Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot of bellyaching from readers about actors who, you say, essentially give the same performance in film after film. Read the full post.
Aug 21
2010
01:09 PM ET
Jennifer Aniston, Michael Cera, and, you know, Katharine Hepburn: Is it bad when an actor is always the same?
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A great modern example is Paul Rudd. His characters change a LOT from film to film (hard to argue that his roles in Clueless, The Shape of Things, Anchorman, Role Models, and I Love You Man have much in common with each other), but he has the same jokey, affable quality in all these roles that makes them “Paul Rudd”-like. He’s a great in-between, not a chameleon, per se, but has the chops to make each character unique and yet also make it uniquely “him”.
Also, Vince Vaughn has played pretty much the same character since Old School, but I’m totally ok with that.
Perfect example!
Great example! It’s a thin line for an actor to walk when it comes to shaping their own sort of recognizable acting without seeming like they play the same character all the time.
VERY true.
To be fair, there are points in Aniston’s ‘above-average’ romance movies (The Good Girl, He’s Just Not That Into You) that mark seriousness. I wouldn’t call her one note, but it would be nice to see her pick a ‘Up in the Air’- or ‘Precious’-esque role where she leaves her comfort zone completely.
Yeah, I totally agree with Paul Rudd. I find it hard to imagine that anyone would dislike him.
I thought he was a little different in Jurassic Park, actually. If you can stretch in a big box office special effects drama, then you have potential. Unfortunately, it seems like he’s taken the easy road since then. I’d like to see what he’s capable of…
I wonder if the problem isn’t necessarily that the actor, and this would apply to Aniston and not Cera’s recent film choices, plays the same character but rather that the actor picks the same film, in which they’re the same character, over and over again. If Aniston took her personality and tried to make a drama, The Good Girl, then it feels like variety was at least attempted. But remaking the same romantic comedy over and over again? Of course people are going to complain.
Exactly!
Great point Kris!
Yes, and to embellish the point a little, I would note that Cera is a very young guy, and so has not made nearly as many dull, unimaginative, repetitive movie decisions as Aniston has@
She can say no! or apparently not.
She’s probably trying to earn as much money as she can before she hits 45 or so and “ages out” of Hollywood.
She could do so well on television but it seems like she thought after Friends she would graduate to movies and tv would be beneath her.
What’s Michael Cera’s career going to be like when he gets older and he’s doing his same old stuff? At some point he’s just going to look ridiculous. But maybe he adapts like Ron Howard and does some other aspect of film like direct.
Al Pacino. He plays the same over-the-top character over and over again. I can’t even imagine him playing a nuanced role.
Couldn’t agree more with that.
Pacino was understated and nuanced in the original Godfather. He hasn’t tried to do that again since.
He’s been doing it up to Insomnia.
Check out Donnie Brasco. That is a nuanced performance, beautifully rendered.
Al Pacino did a wonderful performance in the HBO movie You Don’t Know jack
I agree with you, Owen. I don’t think every actor is required to disappear into a role, and there are many great actors who simply can’t do that. I don’t have anything against Jennifer Aniston types on principle, but they do grate when, like Aniston, they churn out one mediocre film after another. At least Michael Cera usually shows up in quality material. Overall it’s the films that matter.
As a huge fan of old movies, I love the classic movie stars and their movies. Probably because the writing in the best of them was so much sharper, subtler, and more playful. The studio system did, on occasion, manage to find the exact right formula for the right actors.
Very few actors are chameleons, and those that are rarely make it to the status of true movie star. The fact that Meryl Streep is such a rare talent is one reason why she should be treasured. Very few actors can do what she does. The word, after all, is extra-ordinary.
When I think of chameleons, the other actor I think of besides Meryl Streep is Johnny Depp. I’m rather amazed that the same actor could convincingly play Edward Scissorhands, Willy Wonka, The Mad Hatter, Sweeney Todd, Captain Jack Sparrow and then take on more low-key roles in “Finding Neverland” and “Chocolat.” The breadth of his roles is definitely noteworthy.
i’m not a depp fan but i agree with that.
Agree. Love Johnny Depp! He needs an Oscar.
Oscars are overrated. I mean, jesus, Sandra Bullock has one, Julia Roberts, I think I have one somewhere…it’d probably be better for his street cred to not get one until he receives an Honorary Oscar when he’s 80 years old and it’ll be like it was when Susan Lucci won the Emmy.
My biggest problem with the arguement that Aniston always plays the same character is that it is just not true. The Good Girl and Friends With Money are proof of that. Maybe not an aresenal of different character works, but Aniston was brilliant in both, which is more than a lot of other actors can say when trying to “strecth” themselves. Aside from that, if Aniston chooses to pay similar characters to frequent my movie screens, then that is fine with me. And she is not the only actor out there who does this, I find her “nemesis” Angelina Jolie to do the same thing, she either plays tortured, or a tortured badass, and when she tries her hand at comedy, it never works. I have heard many an actor say that comedy is much harder than drama, that those who do comedy well have a “gift.” Aniston has this gift.
I bet Jennifer Ainiston is not offered many “different” parts. I bet she has piles of basically the same script and its her job to wade through it all and try to find the best out of the bunch. It can be hard to turn down the bird in the hand- particularly if you are a work-a-holic.
Jolie doesn’t change? She’s no Merle Streep -no one is – But like her or not she has star power and she’s no one trick pony: Gia, Girl Interrupted, wife of southern governor George Wallace,A Mighty Heart . . . From 1998-2009 she’s received 16 awards-None for being a “badass: – Read up: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelina_Jolie)
Boo hiss hiss!! Team Jolie all the way….(For strictly theatrical reasons of course).
It isn’t whether or not an actor plays “the same character” in every movie. You could make that argument with just about any actor. It is whether the actor brings any talent, charm or charisma to the role. And let’s face it, Michael Cera and charisma are a contradiction in terms. Jennifer Aniston’s problem is that her real life and her reel life seem inseperable. I get the feeling she supplies her own wardrobe in her films as she and her characters don’t really seem all that different even on that simple level.
If you look at Anniston’s interviews, she seems the same in her films. Same short, tight clothes, no matter what the character does for a living, same hair, same “cuteness”, no matter the character’s age. Why spend money if you can get it for free? True, others do it too (Julia Robert’s laugh annoys me no end, though Sandra Bullock has done some things different-she was the same for quite awhile and I like Clooney, but Up in the Air was just him, being him) but her case just seems so cloying.
Watch more Aniston films – like the good ones you’ve obviously missed.
First, I think Michael Cera is quite funny, though I don’t think he can do the same schtick when he gets older. And I can definitely separate Jennifer Aniston’s real life (which I don’t even think is that interesting) from her performance.
Adam Sandler is always the same crazy guy; he’s a jerk at first and then turns into the sweet good guy in every single movie he’s been in. And yes, Michael Cera is always the same and he sucks! He’s always the shy dorky guy that goes for a girl that’s wayy out of his league and ends up winning the girl. Are you kiddin’ me? No wonder the movies that he’s the main star in suck at the box office, for instance nick and norah and scott pilgrim
The problem with Aniston isn’t that she doesn’t have range, it’s that she keeps doing the same type of movies. The women in romcoms don’t really have personalities, so…
That’s not true. (500) Days of Summer? Shakespeare in Love? Valentine’s Day? Okay, so maybe not Valentine’s Day, but they do have personalities.
I wouldn’t include Shakespeare in Love, either. Because it unfortunately starred Gwyneth Paltrow – another obnoxious, overhyped actress in my view.
Will Ferrell. Same character every movie-the man-child.
In those types of movies, yes. Try Stranger Than Fiction – good movie.
Have you ever noticed that comic actors make great, unsettling villains (see John Lithgow, Martin Short). Time to go evil Mr. Ferrell!
Um, are we forgetting Mugatu aka Jacob Moogberg?
Its not how many different people you can play, but how many emotions you can convey convincingly. See Jack Nicholson.
Hugh Grant is a classic example of this. His movies may all just be called Hugh’s Next Adventure, since that is what they are. However, I go to all his movies to see that same lovable English bloke, if it was a different character I’d be upset. Definitely not a character that gets tiring.
I think he varied it somewhat in About a Boy, which I loved. He wasn’t his usual “stammering, insecure yet charming” persona. He was a cocky jerk and he played it brilliantly.
Yeah, I have to agree: Boy was Grant’s best acting role to date. And the movie has the second distinction of introducing the fantastic young actor Nicholas Hoult.
Also he was brilliant in Bridget Jones. Not only a cocky jerk, but a charmingly delicious Bad Boss. Turned me into a fan right there! Maybe Aniston should do something like that, to show her range. Like Signourney Weaver in Working Girl. Hilariously bad boss. Awesome.
I always say that even though i’m young, I prefer the actors of the 30s-60s because the fact that they played themselves made them more real to me than a method actor trying to do some chameleon thing a la Johnny Depp. For example had Robert Mitchum played the part that Javier Bardem played in No Country for Old Men there wouldn’t have had any fake hair or any schtick involved, it would have been just Mitchum playing tough and it would have been as convincing, if not more. But please do not even metion Cera in this. He’s not an actor.
Johnny Depp isn’t a method actor.
CERA IS NOT THE SAME IN “SCOTT PILGRIM”! If people would go see that the the piece of crap Vampires Suck maybe they’d know what they’re talking about. Julia Roberts on the other hand….same in every movie: Cue her smiling, cue her acting tough and end with her laugh.;)
Nooooo!! Not the …LAUGH….I hate it so much….:(