I’ve neve done any significant acting, but I’ve done something similar: Been on the radio. And to the people who say, “Anyone can do it,” I reply, “Put your money where your mouth is.” Sure, anyone can flip on a mic and spin records without blowing up the studio, but not everyone can be good at it. Planning an hour of music, pulling all your spots, nailing your backtimes when appropriate, filling the rest of the hour with talk without being banal, etc. A friend and I hosted a college radio morning show for a year; five days a week, four hours per morning, 52 weeks a year, and we only played 10 songs per hour. That was a LOT of talk, and it’s hard to stay fluid, avoid dead air, and be entertaining. We won several local college radio awards for our show, so I assume we were good at it.
Acting is the same thing. I had a lot of friends in theater in college, and I sat through several productions, and you can tell the difference between someone who is reading lines and hitting marks, and someone who is acting.
If acting is so simple, why are there so many gawd-awful commercials by car salesmen? These are arguably good businessmen (arguably), but they couldn’t convince me to buy a fire hose if my house were on fire based on their television time.
It absolutely amazes me that someone could make such an ignorant comment. It shouldn’t anymore, but it still does.
Zuma, have you ever actually TRIED to act? I don’t mean in front of your bathroom mirror, where you obviously came up with the conclusion, “Wow, this is easy, I can do this!!”. I mean in real life, attempting to study acting, to make it a career, to make it your life’s passion? To make a character the complete opposite of yourself come to life and bring out emotions of the audience?
Have you ever watched a movie with one actor you just didn’t believe, and it felt like he/she was just reading his lines directly from the script, yet another actor you totally believed WAS the character he was playing? Are you telling me you couldn’t tell the difference? You couldn’t tell the difference between talented and untalented?
Acting is NOT the glamourous job a yutz like yourself thinks. It’s 95% struggle. For every Over-Paid Actor that appears on Entertainment Tonight complaining about his tough life, there are many, many, many, many more actors out there who know full well they are never going to get the roles Tom Cruise gets, they’re never going to get paid anywhere NEAR the money he gets, or live the life he lives… they continue to act because it’s their life’s passion.
To say there is no talent in acting is assinine. To echo the other posts here, lets see you make a career out of it if talent is so unecessary. Otherwise, crawl back into your dirthole.
My favorite classes in college were acting classes for non theater majors. I strongly recommend them to anyone as electives, whatever your major. Great stress reliever, allows you to explore a different aspect of yourself, and conveys many lessons you will appreciate throughout life - both in conducting yourself and appreciating performance art.
Tho they were incredibly fun, and not terribly difficult to get A’s in, they clearly convinced me that acting was neither easy, nor something I was particularly (read any) good at.
I’m not an actor, and thanks to terminal stage fright have little interest in becoming an actor. My experience in this field is limited to an acting class that I took in the eighth grade, so I’m scarcely an expert on this subject. But I do know enough to make a few remarks.
I admire actors who are capable of a performance that is powerful and convincing. The best actors are the ones who absolutely convince me that they are the person they are playing, rather than just someone pretending to be someone else. Some actors become so good at this that it is difficult for me to imagine anyone else playing that role. It is not as easy as it seems, and my hat’s off to anyone who accomplishes this. I can’t imagine anyone else besides Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lector, or Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs. (In fact, one of the weakness of Hannibal for me was that Foster was not back for the role of Starling.) I cannot imagine anyone else besides Jeff Bridges as the Dude in The Big Lebowski. I cannot imagine anyone else besides Tom Hulce as Mozart in Amadeus And I cannot imagine another actor of similar age to Haley Joel Osment capable of pulling off the role of Cole Sear in The Sixth Sense.
Also, I think it’s difficult to convey powerful emotions without it appearing to be fake. It’s so easy for an actor to appear insincere or overdoing a crying scene or an argument scene.
I have no doubt that acting is a difficult profession, and anyone who says otherwise simply doesn’t know what they are talking about.
You don’t think acting is hard because you’ve never seen bad acting. Even the worst acting I’ve seen in movies or on TV is only mediocre, not truly bad.
Homework #1: Take a beginning acting course, and watch the other students try to act. Sure most people can memorize a line. But to do that in front of people without freezing, and to have your movements remotely match what you are saying, and to move on stage as you do in real life is beyond most people. It takes imagination and intelligence and self-awareness to mentally take yourself off-stage and know what you would be doing on a cold day with a cup of hot coffee, when it is 90 degrees and the mug you are holding has nothing in it. Acting class is the best way there is to appreciate good acting.
Homework #2: Rent “The Fisher King” Halfway through the movie there is a scene where Robin Williams sees the woman he loves. This is a long scene where Robin Williams says absolutely nothing at all, and yet you know everything he is feeling. This is why it is called “acting” and not “oration”
Homework #3: Rent “Liar, Liar” or “In & Out” and watch how Jim Carrey or Kevin Kline look like their bodies are being controlled by forces outside of their conscious will.
Of course, you won’t do any of this. I’m sure when this gets to the pit you’ll be told in excruciating detail why you hold onto your idiotic opinions.
Without addressing the assertation of the OP that acting takes no talent (which is just one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard), how might one claim that it is not a career?
Ask Helena Bonham Carter if she’s made it her “career”, ask Samuel L. Jackson if he’s made it his career, Hell, ask Pamela Lee Anderson if she’s made it her career. They are all supporting themselves by acting. That is a career.
I think the OP is the result of one of two things …
1 - zuma is a stinkingly bad actor who has been shot down one too many times.
or
2 - zuma is “trolling” for reactions - you should pardon my accusation but I calls 'em like I sees 'em.
My God how old are you? I have to assume that this post is just baiting the TM for responses in that it’s so absurd on the face of it that only a ignorant and arrogant adolescent could actually believe something so retarded. Actors may not be doing brain surgery but it is a true skill and, if done well, a difficult skill that many people cannot acquire not matter how hard they try and in that it is also a “talent”.
On the going assumption at this point that you can’t be much more than 14 you may have never seen the movie “Broadcast News”. Rent it an go to the part where
Albert Brooks is trying out for the newscaster job. There’s a lot more truth to that scene than ficiton with respect to the ability of people (even very intelligent ones) to “act” or perform with grace on demand.
[sub] Hoping with fingers crossed that this post was just trying to stir things up and you really don’t subscribe to this nonsense[/sub]
I have acted many, many times in my life. I have played everything from a mid-19th century scottish immigrant preacher to a dust bowl era southern sheriff to a present day average joe with a ‘progressive neurological disorder’ (and if anyone can guess THAT character, I’ll buy 'em a drink) to a New York City (singing and dancing) gangster. So Zuma, think you could do that? HAH!!!
I’ve also taught an acting class, and the emotion and energy required to succeed EVEN AT THAT LEVEL (as a student) is more than the average person can muster.
Tell you what. Let’s line you up with a walk on part (say, a person checking into the “Hot L Baltimore” and see how you do. You won’t even have to say any lines. Bet you still find it one of the hardest things you’ve ever done.
I’m currently taking theatre courses that approach acting from an academic perspective.
Acting DOES take talent. Everyone has the potential to be an actor, and few develop it.
Acting’s NOT easy. You have to identify your objective (what you want) and then fashion your tactics around it. Acting is NOT all emoting.
It’s very hard for a sheltered Southern 18-year old (that would be me) to play an abusive mother. But I have done it.
I also had to learn over 400 lines for one play. I had to learn nearly 300 and memorize 12 songs for a musical we did. Don’t tell me that’s not talent. It’s hard work, too, but a certain amount of talent went into it to make it believable.
You have no clue what you’re talking about. See you in the Pit.
I see no one even bloodied him up for me. Since (s)he hasn’t been back, I’ll assume it was trolling and move on.
Be aware that I’m watching, though. I’d be THRILLED to have this still end up in the Pit.
Are you using career to mean something other than what it usually does here? Because if you are using it as it in any usage I’m familiar with, that’s obviously incorrect. Not even a slight mistake, but “Thomas Hardy’s work was tempered by his devout Christian beliefs, but never failed to show his eternal optimism and his distaste for the idea of fate” wrong.
I hate to argue, but I have to quibble with this statement. I’ve done little stage acting–none since high school–but I’ve done a lot of interactive/improv in conjunction with the IFGS. Whenever I have to project enough to reach a crowd, I sweat like a horse after a hard gallop. I’ve dug ditches, built fences, and built buildings with nothing but unpowered hand tools–acting for a crowd for a comparable period is a match for any of them. When you add in the fact that a lot of my roles involve simulated hand-to-hand combat–outdoors in the Texas heat–it’s pretty serious labor.
I love my IFGS roles, BTW–they’re usually improv with only a few people, so I don’t have to strain my voice too much. I got a nice thrill not long ago: I was cast as a Texas lawyer–my “script” was a few scraps of information about a deal I was looking to make–and I threw myself into it. Afterwards, I found that several people thought that the producer had actually dug up a Texas lawyer to play the role. My acting talent is minimal, and I’ve never gotten a response like that before. It felt nice.
FWIW, where I went to high school, in the fall and winter term you could either play a sport, do community service, or be in the production (play or musical, depending on the term). So it would appear that the administration and such people considered it on par with athletic endeavors such as hockey, basketball and football (sports requiring a fairly decent level of fitness).
Well, Balance, I’m an actress, too. I’ve done Shakespeare, improv, all that and yes, it’s work, and yes I’m drained at the end of the day, but what I mean by my statement is that there is a wonderful element of fun and fantasy and joy that you get from acting that you don’t get (I assume) from say, digging ditches or lugging I beams around.
Moderator’s Notes: Bloodlust. That’s what I call this begging to have a thread moved to the Pit. I find it rather indecorous. And this,
is inappropriate behavior. You all should know that.
Finally, since I seem to be the only person to have overlooked this thread yesterday, I’d like to take this opportunity to remind you folks I, and Coldfire, have e-mail addresses available at the top of this forum. If you guys see threads that you feel are inappropriate for MPSIMS, please use them. We may not agree with your assessment, but that will prevent comments such as the one quoted above.
I will now move this to the Pit so you may all engage your bloodlust.
Unfortunately unless zuma wants to come back and defend the OP, it’s all pretty much moot.
We can all come together in a spiritual gathering, join hands and chant to the heavens in proclaiming zuma the biggest pin-head on the planet, but what fun would that be if he/she couldn’t care less?
So …
zuma: “Acting is stupid.”
Everyone else: “zuma is stupid.” zuma: {silence}