I have to agree that as “Serena Southerlyn”, Elisabeth Röhm was an awful choice. Who else was up for the role, I wonder?
Surprisingly, Röhm was sympathetic and 3-dimensional in the TV about the young girl who gave her name to Amber Alerts. Röhm laughed, blinked, cried, made the audience cry. My only gripe was her too-syrupy southern dialect. It was as if she was thinking “This is what it’s supposed to sound like” instead of spending time amidst real southerners and learning the dialect first-hand.
I’m not sure what “Naturalistic” means but there are any number of actors on superhero shows who make Elizabeth Rohm look like Meryl Streep.
The guy who plays Foggy on “Daredevil” is so bad I had difficulty accepting he was actually a professional actor; I assumed he was a relative of he producer of something.
jennielucas, as I noted in message I sent you earlier, please refrain from frequently re-opening older threads unless you have something of significance to add to the thread. It has the potential to create confusion for new posters who inadvertently respond to very old posts whose authors may not be following the thread (or the board) any longer.
Thanks.
Well, so long as the zombie thread is back up and running: I see how the link in the OP has someone mystified by Janel Moloney’s work on THE WEST WING; and I see how it got her nominated for two Emmys; and the former, which I expected, makes perfect sense; but the latter, as far as I can tell, makes no damn sense at all.
I just saw in another thread that Rohm grew up in Germany, making me wonder if she is a descendant of gay Nazi Brownshirt Ernst Rohm. It would explain a lot.
I looked in the German white pages and found 505 people with the last name Rohm. If they’re all descended from Ernst he had to be about the worst gay guy ever. By the time you have that many descendants you’ve pretty much given up on being gay.
I thought she was OK on Law & Order.
Regarding her “wooden” affect: I feel that in a show that aspires to realism, there should be a few characters like that, because there are some people like that in real life. Her inexpressiveness on Law & Order was in keeping with the very guarded, private personality of her character. It seemed to me that she was playing the role that way on purpose, not because she just couldn’t act.
After a string of very similar brunette ADAs on Law&Order suddenly there was a blond. The other ADAs were similar in character as well, Rohm played it differently. I didn’t care. But I can see one role that was not well received following an actor through their career, she’s not the only one at all, it’s quite common. It’s also usually because the actor isn’t very good. Not that they have to stink, just not have that instant appeal that gives an actor a career no matter how good or bad they are at thespianship.
I won’t get into an opinion on her "Law & Order" role or whether her acting style (or lack there of) is good or bad, I’ll just say this.
One way to rate the quality of work by an actor or actress is, how well they can lose themselves in their part. When I’m watching a movie or TV show I’d rather be watching the character on the screen and not be thinking “Hey that’s so-and-so playing that character.”
When I saw the (forgettable and lame) film from a few years ago, "American Hustle" and afterwards found out that Elisabeth had played Dolly Polito… I was shocked. I would have never known it was her, even if I’d realized beforehand that she was in the film! She lost herself in that part so well.
She was my least favorite ADA on Law and Order. But maybe it was the way the character was written. She never seemed confident, always seemed like she was a step behind.
Zombie or not, I’ve got to chime in. I have been watching a lot of L&O reruns and I forgot how much I just plain hated her from day one. I didn’t like Angie Harmon but I dislike ER so much I mostly forgot I didn’t like Abby. Or I guess maybe it made me separate Abby from Angie. I still don’t like Abby, but Angie’s performance is fine. Serena is my least favorite L&O main character by far. I haven’t seen ER in a lot of other things, but she’s been mostly poor in the ones I have seen.
I don’t think Angel fans hate her. L&O fans, who knows?
I don’t have any problem with her.
Oh my god! I stumbled across this site and created an account just to respond to this nonsense. While you are all entitled to your opinions you know not of what you speak. I am an actor, a professional one. Actually. You can IMDb me, Ronald Patrick Thompson. And I DO know good acting when I see it and Rohm’s ADA was THE BEST EVER female ADA on the show. Her acting may not agree with you guys but there is more to consider here that you may not be aware of. I am a loyal fan of the show, I’ve studied it and the acting style intently as it was among the best on television as formulaic as the writing may be. And boy am I glad I am able to watch it in reruns on TV right now because a lot of murder mysteries film where I live here in Vancouver BC.
First of all, the worst actor was Arthur Branch, the guy was a friggin bobblehead. Could not hold a frame to save his life. Whereas Elisabeth understood the power of stillness, what I believe you guys call “wooden”. She has an icy cold stare and was incredibly articulate. but let’s look at this from a psychological perspective because I think that is the element that is going over everybody’s head. She was the only ADA that consistently challenged Arthur and Jack. She was brought in to be the counterpoint to their aggressive masculine approach, and sure enough she was fired for it. Unlike the ADA that followed, Alexandra Borgia, who CLEARLY wanted to suck Jack’s dick and NEVER challenged him. Thank God that character got killed off (even though it was the actress that requested to leave the show). Followed by Rubirosa who was more or less a combination of the two, had more gravitas and independent thinking than Borgia but still not as much as a counterpoint as Serena was. And from what I see all the comments here are from men and so subconsciously men tend to develop negative attitudes towards women who challenge the patriarch. It’s not that her acting was bad you guys just didn’t realize the real reason you didn’t like her.
I’m actually a professional working actor and what you call “wooden” we call “stillness.” I can close my eyes and listen to her delivery and be engaged by how she’s saying it because I can hear the commitment and conviction in her voice. If I were to close my eyes and listen to porn dialogue I would fall asleep. I think you’re focussing too much on her lack of movement and facial expressions. Contrast her stillness with Arthur Branch’s inability to not bobble his head constantly and you think she’s not acting well.
This is the first time TheLAWandORDERguy has posted — let’s welcome them to our community!
Hey, let’s not.
He’s either her bf, or the president and sole member of the ER Fan Club.
At least he said she was the best “female” AADA. Robinette is still Number One!
I’m watching her right now. Jesus, she sucks!
And yet, somehow she has 84 credits in her career. 84. That’s not trivial by any means. She’s attractive, but not that hot, so something’s working in her favor, which I have to surmise is her acting ability.
I wonder if she’s one of those love or hate type actresses?
I can’t speak to 82 of her 84 roles, but as Serena she’s horrible. And I swear, (but it’s not worth watching all her episodes to confirm - I’ll wait until I see them randomly) that in one episode she introduced herself as “Sabrina” Sotherlyn. That’s bad acting!
What really hurts is her character is so bad. A “limousine liberal” from an apparently rich family who tried far too hard to suck up to Branch. Plus the whole parting line thing - why’d she even ask the question? you think a DA is going to admit to discrimination?
I think that lesbian thing is just Dick Wolf doing a FU as a parting shot, and ER is too clueless to know it’s not an Emmy-bait scene but a putdown.
The actor playing Branch Fred Thompson, who actually did some of his best acting in other venues. (However, I will defend his portrayal of a white supremacist huckster in the old “Wiseguy” series.)