can set a person up for a comfortable middle class life for the rest of their lives. And when you get that sort of money you dam well should earn it by putting in the equivalent level of work.
As long as people like your movie. If the movie's a financial flop then it doesn't matter how much you sacrificed.
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Re: How much should an actor do for a role?

Post by Purple »

General Zod wrote:As long as people like your movie. If the movie's a financial flop then it doesn't matter how much you sacrificed.
I was under the impression that top level movie stars get payed irregardless of the movie it self earning money.
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Re: How much should an actor do for a role?

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Purple wrote:
General Zod wrote:As long as people like your movie. If the movie's a financial flop then it doesn't matter how much you sacrificed.
I was under the impression that top level movie stars get payed irregardless of the movie it self earning money.
There's a ton of factors going on. They can get a downside guarantee, but sometimes they'll sacrifice that for residuals, or to get a specific part if the film's a low budget and there's a lot of uncertainty. Vin Diesel's deal with Universal is a recent one that comes to mind: http://deadline.com/2013/09/von-diesels ... ws-579967/
When Universal wanted him for a cameo in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, he asked for the rights to the Riddick character instead of an acting fee.
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Re: How much should an actor do for a role?

Post by The Romulan Republic »

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.
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