I was watching Scrubs last night and noticing Heather Graham’s complete lack of acting ability. The show is a funny show, but she has absolutely no sense of comedic timing or acting chops whatsoever. I feel like I’m watching an actress in a 6th grade play. She’s a robot saying lines with barely any inflection or facial expression.
Who do you think is a worse actress, Heather Graham, or Lindsay Lohan?
Sorry, Keanu can act circles around Graham. Aside from just a couple exceptions (Drugstore Cowboy, Boogie Nights), she’s pretty horrible in everything.
I’m not one to play into the dumb blonde stereotype, but there’s something about her looks that make her appear absolutely moronic. Then she opens her mouth and any doubt flies right out the window. Maybe she’s actually such a great actress that she has fooled me?
Although his popularity seems to have dropped in the last few years, Reeves is an A-list lead actor. It’s more important for those guys to have whatever the “it” factor is that lead actors have. The ability to act (e.g., Johnny Depp) is a bonus. I think of Reeves in the same way I think of Robert Mitchum: wooden acting, limited chops, but definitely the center of attention.
Graham has some lead parts, but she’s a B-lister at best. I think she’s a poorer actor than Reeves, and I can’t imagine any reason she gets parts except for her looks. Some people, I guess, are really fond of freakishly long incisors.
I noticed here complete lack of acting ability in Austin Powers, but thought maybe that’s how they wanted her to be. Her reactions and line delivery, especially in the scene where Fat Bastard is in his UPS outfit, look like a read through they left in on accident.
Robert Mitchum was quite simply one of the best actors Hollywood ever had in the golden era–from Out of the Past to The Night of the Hunter to The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Mitchum was remarkably skilled, giving subtle and consistently nuanced performances for decades. Your post does prove how he has been criminally underestimated for much of that time, though.
ArchiveGuy: I’ll give you Night of the Hunter, and add The Sundowners. It still don’t think he’s got a lot of range, but yeah, I did underestimate him. Still, I wasn’t really trying to diss him; he just comes closer to Keanu Reeves’s style of acting than anyone else I could come up with. The delivery is usually fairly monotone, body motions not particularly animated, etc. Using the term “wooden” for that was a bit of a nasty shortcut, I admit.
Heather Graham may not be much of an actress, but she rose to the occasion in “Scrubs.” She nailed the part of an intelligent-but-ditzy doctor. Her character always seemed slightly distracted and resigned to the fact that the world doesn’t quite make sense.
Her episodes of “Scrubs” are some of my favorites.
Keanu Reeves isn’t that bad an actor, really. Yeah, he was horribly miscast in “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” but he’s had his good roles, too. He’s good when properly deployed.
That can’t really be said of Graham, who isn’t really a good actress in any context. She’s not absolutely the worst I’ve ever seen, but she’s pretty bad. She has a spectacular body and that’s pretty much her talent.
You’re right; there are some roles where he’s actually believable. I think it’s the serious roles where he just comes off so wooden, it’s easy to start thinking he’s like that all the time. Heather Graham, I’m not familiar with, but it sounds like that’s probably just as well, heh.