# What's a "character actor"?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-character-actor/400944>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [April 20, 2007, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-character-actor/400944 "2007-04-20T15:09:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\
**Post date:** [April 24, 2007, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-character-actor/400944/41 "2007-04-24T19:03:03Z")

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Whoa, Troy. Turns out Newman’s name is Wayne Knight. I had to look it up in wikipedia.

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**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\
**Post date:** [April 24, 2007, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-character-actor/400944/42 "2007-04-24T19:43:44Z")

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[QUOTE=Lemur866]  
Right, and then in Jurassic Park you cast Newman from Seinfeld as the traitor. … He doesn’t have to do ANYTHING to establish his character, you just look at him and you know what his character is.  
[/QUOTE]

Exactly — that is one use of character actors, filling roles that need strong character but which don’t get the screen time necessary to build that character.

My previous example was Eddie Deezen in WarGames, who had about ten lines as Malvin. He was just a background character working in a computer lab where David Lightman consults his friend Jim about the Protovision computer system. David and his friend chat, but have no sudden brainstorms. Suddenly Malvin has the answer: go right through Falken’s maze!

That is an example of the second use of character actors — to impart memorable personality to an otherwise unmemorable set of bland, colorless [lines.](http://www.cswap.com/1983/WarGames/cap/en/25fps/a/00_31) By putting Eddie in that role, suddenly Malvin has a real personality, where there was almost none written.

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**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\
**Post date:** [April 24, 2007, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-character-actor/400944/43 "2007-04-24T21:40:30Z")

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So… Judging from this thread, is it safe to conclude that the term “Character Actor” is ambiguous?

Or are some of the definitions offered here right and others wrong? If so, why?

-FrL-

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**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\
**Post date:** [April 24, 2007, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-character-actor/400944/44 "2007-04-24T21:49:33Z")

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I always think of a cahracter actor as an actor who couldn’t necessarily carry a movie on their own. That doesn’t mean it isn’t because they aren’t talented, but because they just don’t have the presence and the star quality to do so.

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