Those gifted, but underappreciated, actors
(Sometime last fall, I penned, well, technically pencilled, a reflection on acting. Recalling, as I wrote my Oscar Reflections piece, that I had never typed it up, I decided to do so on a day when people are thinking about movies and acting.)
I often pick as favorite actors those whose brilliance in minor roles rarely (if ever) leads to popular acclaim. Well before her Oscar for The Queen, I had been a fan of Helen Mirren, largely because of her brilliant, subtle performance in Gosford Park. Fortunately, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences acknowledged her for that achievement with an Oscar nomination.
But, other performances which I appreciate often don’t get such acclaim.
Just this past week (that is, the week I wrote this reflection), I bought a DVD collection at Barnes & Noble because it was on sale and because several of the films featured three such actors, Ciarán Hinds in “Ivanhoe” and Jane Eyre, Jonathan Firth and Nigel Hawthorne in Victoria & Albert.
I first took note of Hinds in Titanic Town, later appreciated his performances in There Will Be Blood and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. And then there was his Julius Cæsar in “Rome”. Of all the actors I have seen play the celebrated Roman, Hinds least looked the part, yet most captured the essence of the complex tyrant, ruthless in politics and battles, magnanimous to his defeated adversaries, convinced he alone could save Rome.
I had first seen Firth in the 1994 BBC adaptation of “Middlemarch” were he captured the essence of Fred Vincy, the spoiled son of a prosperous 19th century merchant, a young man who most needed discipline and guidance. We hear more about Firth’s gifted older brother Colin. But, the younger Firth is no less a talented than his Oscar-nominated (for A Single Man) brother. It’s just that he has excelled in less high profile productions.
Such men remind me of another favorite of small-scale productions, Tobias Menzies whose turn as Brutus in the first season of Rome absolutely floored me. He well captured the conflicted Roman aristocrat, particularly at the moment of Cæsar’s assassination in which he was a reluctant participant.
And finally, let me include an actress of yore, the late Gladys George whose turn as the aging chanteuse/barkeep is the real standout in the Cagney/Bogart gangster film, The Roaring Twenties. To be sure, Cagney and Bogart deliver outstanding performances, but we’ve seen such characters before, indeed they played almost the same characters–with almost the same conflict–in Angels with Dirty Faces. George captures the sadness and hopes of a woman who loves a man who himself loves a woman who loves another–while blind to the affection her Panama Smith feels for him.
She plays a similar character in entirely different circumstances in the 1946 classic The Best Years of Our Lives where she shines in the few brief moments she has on screen.
And yet how many, save us film buffs, are aware of such talents, often superior to those of many more celebrated in the entertainment industry, even among professional actors? When I recently asked an acquaintance, an actor, what he thought of Hinds, he didn’t even recognize the name.
Those who love good movies should all recognize that name as well as that of Jonathan Firth and Gladys George. They may not be able to drive a movie as can stars like Sandra Bullock, Bogart, Cagney or Tom Hanks, but they help make those movies entertaining and enlightening as well as allowing such stars to shine even brighter.
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How about Shawn Ashmore and his brotherJason?
On the XX side of the chromosome, I’ll toss in the two forgotten Battlestar Babes Kandyse McClure and Nikki Clyne.
Comment by The_Livewire — March 7, 2010 @ 5:08 pm - March 7, 2010
Is there any more over-appreciated profession than acting? The year-long season of self-congratulatory celebration already began with the Golden Globes, and ends….well, never.
Aside from the endless awards shows (there’s the Golden Globes, the Oscars, the People’s Choice, Cannes, SAG awards, NAACP image awards, Spirit Awards, Razzies, MTV Movie Awards, Tony Awards, Emmy Awards, Nicolodeon Kids Choice Awards, and on and on…) they have entire aisles of magazines talking about them, multiple television shows devoted to following their every move.
Even actors whose name no one knows are recognized and praised daily. Aren’t you ______? You were really good in _______!
Indeed, I suspect that “appreciating actors” is, in itself, a multi-billion dollar industry.
You know who is under-appreciated? Janitors, accountants, clerks, hygienists, secretaries…in short, everyone who ISN’T an actor. How many awards shows do they get?
Actors, on the other hand, are perhaps THE most over-appreciated people on the planet. And they begin reminding us how much they appreciate themselves tonight!
Comment by American Elephant — March 7, 2010 @ 5:38 pm - March 7, 2010
TGC, I linked the video of Bullock accepting the trophy in my Oscar post.
Comment by B. Daniel Blatt — March 7, 2010 @ 5:51 pm - March 7, 2010
Oscars, the gay man’s Olympics
Comment by LCRW — March 7, 2010 @ 8:38 pm - March 7, 2010
Really? I thought the Olympics were pretty gay to begin with.
Comment by American Elephant — March 7, 2010 @ 8:48 pm - March 7, 2010
These movie actors are no more talented than the actors in my local community theatre. They just have agents. And ambition. If we want to truly honor underappreciated actors, go to your local community theatre and shake their hands. They offer deeper and more lasting performances for no fame and no salaries–just the love of acting.
Comment by Ashpenaz — March 7, 2010 @ 9:59 pm - March 7, 2010
Acting, and other performing arts, are by their very nature congratulatory. Even community actors, if they can manage to get on and offstage without tripping, vomiting or killing someone are rewarded with applause and ovations. And because people who seek out applause and recognition fill the industry, there is no more congratulatory industry that I know of. Not only every performance, but at every rehearsal, actors are praising and supporting each other. The only actors who are unappreciated are those who cant get work. If you really want to find an unappreciate actor, go to Hollywood and go to a restaraunt, or a bar or walk down the street. All those people youve never seen before and will never see again, who pay their bills doing other jobs because they cant get a job acting are the only unappreciated actors. If an actor has work, they get appreciation just about every day. In fact, my experience has been that the appreciation, the applause, is about 95% of why actors want to go into acting to begin with.
The unappreciated people are all the awards that dont make it onto the Oscar show. And the rest of America that has no awards show for their industries to begin with.
Where are the awards shows for our troops? police men? or even just the clerks who help us find what we’re looking for?
Sorry, I just cannot think of a more OVER-appreciated, and in so many cases undeservedly so, group of people on Earth than actors.
Comment by American Elephant — March 8, 2010 @ 12:36 am - March 8, 2010
(Actually, I take that back, a transexual performance artist projectile vomitted all over Susan Sarandon on the Lower East Side a week or two ago, and Sarandon’s publicist couldnt stop praising the performance and saying how much Sarandon loved it, so apparently actors CAN vomit and still get praised…especially if they belong to the right victim group!)
Comment by American Elephant — March 8, 2010 @ 12:59 am - March 8, 2010
Well, as far as self-congrats go, there’s always congress.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — March 8, 2010 @ 7:47 am - March 8, 2010
And the media!
Comment by American Elephant — March 8, 2010 @ 9:58 am - March 8, 2010