# Who are the least expressive successful actors/actresses in film and TV? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 5, 2012, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-least-expressive-successful-actors-actresses-in-film-and-tv/611833 "2012-02-05T05:35:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-least-expressive-successful-actors-actresses-in-film-and-tv/611833/1 "2012-02-05T05:35:42Z")
A lot of actors give “understated” performances, often to excellent effect. Giancarlo Esposito in _Breaking Bad_ comes to mind: his character, Gus, is one of the coolest, calmest, most composed people you’ll ever meet, so much so that it seems like Esposito isn’t even trying to give him any personality. Later you find out that still waters don’t just run deep but they run bloody, and that the actord definitely knows more expressions and emotions than “calm, cool, and collected”, but that’s part of what makes his performance so outstanding. There are other actors whose “understated” performances seems, at least to me, to derive from the fact they couldn’t act the part of a coma victim if first they took a handful of Xanax. January Jones (_Mad Men_) is a queen of this category; what I first thought was an amazingly effective portrayal of a "so repressed she doesn’t even understand _that_ she is somebody other than a wife and mother, let alone _who_ she is besides that person; now I’m convinced from seeing her in some scenes in that series and in other roles and, worst of all, guest hosting on SNL, that she just can’t. Your mileage may vary. Kevin Costner is another one who is best when he’s playing the very low-key barely breathing white collar professional next day. He’s made action movies and had action scenes but never seems to change expressions. > **[Out on a Leash: Exploring the Nature of Reality and Love: MacLaine, Shirley:...](https://www.amazon.com/Out-Leash-Exploring-Nature-Reality/dp/0743486161)** > > Out on a Leash: Exploring the Nature of Reality and Love \[MacLaine, Shirley\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. Out on a Leash: Exploring the Nature of Reality and Love My mother used to refer to some actors as “Fellows of the Drake Hogestyn School of Theatrical Arts” after a soap opera actor from _Days of Our Lives_ and other shows who, according to her, knew “clinch your teeth” (anger, confusion), “look down” (sorrow, grief, contemplation), and Just Say It for everything else. I haven’t seen enough of his work to judge, but Casper Van Dien has definitely latched on to the “clinched teeth=anger” lesson and otherwise has pretty much the same expression throughout. Keanu Reaves is another one who doesn’t believe in stretching facial muscles any more than he absolutely has to, though he will yell from time to time. Are there any others who often seem to play mannequins masquerading as human regardless of the plot? And of course (like I need to say it) feel free to disagree with any of the above. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-least-expressive-successful-actors-actresses-in-film-and-tv/611833/2 "2012-02-05T05:48:53Z")
Scarlett Johansson’s range stretches from bored to disinterested. ---
**Author:** ![GreenElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@GreenElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenElf)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-least-expressive-successful-actors-actresses-in-film-and-tv/611833/3 "2012-02-05T06:01:08Z")
Schwartzenegger as “the Terminator”. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-least-expressive-successful-actors-actresses-in-film-and-tv/611833/4 "2012-02-05T06:10:19Z")
“Bueller…(_brief pause_)Bueller.” Ben Stein ---
**Author:** ![Yorikke](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yorikke/32/4335_2.png) [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-least-expressive-successful-actors-actresses-in-film-and-tv/611833/5 "2012-02-05T06:15:48Z")
Andie MacDowell. Pisses me right off that she’s been in quite a few very good movies. I think she’s the weakest part of Groundhog Day, Short Cuts, and Unstrung Heroes. Joe ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-least-expressive-successful-actors-actresses-in-film-and-tv/611833/6 "2012-02-05T06:18:02Z")
John “I slept through another role?” Hurt. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-least-expressive-successful-actors-actresses-in-film-and-tv/611833/7 "2012-02-05T06:31:12Z")
I feel like Ryan Gosling’s recent movie choices (Blue Valentine, Drive, etc.) have showed that he’s really good at playing depressed mopey guys. I saw three of his movies in a week and felt like I was watching the same character in every one. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-least-expressive-successful-actors-actresses-in-film-and-tv/611833/8 "2012-02-05T06:34:32Z")
Clint Eastwood is pretty inexpressive facially in many of his roles but the argument could be made that’s part and parcel of how he conveys his message. Steven Segal is pretty wooden Harrison Ford is pretty stiff David Caruso and Jennifer Aniston are not all that expressive David Carradine was kind of monotone but that may have been his roles David Duchovny is pretty blase most of the time Natalie Portman was a plank in Star Wars ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-least-expressive-successful-actors-actresses-in-film-and-tv/611833/9 "2012-02-05T07:22:20Z")
> [@wheresgeorge04](#): > > Andie MacDowell. Pisses me right off that she’s been in quite a few very good movies. I think she’s the weakest part of Groundhog Day, Short Cuts, and Unstrung Heroes. And _Michael_, which was a really cute movie but no thanks to her. > [@](#): > > David Caruso To paraphrase Norma Desmond, “We didn’t need words, we had… glasses!” ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-least-expressive-successful-actors-actresses-in-film-and-tv/611833/10 "2012-02-05T08:02:12Z")
Danny Trejo, long time but memorable bit actor, had his first starring role in Machete. Dude can’t act to save his life. Michael Cera isn’t an actor per se, he just IS and they role the camera. ---
**Author:** ![LynnM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b2d939/32.png) [@LynnM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LynnM)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-least-expressive-successful-actors-actresses-in-film-and-tv/611833/11 "2012-02-05T12:15:19Z")
A New York critic once said of a Henry Fonda performance: “He ran the gamut of emotions from A to B.” But facial animation–Jim Carrey, Eddie Murphy–isn’t always needed for an expressive performance. Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson, many others, convey much with minimal facial expressiveness. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-least-expressive-successful-actors-actresses-in-film-and-tv/611833/12 "2012-02-05T12:21:04Z")
> [@LynnM](#): > > A New York critic once said of a Henry Fonda performance: “He ran the gamut of emotions from A to B.” It was Dorothy Parker, about Katharine Hepburn. But you were close. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-least-expressive-successful-actors-actresses-in-film-and-tv/611833/13 "2012-02-05T12:37:05Z")
Going back a ways, Ephraim Zimbalist Jr.'s portrayal of Inspector Erskine on “The FBI” struck me as one of the most bland, wooden performances ever. Nobody expects you to play an FBI agent as a laff riot, but there’s a difference between “strong and silent” (think Eastwood) and, well, dull. ---
**Author:** ![LynnM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b2d939/32.png) [@LynnM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LynnM)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-least-expressive-successful-actors-actresses-in-film-and-tv/611833/14 "2012-02-05T12:42:26Z")
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#): > > It was Dorothy Parker, about Katharine Hepburn. But you were close. Good catch–thanks for correction. Fyi, my source: Orson Welles on a TV talk show in the 1970s. He may have been preoccupied with thinking about lunch. On the same show, Welles quoted another critical putdown, now common: A critic said an actor was suffering from “delusions of adequacy.” Don’t know what wag originated that one. And someone once said that directing Charlton Heston was like trying to direct a lumberyard. ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-least-expressive-successful-actors-actresses-in-film-and-tv/611833/15 "2012-02-05T17:02:19Z")
That female lead in the Twilight movies. So bad at expressing emotion there are hilarious youtubes mocking her for this ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-least-expressive-successful-actors-actresses-in-film-and-tv/611833/16 "2012-02-05T17:05:16Z")
It’s been a while since I’ve seen it but Steven Van Zandt as Silvio on The Sopranos was like that IIRC. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-least-expressive-successful-actors-actresses-in-film-and-tv/611833/17 "2012-02-05T17:30:07Z")
Kostner couldn’t play a dead man. Toby Whatshisname who plays Spiderman is more boring than a parrot pining for the fjords. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-least-expressive-successful-actors-actresses-in-film-and-tv/611833/18 "2012-02-05T18:19:12Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > There are other actors whose “understated” performances seems, at least to me, to derive from the fact they couldn’t act the part of a coma victim if first they took a handful of Xanax. January Jones (_Mad Men_) is a queen of this category; what I first thought was an amazingly effective portrayal of a "so repressed she doesn’t even understand _that_ she is somebody other than a wife and mother, let alone _who_ she is besides that person; now I’m convinced from seeing her in some scenes in that series and in other roles and, worst of all, guest hosting on SNL, that she just can’t. Your mileage may vary. My mileage doesn’t vary at all: Jones is the very first person I thought of when I saw this thread title. She is a stupefyingly bad - and _cold_ - actress, and IMHO her presence really hurts the show. I cringe every time she is on screen. ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-least-expressive-successful-actors-actresses-in-film-and-tv/611833/19 "2012-02-05T18:20:47Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > [http://www.amazon.com/Out-Leash-Exploring-Nature-Reality/dp/0743485068](http://www.amazon.com/Out-Leash-Exploring-Nature-Reality/dp/0743485068) 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-least-expressive-successful-actors-actresses-in-film-and-tv/611833/20 "2012-02-05T18:39:39Z")
> [@Tangent](#): > > 😕 Sorry- left over from another thread, no idea how I dropped it here. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-least-expressive-successful-actors-actresses-in-film-and-tv/611833.md?page=2)