Personally I rather go to a nice and quiet dentist, than to one that party's around; You never know if his hand is stable enough in the morning to give you a painless root-canal. It seems that there're to many actors and actresses cast for the fame of their personal life's and not for their talents. What do I care about their personal life's, when I watch them act I want to believe that they're really that character they're playing, that they're Burt and not Bruce. But to often I see a part of the face they're showing in public. Don't get me wrong, a good actor will dive into his own experiences, feelings, to create a true and believable character, but a lot of that seems to be missing in acting today. They put on different clothes and make-up, say different lines but their character remains more or less the same as the one they played before. Are we so infatuated with their life's that we want/need to see more of that on the screen? Are we so numb that we stop to wonder if they really have any talent at all? So many new names and faces come and go, one much the same as the other, all pretty and perfect, but I don't want perfection, I want character.
Now this is my first blog, so I've no idea where this will go (might also be my last), but I do know who to blame for it.
VINCENT D'ONOFRIO
For those who don't know him, he's the actor that plays the character of Robert Goren in: Law and Order: Criminal Intent. Now I don't like to watch series on TV, I don't have the time and patience to stay home and watch on a specific day and time, but I'll watch series on the internet when I've time(which is probably years after they first aired), and only series that tell a story in 1 (or 2) episodes. I truly hate series like; desperate housewife's, sex in the city, 24 hours etc. there needs to be a beginning and an end to a story.
Anyway I started to watch that serie (season 1 aired in 2001) a few weeks ago and I was impressed by the character played by Vincent D'Onofrio. The thing is, that when you watch a whole serie like that, you can see the character grow, develop, gain more depth, come a live. I also got stuck on the next problem; the character of Robert Goren is complex, he looks at the world with the eyes of a lost puppy, a big teddy-bear with all the hurt hidden that life can trough at you. So where is the line between Vincent and Robert?
So I googled him and they call him an actors actor, an actor with a classical education, an actor who knows how to prepare for a part; the why, where, whom, when, what etc. questions you need to ask to dive into en get to know the character you're playing (leftovers of my own classical drama education). I now know that I saw him before and the fact that I didn't realise that, tells me (did like the movies) that he played different characters and wasn't typecast. Still after so many years of playing Robert Goren I can't help and wonder if the line between Vincent and Robert hasn't blurred!
There aren't many all-round actors left, actors that can play any role you trough at them and make you believe they're that part. Jeff Goldblum played a part in the last seasons of Law and Order: Criminal Intent, an actor I like very much, but he is also to often typecast. Nearly all the characters that he plays are witty, charming and a bit off, no quite normal, a bit eccentric. So the question is: "Is that the only sort of character he can play?" "Or is he just showing us a true part of himself and not playing a character." I can't help but see Jeff Goldblum when I watch him and not the character he plays. What I mean to say is, that I don't get lost in the character he plays, don't laugh and cry with him, feel happy or sad for him, want to kiss or kick him, the make-believe is not real enough for me.
I'll leave it up to whomever is willing to read this to make up their minds about today's actors and the line between reality and fantasy, but perhaps before you do that you should have a look at the great actors of the past. Names like; Burt Lancaster, Greta Garbo, Errol Flynn, Lauren Bacall, Dean Martin, Audrey Hepburn, Humphry Bogart, Bette Davis, James Dean, Elisabeth Taylor, Kirk Douglas, Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracey, Sidney Poitier and Rock Hudson to name a few.
