I was having this debate elsewhere and I wanted the Dope’s thoughts. We were discussing an actor and another person said that “l don’t think him being a good actor is in question beyond that of a personal opinion.” Aren’t all of our opinions about if an actor is good objective? Awards, multi-movie deals or shows? Is there an objective way to say if someone 's a good actor? Is this a silly question?
Paul Newman once said to me (OK, me and a few other directors), “Don’t judge my work by the roles that were easy, where I didn’t have to stretch and explore and expand. Judge my work by the roles that challenged me physically, emotionally or spiritually. Those are the roles where one false step could bring down the whole house of cards.”
From: https://www.thewrap.com/when-it-comes-best-actor-how-are-we-judge-35533/
Also:
Has the actor (think Meryl Streep in “The Iron Lady”) disappeared into the role so unreservedly that we are no longer watching the actor but only experiencing the character?
One good starting point is whether you forget that you are watching [well-known actor] and get carried along the character’s story instead. Compare Steven Seagall and Cate Blanchett - you’ll forget you are watching her but you are always watching Seagall gruffing and gurning his way through his scenes.
An actor explained to me once that almost all humans are very good at reading faces and registering when emotion they are seeing is sincere. An actor projected in a theatre has their face blown up to the size of a shipping container, with every muscle and twitch readily evident, so if you can convince an audience watching your massive head that your character is genuinely feeling pain or delight or doubt then you are some way to being a good actor.
Here’s one technique for judging, for yourself, whether you find an actor convincing:
Mentally pull back your view, so you can see the movie camera pointed at the actor, with the actor performing in front of it. If you can maintain this imagined perspective, if you can see them Acting, then there might be something lacking in the performance. But if you can’t keep this in mind, if the camera evaporates and you’re pulled back into the performance, then the actor is probably doing well.
This is not an absolute rule in all circumstances. Sometimes the theatricality of a performance is deliberate and you’re meant to see the actor doing the work. (Holy Motors uses a brilliant performance by Denis Lavant for this effect.) But generally speaking, it’s a good trick for forcing your brain into a more objective frame to consider the actor’s work.
If they’re compelling and fun to watch, if their work makes the movie better, it’s good acting.
Groucho Marx, for instance, was a great actor. You always knew it was him, you always know he was acting, and you’d never want anyone else in the role.
This is my point of view - a performer who becomes the character is a good actor. If I’m still aware of who’s playing the part, then something is missing. Altho if I don’t like the particular performer, chances are I won’t be absorbed into the performance, regardless of how well it’s done.
I’ll go you one further: Jenette Goldstein as Vasquez in “Aliens.” The last time I watched it, I tried really hard to “see” the actress instead of the character and I couldn’t do it. She was astonishing; Oscar-caliber performance.
I would certainly say that Groucho Marx was a great comedian, or a great performer, but I don’t think I would say that he was a great actor.
How many times have you watched a movie, and when you got to the credits at the end, said “Wait, that guy was Gary Oldman!? No way!”? I’m half-convinced that, when not in front of a camera, he’s actually bald and grey-skinned.
OK, what about Christopher Walken? Oscar winning actor, screen legend, national treasure - and yet, I don’t think anyone’s ever seen him onscreen and forgotten they’re looking at Christopher Walken. That diction? That face? He’s never anyone other than himself, but few would argue he’s not a great actor.
My point is, being able to disappear into a role is an acting skill, but it’s not the acting skill - just one skill of many.
I don’t know if there is an “objective” way, I think it’s just something you know when you see it. It’s easy to tell when someone is a bad actor. I was watching “Joy Ride” and there is a scene with a basketball player who I have never heard of so he could have been an actor playing a character but as soon as he spoke it was obvious he was simply reciting lines and was not actually an actor. (And turns out in the credits he was a real player as himself.)
One challenge - for me - is to tell how much of what I am seeing (and disliking) reflects the acting, as opposed to the writing/directing/cinematography/etc. Every so often we will watch a movie we THOUGHT we would enjoy, but just finish feeling very lackluster and not understanding why.
One test - if it were possible - would be to see how someone agreed upon as a fine actor does in a lousy movie.
I largely agree with the folk who discuss the actor disappearing into the role. While there may be occasional exceptions, I don’t know that John Wayne ever played a character other than John Wayne. I personally feel the same about much of Kevin Costner’s work.
Another, slightly different take IMO, is whether you can SEE the acting. The way someone mentioned our ability to discern real vs feigned emotion. It can be as simply as a facial expression or a hand gesture, but it takes me out of a movie/show to think, “That’s not how a real person would act. That’s how someone would try to PORTRAY something real.”
I wonder if there are other sorts of acting, where an actor portrays an overly broad character, where you say, “No one other than John Wayne coulda carried that off as well.” John Wayne might not be able to play any characters other than John Wayne, but he was the BEST at playing John Wayne. (If that makes any sense.)
The thread title asks “Is there an objective way to decide if someone’s a good actor?” So I’m wondering whether this is a separate question from whether being a good actor is objective.
Acting is a skill, or perhaps a whole set of skills, and it seems obvious to me that there is at least some objective component to those skills, so that some people are better at those skills than others, in a way that is at least partly objective. (Or, so that some actors or acting students become better at those skills as they learn and develop their craft.) But saying that there is an objective component to those skills is not the same as saying that there is a way to objectively measure or tell how good an actor is at those skills.
My attitude towards that is this: Some actors, like John Wayne and Katharine Hepburn, have a bag of tricks. Some bags of tricks are larger and better stocked than others, but basically you know what you’re getting when you’re going in. The best roles, for these actors, are ones where their bag of tricks really fits the situation and character. And, of course, vice versa. I enjoy watching both actors when they are in roles for which they are well suited. Rio Bravo and Desk Set are two of my favorite movies. Try to make Hepburn into a sultry vamp, or put Wayne into either bookshop scene in (Bogart’s)The Big Sleep, and you will not be happy. (I can see it now: Wayne goes into Hepburn’s book store to get out of the rain, and as they’re talking, he asks her if she has to wear the glasses, so as he turns away she takes off the glasses and takes down her hair. She turns to him, and he says “Excuse me, ma’am, are you fixin’ to be a school marm?”)
I think the issue might just be one of terminology, in that there are two very different skillsets that are both called by the same name. Some people are very good at creating a single memorable and interesting character, while others are very good at creating a variety of characters. Either one of these can make for a good movie, and we call the people who do both of them “actors”, but different actors are good at one or the other. So if one asks “Is so-and-so a good actor?”, we need to first establish which sort one means by the word “actor”.
Part of the problem with thinking acting can be judged objectively is that styles change over the years. Judy Garland’s performance in The Wizard of Oz was pretty good, but put that same style in 2005 and audiences are not going to respond.
I think one or more of the iconic acting coaches (e.g., Strasberg) might be a good reference if he recorded his thoughts.
I think that because as a musician, I know that objective standards (as objective as such things can be) do exist regarding musical quality. Experts can describe how brilliantly musical theory is employed, how modulation, changes in time signatures, shifts in volume, etc., can create musical tension, sadness, joy, etc. A master composer is a magician.
Such things are always subjective in the sense that if you think Right Said Fred are greater composers than Beethoven, well, you be you. But someone with more musical theory expertise than I possess could no doubt explain why this is ludicrous.
Anyway, might acting have similar standards that the master coaches could elucidate if their work is referenced? Something beyond my own assessment, which would be, “Well, I know what I like”…
So we need to create a checklist procedure for theatrical performance. In addition to the two I mentioned in post 2, here is another criteria proposed by Kevin Drum:
Obviously everyone has their own idea of what makes acting great, but for me it’s first, foremost, and almost exclusively voice: the ability to precisely control tone, pace, pitch, timbre, tempo, modulation, resonance, accent, and so forth. Actors who can do this are great even if they have limited proficiency in all the other arts of acting; actors who can’t are terrible no matter what else they do well.
CIte:
Me: Yes, there is an objective way to decide actor quality, but it would involve Decathlon style competition, and not judgments of actual work. Because film is a collective effort. Also, something can be objective but not especially accurate (for an example, see this example!)
Hijack: it might be interesting to compare directors based on their number of best actor, best actress, best supporting etc nominations, after controlling for size of filmography and performance of their actors with other directors. Lots of directors worked well with Jack Nicholson for example.
Also what actors gave the greatest performances with the worst directors? Use a similar statistical approach. I don’t think we can control for scripts though, alas. So again objectivity delivered, accuracy questionable. Some actors are famous for taking a roles in both good and bad films. Maybe Rotten Tomatoes data could be folded in.
There are objective ways to separate good actors from bad. But that’s just qualifying them as above or below average. I don’t think people consider ‘good’ to mean ‘average’ when considering actors. I think ‘good’ should mean ‘significantly better than average’ in the matter and that’s where it all becomes highly subjective.
Eh, I’d give the award to the make up artist who put her in brown face
But to answer the question, I don’t think there is an objective way. It comes down the viewer and the culture behind the viewer. As an American I have watched Noh dramas and have a hard time understanding the subtleties of the performance because I’m not l immersed in the history of Noh. Everything looks very extreme to me, but I don’t think the actors are objectively bad.