# Actors are more than their roles! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 29, 2016, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-are-more-than-their-roles/764441 "2016-08-29T23:01:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![BubbaDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bubbadog/32/333_2.png) [@BubbaDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BubbaDog)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2016, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-are-more-than-their-roles/764441/41 "2016-08-30T12:46:19Z")
I’m actually NOT Bubbadog. It’s a part I play on the SDMB. When I croak you’d better not quote any of this stuff. ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2016, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-are-more-than-their-roles/764441/42 "2016-08-30T12:48:39Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > why should I mourn him, but not everyone else who died today? What about the nice grocer in Tenafly? The grocer from Tenafly died??? NOOOOOO!!! Fuck you, 2016! > [@Trinopus](#): > > And there’s an artist in Fresno who died: why am I not mourning him? O.K., but _that_ guy was an asshole. > [@Superdude](#): > > I’m just happy that he and Gilda are together again. I don’t really have a lot of support for the OP, but I do think it’s a bit creepy all the people I’ve seen celebrating his reunion with his wife of five years while feeling no condolence for his now widowed wife of twenty-five years. Like it’s a warm fuzzy feeling to imagine that, when Karen eventually dies, she’ll enter the afterlife to find Gene and Gilda sharing a booth together as Gene tells her “Oh, I think there’s an open seat at the bar. Y’know, mingle!” ---
**Author:** ![Whiskey\_Dickens](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/9fc348/32.png) [@Whiskey\_Dickens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whiskey_Dickens)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2016, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-are-more-than-their-roles/764441/43 "2016-08-30T12:50:50Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > Lame pitting. Sounds like something **DrDeth** would bitch about. _spits coffee_ The perfect way to sum up this thread! ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2016, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-are-more-than-their-roles/764441/44 "2016-08-30T13:17:07Z")
> [@Debillw3](#): > > \ > I get that everyone mourns in their own way . . . No, no you don’t, as evidenced by the hissy fit that is this pit thread. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2016, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-are-more-than-their-roles/764441/45 "2016-08-30T13:23:54Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > If actors didn’t bring memorable characters to life, they would be forgotten. Lame pitting. Sounds like something **DrDeth** would bitch about. Oh, didn’t you know that since Fox News once funded a pro-tobacco study, every single show that Fox studios and Fox Sports produce endorse smoking? It’s true. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2016, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-are-more-than-their-roles/764441/46 "2016-08-30T14:40:12Z")
> [@bienville](#): > > I don’t really have a lot of support for the OP, but I do think it’s a bit creepy all the people I’ve seen celebrating his reunion with his wife of five years while feeling no condolence for his now widowed wife of twenty-five years. > > Like it’s a warm fuzzy feeling to imagine that, when Karen eventually dies, she’ll enter the afterlife to find Gene and Gilda sharing a booth together as Gene tells her “Oh, I think there’s an open seat at the bar. Y’know, mingle!” This I agree with. No one knows what the private lives of celebrities are. Maybe Gilda was starting to resent Gene, and now that she’s died, her and Belushi hooked up, and are snorting consequence-free coke off an angel’s wings. Maybe Gene will just have to wait for Karen, but she’ll have remarried that nice accountant from Glendale and no longer want to spend eternity with Gene. Or, you know, maybe there’s no afterlife, and they’re all just dead and we’re all alone in a cold universe. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2016, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-are-more-than-their-roles/764441/47 "2016-08-30T16:00:35Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I never met Gene Wilder; why should I mourn him, but not everyone else who died today? What about the nice grocer in Tenafly? > [@bienville](#): > > The grocer from Tenafly died??? NOOOOOO!!! > Fuck you, 2016! I know, right? I was so close to picking that grocer for my deathpool list but I didn’t do it. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2016, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-are-more-than-their-roles/764441/48 "2016-08-30T16:12:44Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > No, no you don’t, as evidenced by the hissy fit that is this pit thread. I understand the irritation. Gene was in heaven a half an hour before **Debillw3** knew he was dead. ---
**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2016, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-are-more-than-their-roles/764441/49 "2016-08-30T16:37:54Z")
> [@Debillw3](#): > > Newsflash, morons: if Gene Wilder didn’t play Willy Wonka, those lines would still have been spoken & the character would’ve worn the same purple top hat. Nothing in your “tribute” is remotely unique to Gene. What he brought to his characters goes beyond dialogue & costumes–it goes to something that can’t be represented by a simple still image. This part seems to be contradictory. It is precisely HIS performance of THAT character that makes it memorable. Either way, as many others have said, I agree that I see it as a way of honoring an actor that he should be remembered for one or more of his iconic roles. If it wasn’t precisely that he brought something special to that performance, it wouldn’t be iconic, it wouldn’t be memorable, and many actors struggle to have even one iconic role, much less many. I’m not an actor, but if I were, I’d consider it a success to have such an iconic role that impacted people so much. Beyond that, also as others pointed out, we don’t know these people. Yes, in a general sense, I’m always saddened at the loss of life, but at that, I and society as a whole ought to mourn the deaths of everyone equally, but we don’t. I CAN’T meaningfully mourn him because I don’t KNOW him. I, and society, are mourning what he contributed to society, and the greater that contribution or the more it touched us personally, the more we mourn. This is why actors like Gene Wilder or Alan Rickman or especially Robin Williams were so heart breaking; other actors, not so much. And this isn’t limited to actors either. For instance, think about the death of Prince or David Bowie or Lemmy Kilmster in the last year. Surely, at least one of those deaths touched most people. I never met any of them, I don’t know them personally, of COURSE they’re more than their music, but I still mourned them. Hell, Lemmy hit me the hardest of those three, and he was “that guy from Motorhead” to most people because they didn’t know his name. His music WAS his life, it was his contribution, and I’m certain he’d be proud to be remembered as such. And this holds true for non-artistic types too like politicians, scientists, athletes, explorers. In fact, I see it as the polar opposite to the OP. A person is remembered for who they are. To their family, they’re a son or daughter, husband or wife, father or mother, brother or sister, a friend. To the rest of society, they aren’t that, they’re great thinkers or leaders or creators or just doers. To their friends and family they ARE remembered as the rich human being they likely were, and their job was just some small aspect of that. To everyone else, they ARE their job, and their personal story is just something that helps inform that for us. Really, isn’t that what legacy is? Being remembered for something you’ve done rather than just being who you are. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2016, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-are-more-than-their-roles/764441/50 "2016-08-30T19:07:30Z")
> [@Debillw3](#): > > It’s the actors who died. So is it too much to ask that we show them respect by not reducing them down to just the parts they played? There’s a big difference between “I loved [him/her] as [character]” and memorials that seem to be for the character with the actor as an afterthought. Yes and no. The stories about him I heard discussed his roles, but also Gilda Radner. Media needs pictures and quotes, and he might not have left many in comparison to his roles. So I don’t blame them. But people who confuse actors and their roles do bother me. Movie reviewers always say “the Gene Wilder character” in discussing what Willy Wonka does, not “Gene Wilder.” But civilians sometimes screw it up. Not this time, though. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2016, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-are-more-than-their-roles/764441/51 "2016-08-30T20:52:43Z")
_“Nice grouping!”_ ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2016, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-are-more-than-their-roles/764441/52 "2016-08-31T12:38:22Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > But people who confuse actors and their roles do bother me. Hey, it’s not my fault that I blew “Actors and their roles for $200” on _Jeopardy_. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-are-more-than-their-roles/764441/53 "2016-09-01T19:59:13Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Hey, it’s not my fault that I blew “Actors and their roles for $200” on _Jeopardy_. ☹ Hell, a blew a question involving actors and their roles in Final Jeopardy, so I feel for you. We both did - it was a crap question. (Or answer.) ---
**Author:** ![TheStake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecae2f/32.png) [@TheStake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheStake)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-are-more-than-their-roles/764441/54 "2016-09-01T20:32:47Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > I am not INTERESTED in death! The only thing that CONCERNS me is the preservation of LIFE! [beat] CLASS . . . IS . . . DISMISSED! Perfect! ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-are-more-than-their-roles/764441/55 "2016-09-02T00:20:55Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Hey, it’s not my fault that I blew “Actors and their roles for $200” on _Jeopardy_. ☹ What was the answer, loser? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-are-more-than-their-roles/764441/56 "2016-09-02T00:25:21Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > What was the answer, loser? 😉 That would be “What was the _question_, loser?” 😉 ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-are-more-than-their-roles/764441/57 "2016-09-02T00:45:17Z")
Who are three people who have never been in my kitchen? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-are-more-than-their-roles/764441.md?page=2)