My friend posits that due to the classical training they receive, British actors are generally better than American actors. She cites examples from the big British stars such as Anthony Hopkins, Ian Mckellan, Kenneth Branagh, Hugh Grant, vs. the likes of Robert de Niro, Kevin Spacey, Ed Norton, Kevin Bacon, etc…
I don’t really know how to respond, but it seems too simple a generalization to me. I think roles for British actors in Hollywood are generally more intelligent-sounding and sophisticated, which may make them seem like better actors. And it’s hard to say whether British actors are nailing their British parts better than Americans nailing their American parts, in general. I also think that the action-type actors like Keannu may be distorting her view, despite her claims to the contrary (since she wants to be fair).
I have seen a ton of movies, but I still don’t think I’m qualified to make a judgment one way or the other. So, not taking into account the almost instiutionalized bad acting in much of the action genre, is it too much of a stretch to say that British actors are in general better than their American counterparts?
Your friend thinks Hugh Grant is a better actor than Robert De Niro or Kevin Spacey? That would end the discussion for me, not because I don’t have any ammunition to argue otherwise, but because it would be a waste of time for me to argue with someone who thinks Hugh Grant is among the great actors of our time.
By the way, does your friend know what sort of training all the actors in question have had? Why does he assume (for example) that Kevin Spacey has no classical training? Not that I know whether Spacey has had this type of training, although it wouldn’t surprise me.
I really think it’s pointless to compare and contrast. We have more 'celebs" in the States that can’t act, but we also have some gifted actors – Meryl Streep, Jessica Lange, Holly Hunter, Hillary Swank, Cherry Jones, Susan Sarandon…
In the States we are just now coming to the point of offering more leading roles to mature women. It won’t be long before the fair-minded accept that good acting is not about the native dialect of the person speaking.
This reminds me of that Celebrity Confessions skit or whatever it is called Conan. Patrick Stewart was on once and he said "People sometimes come up and ask me if British actors are better than American actors. " He laughed then said “I pee on their shoes.”
Hey. The wallpaper in most Hugh Grant movies is more lively than he is. I’m under the suspicion that he has a lot of dirt on directors, which is how he black-mails them into giving him roles.
Had your friend been watching many British films before making this judgement?
I think it’s worth considering that the British actors who are known to American audiences are the British actors who started off with enough talent to enable them to find international success. Whereas American actors known to American audiences include many that other countries have no desire to import.
Watch a bunch of British movies and T.V. Pay particular attention to the actors who are not international stars. Is there still a gap in the quality of acting?
I’ve seen lots of horrible acting from Brits. Can I tell you their names? No. That’s the point.
Americans know lots of American actors, both good and bad, because we’re watching so many American movies.
Americans only know a few British actors- and they’re usually pretty good. But we know them because they’re good. If they weren’t good, we wouldn’t know them.
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You cannot generalise in topics like this! It would be completely inaccurate to say that because a person holds a British passport they are automatically a better actor than someone with an American passport!
You can get great actors from both sides of the Atlantic and unfortunately you get terrible actors on both sides of the Atlantic also (two words – daytime soaps!).
I think why a lot of people think the Brits make good actors is the associations to things like Shakespeare (Royal Shakespeare Company) and the fact that people like Ian McKellen while having a successful movie career are also simultaneously still very engaged in theatre, and VERY serious about it also, (watch an interview with Patrick Stewart!) They normally return to a theatre production between films (although they would probably say they do films between theatre productions). Because of this and the fact that in “Hollywood” movies Brits tend to be cast in the villain roles or in the sometimes more demanding roles (Anthony Hopkins – “Hannibal Lector”, Liam Neeson – “Oskar Schindler” as examples) and not in the action roles like in The Matrix audiences only really see British Actors in the roles which could be eligible for Oscar and BAFTA nominations and not in the popcorn films. Therefore when you only see British actors in the more dramatic films and roles the misconception can arise.
(I know there are exceptions to the above (like Anthony Hopkins in “Bad Company” I haven’t seen it but I assume it isn’t going to be his best project to date) but generally the argument can hold up).
While I’m totally behind bienville on this one, I’d like to add that it’s my belief that Hollywood has a bad habit of casting the actual person in a role. Jack Nicholson and Robert DeNiro are great actors, but they’ve essentially been playing the same role(s) for the past 30 years. Sure, DeNiro will go out on a limb and play a part like The Mission every so often, but for the most part he’s been playing “you talkin’ to me?” roles as long as I can remember. I think that British actors are more flexible in that regard, but in general in agree with bienville.
As The Griffin says, the UK has perhaps an overrepresentation of actors in Hollywood. But this doesn’t mean a thing. So does Australia, to a much higher proportion wrt population size.
This could be the casting directors could be pseudo-snobs, thinking a classically trained actor adds cache, or because they like the accent, or whatever. I’d imagine there’s an equal proportion of good-to-bad actors anywhere, really.
