I rented the unrated version of The 40 Year Old Virgin (my new favorite movie) and last night I watched all the special features and the movie with the commentary. Before listening to the commentary, I had a huge crush on Romany Malco after watching him on Weeds. After the commentary-- not so much. He came off as a huge idiot. (The crush on Paul Rudd that I’ve had since Clueless remains intact).
Dan Ackroyd used to be a smart, funny guy to me until the commentary on Ghostbusters. After that he was just a kook.
After watching this I changed my opinion of Sam Phillips. The man could use a little humility. I kinda think that if he hadn’t recorded Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, etc., somebody else probably would have. But not to hear him tell it. “Yeah, I made those guys, without me they’d be nothing and we’d still be listening to Perry Como, no rock and roll, no rockabilly, nope, nosirree.” Not his words, of course, but that’s the impression he gave.
Terri Gross did a good interview with Dan Ackroyd that might change your mind about him. He came off as smart and witty and grateful for being able to work with so many talented people.
I had a lot better impression of Brad Pitt after listening to the commentary track for Seven. When I saw the film before, I liked it but dismissed Pitt’s performance as not being worth much, probably mostly because I didn’t think much of him as an actor in general. Listening to the commentary track where he and Morgan Freeman talked about what they put into the roles, Pitt came off as intelligent and thoughtful, and justified his acting choices quite well for that role. He played a young, married cop, and noted points where he brought out character aspects like temper, selfishness (shown in the script by having a couple large dogs in a small apartment, moving (IIRC) where they did because of his career goals, etc.) and other disagreeable traits.
She’s married to Apatow. I remember her from Big Daddy when I saw her on The Virgin.
As to the OP, the only commentaries I’ve watched were those for Kevin Smith and M. Night Shamlamadingdong movies, Se7en and The Usual Suspects (I think. . .maybe they weren’t commentaries, but ‘making of’ stuff.) I don’t plan on, at this time at least, watching any others.
I listen to DVD commentaries all the time. Most of them I enjoy. Some I find enlightening. The commentaries for the* Firefly* series made me like Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk more.
Hugh Grant routinely does commentaries for the movies he’s in, and has led to me think that pretty much what you see is what you get. And I can well believe articles and interviews that say in a lot of ways he’s pretty close to the character he plays in Bridget Jones. In a charming kind of way.
The commentaries for the Lord of the Rings movies were interesting. I wish Viggo Mortenson would have participated. I would’ve like to have heard his perspectives. Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan were, well, silly. I thought that Elijah Wood, while also having silly moments seemed quite mature for his age. I thought that Sean Astin sounded increasingly pompous with each movie made. Though not actor commentaries, I found the other commentaries for the trilogy very informative.
Oh, and yesterday I listened to a commentary on an episode of season 4 of 24 done inexplicably by Shannen Doherty. Yes, Shannen Doherty. Nope, didn’t change my opinion of her at all.
I think plenty of people might come off a little weird in commentaries just because they might not be comfortable just sitting there talking about a movie they were in. A lot of actors are quite introverted and when they don’t have a script and aren’t “on” (in performance mode), they’re not all that boisterous and entertaining. It depends on the person.
If someone doing a commentary seems really aggressively stupid, I’d probably think less of them though. I wasn’t a big fan of Marti Noxon (writer/producer on Buffy), but her commentaries cemented the impression in my mind that she was not worth listening to.
I try to avoid listening to commentaries by actors – they always infuriate me.
“It was cold the day we filmed this. I think it was the coldest day of the shoot, wasn’t it?” “Boy, Mary’s great to work with. She’s awesome. I remember after we finished for the day we went for a beer at Danny’s.”
If it’s a good movie with commentary from a writer, director, or technical person, they usually have something interesting to say about what you’re looking at.
Usually, actors just demonstrate how fortunate they are to have people write down interesting things for them to say.
Of course, there are actors like Morgan Freeman who are effortlessly witty and charming, and have interesting and insightful things to say about their craft and how their fellow troupers approach it. Don’t remember ever having an opinion changed either way, though.