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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Two things:
1. We’ve come to expect more from our movie stars and actors now-a-days. Instead of them projecting the same persona on screen to keep us interested, we expect certain tics, a general warmth, and facial expressions, but need some flexibility. This is why Julia Roberts finnally won an oscar for the mega-hit Erin Brokevich and not for her glorious, but expected, performance in “My Best Friend’s Wedding.”
2. The problem with Aniston is that she DOES have the range. In “The Good Girl” she was amazing and so un-Rachel. She’s an incredible actress, but goes for a paycheck rather than films that challenge her. I also think part of her problem is that she did so much as Rachel (think of the spoiled princess in season one, the desperate to be in love woman in season 4 with the ross pining, the preganant executive in season 8, and the grown woman looking to settle in season 10) that it’s hard to see anything she does on screen as range. She’s given us to much almost – more than any other movie star today.
I think Michael Cera’s problem is just that there isn’t a wide enough audience for his persona. I love him and I’m fine with him playing that guy for the next 5-10 years, but he appeals to a smaller audience than most.
one movie outside of her comfort zone doesn’t mean she’s a remotely good actress. i loved her as rachel, but she has to show depth at multiple times before i believe she’s anything other than average.
… You do realize that there are plenty of actors that have won an Oscar for just ONE role and really did little else (let alone the women being mentioned here having astonishingly long and scuccessful careers).
I think the criticism comes not so much from the sameness of the characters portrayed, but from a consistent lack of depth or complexity to the character and the situations the character is in that makes the repetition boring. Jack Nicholson perfectly fits in with the description of Bogart and Grant. He plays the role of Jack playing a role. But it is a damn entertaining role that’s worked for almost 50 years.
I would also say that my two favorite actors of all time are also guilty of playing the same (very interesting) role over and over. Clint Eastwood has always been the steel-nerved loner whose soft spot for victims and outcasts leads him to become their righteous protector. Peter O’Toole is the over-the-top personality who shows us our perception of the line between genius and madness isn’t always as clear as we’d like to think.
It’s not always about creating a different character, it’s often about creating a recognizable archetype and playing it in different situations so it remains interesting and entertaining through repeated viewings.
Great piece Owen. I agree that the major culprit these days is the weak screenwriting in countless movies. And what is with all the virulent hatred for Jennifer Aniston around the internet?? In reading some comments you’d think she literally gotten away with murder or something equally heinous. I admit somethimes I think she needs to be more selective in what films she chooses to do, but on the other hand, I suppose she just wants to work and takes opportunities whenever they arise.
There really isn’t a lot of hatered for these ladies. I find it’s just a lot of jealous, lame women that frequent this site that can’t seen to handle there being successful, attractive, intelligent women that speak their minds and take control of their lives and careers out there. Heigl seems to be a praticulr target for these green-eyes monsters. Ugh.
She is very pretty she just can’t act….in a serious dramatic role. She needs to go back to TV maybe where she was very good.
Men. You are so….lame. Of course we must be jealous of a woman who’s remotely attractive…
Not. I’m not a fan of Jennifer Aniston, Gwyneth Paltrow, Julia Roberts – but I DO LIKE Angelina Jolie, Sandra Bullock, and even Kathrine Heigl at times….is that too difficult for your little sexist mind to picture? Geez. Give us credit for having well-thought out opinions, esp. when we explain why we think and feel what we do. Can’t stand that kind of redneck thinking.
I’m not a “hatred-filled lady [who] frequents this site” but I can tell you that the dislike for Aniston is complex yet understandable. Someone above made a really interesting comment on how Aniston’s real life is almost inseparable from her reel life, and that has become her downfall (in terms of her IMAGE, not her acting abilities.) People watched her and fell in love with her as Rachel. They fell even more in love with her and Brad. But after the end of Friends and the end of Brad, people expected her to immediately become this strong, independent woman in real life and on the screen. Their projections of their hopes and dreams of who the “ultimate woman” should be rested on Aniston’s shoulders. But Aniston didn’t immediately become that heroine. She dated guys who clearly were of lower status than Brad, and she took roles that clearly were beneath Rachel. She didn’t cut her paycheck to prove she was no victim and that she could dive into meaty roles; she played the same single woman looking for love victim role over and over again. She kept the same hair cut, the same outfits, the same outlook while asking for the same (if not slightly higher) paycheck. Now Aniston is 41, still single, still doing rom-coms and still loaded — and some women despise that. In their minds, the question is, how can some woman with so much “power” come across so empty? (empty as in shallow, shallow as in “depth free”) While you’ve got “nemesis” Angelina over here with 6 kids, handsome man, saving the world and such, Jen is still just Rachel, or at in some roles, Rachel’s shadow. Even Sandra Bullock–people loved her before Jesse but love her even more now that her body language reads “stronger” than ever. Women love that. I’m not saying any of these projections of women’s hopes and dreams are justified and that Aniston needed to prove herself to anyone but herself, but I’m trying to explain just why there is so much dislike, jealousy, and disappointment in her, to the point where we nitpick her clothes, her body, her hair, her photos, etc. Jen failed to be the hero so many women wanted her to her to be, plain and simple.
I am a not an Angie fan either but she can act. JA will never get those types of roles.
Wonderful analysis. You really must be a psychoanalyzer. Thanks for explaining it so well, it makes a lot of sense.
When’s the last time Denzel Washington didn’t play Denzel? Sean Connery, George Clooney, and Tom Cruise are in that boat. Still enjoy watching them. Think this article is spot on and people nowadays are just looking for something to complain about.
How about in “Much Ado About Nothing?” Or “Philadelphia”? Denzel Washington is not one I would have picked as having this “sameness” problem.
How about the Book of Eli, even though the movie sucked. Or Training Day. Denzel has good range.
I hope you werent; trying to use Much Ado or Philadelphis to point out Washington’s range. ‘Cause… no. Not that he doesn’t have range, but these are really poor examples.
Great article though I’m not sure I agree. Katherine Hepburn had a very distinctive look/way of talking, so I suppose in some ways that qualifies as sameness, but she was in a wide variety of movies playing a huge palette of roles, across different eras, using different accents, etc. Another actress you mention in your article as being guilty of always being the same, is Bette Davis, which again, I couldn’t disagree with more. Watch Jezebel, Old Acquaintance, and All About Eve in a row…it’s like three different actresses who happen to have some same striking eyes. And again, completely different FILMS. What Aniston and Cera are guilty of is playing the same roles IN THE SAME MOVIES. Cera does these quirky, indie little films and plays quirky, indie guys. Aniston does romantic comedies and plays this cute, wholesome, forgeous funny girl next door, every time. It’s not the perormance that’s the same…it’s the role, the film, the wardrobe, everything. So I think it’s a tough comparison to make. Another difference is era. Back then, stars were so much more distant…no one knew, really, who Jimmy Stewart was, so they went to see a Jimmy Stewart movie, and maybe he did have a persona across the films. But now, with us knowing everything about everybody and seeing their faces in tabloids every day, that allure is gone, and really, what we see is Jennifer Aniston and Michael Cera continuously playing THEMSELVES…which again I think is a worse “crime.” That being said, I actually think Aniston and Cera are amazing at what they do; I think they are both gifted performers who probably just haven’t been challenged enough.
Well Said K. I agree about the fact that the “stars” nowadays are so accessible that you want to see a noticable difference to their characters and their everday personality or appearance.
My problem isn’t with an actress doing the same character. Or an actor. I think its true that many of our “great” actors of the Golden Age of Hollywood were quite often guilty of not varying their characters.
The difference was it was the same character in a variety of great movies. Sure, Katharine Hepburn played the same character. But she played it in completely different movies. Whereas no matter how much I love Jennifer Aniston, the plot of her movies doesn’t change. And maybe that’s the problem. The plot of popular movies today are of a lesser caliber. That makes it easier to notice repetitive character type.
EXACTLY. well said.
I’ve never understood Jennifer Aniston’s appeal beyond “Friends” or “The Good Girl” (Yes I liked “Friends with Money”, but she was the weak link). Lisa Kudrow is much more talented, but then she wasn’t handed a film career as she didn’t marry Brad Pitt. The irony is that she maintains a film career by constantly playing the victim card. As CDAN points out, if she were to ever actually find happiness in real life, she wouldn’t be able to coast on the sympathy of insecure women who herald this “retard” spewing, heavy pot smoker as America’s sweetheart.
“The irony is that she maintains a film career by constantly playing the victim card”
uh..what does that even mean?
the only reason she gets as much publicity as she does these days is because she’s still playing the “poor pitiful me” card from the break-up with brad. look at her roles. she’s always the unlucky in love girl or the one trying to find a man, which plays up her public persona.
She’s played that way too long. She is no longer an ingenue. She’s sneaking up on becoming another scary Terry Hatcher type.
I don’t think she plays the victim at all. I think people see her that way because as far as they know she doesn’t have another Brad Pitt on her arm. But with all the pot-smoking and margarita-drinking she does in Mexico with friends and handsome men, I don’t see how she couldn’t be happy. Happiness isn’t “married with children” for everyone. As far as her movie roles, romantic comedies are all “unlucky girl in love” stories, and for all we know that is all she is offered. Who knows? But it seems like the real problem people have with her is that she’s not married again. Since she’s not, you imagine it’s because she’s pining after Brad. It’s been like five years. She’s over him.
I’m not sure she ever needed to get “over” him. I think she had to get over him getting over her. She seems too shallow to have been very heavily emotionally invested in him. He was Ken to her Barbie. He always wanted kids and she didn’t. So maybe that says something about why the marriage went south. Selfish people end up alone.
“Heavy pot smoker” – I’ve never heard that before. I’ve heard it about Brad yes, but not Jennifer. Anything true about this? Because it does seem a little bit more personal than we’ve been reading about…
i’m surprised the author didn’t consider the possibility that those who are complaining about this were never great fans of the actor/star in the first place.
Jennifer does what she likes. Judging by her interviews, she doesn’t seem to care (or most of the time even know) what the magazines are saying about her. She’s an amazing actress and has showed her range a tiny bit with movies like Derailed, Friends with Money and the Good Girl- but when it comes down to it, she sticks to what she likes. She has more fun playing the girl next door- and she’s really freakin good at it, so what the heck?
If she sticks to that plan much longer, she’ll be playing the old woman next door.
I agree with this about some actors (like Cera, hating on him is silly since he’s character works even if it’s the same rehashed thing). In Aniston’s case I think you are wrong. Why? Because I feel like the problem is that it’s her made for tv character which she has tried to fit into a movie landscape (square object into round hole). And, so, it’s offensive since tv and movies for me are SO apples and oranges. Yet many people would like to think of movies as just upgraded tv with bigger budget shows. And Aniston seems to have successfully rode that wave, kinda, into movie success. Yet it feels false, like a poisoning of cinema. Since cinema, to me at least, is an alien form of art when compared to tv. So when Aniston is doing her character from “Friends” on the big screen it really makes it obvious how paper thin tv performances are in the first place. I don’t even think her performance in “Marley & Me” was as great as you made. I think Owen Wilson carried that movie, ironically, because he changed up his performance a bit. That good movie could have been better if only he had a decent MOVIE actress to share the screen with (the minute I saw Aniston in that wedding dress in the opening scene, I realized that “Nope. Rachel doesn’t work for this movie.) Anyway, I think your off on this one (yes, rare for you, I know) and it’s a bit offensive that a smart reviewer like you is ‘okay’ with the homogenization of cinema the way of the television. Shame, shame…
Just because you aren’t a fan of Aniston isn’t a reason to trash television actors altogether. I think there are quite a few people who would agree with me that performances by Terry O’Quinn and Michael Emmerson from Lost, Glenn Close (a “MOVIE actress” to use your phrase) in Damages and Bryan Cranston in Breaking Bad are anything but “paper thin.” And those are just programs from here in the US. There are also quite excellent programs from across the pond, featuring the likes of (Oscar winner) Helen Mirren that are exceptional. They aren’t snobbish about television, so perhaps you shouldn’t be either. Television holds its own, and sometimes excels, in terms of story and acting these days and is showing a lot more diversity and innovation than you will find at the local cineplex. I love films. I really do. However, the hard truth is, few of the films I’ve seen lately even come close to what is on tv these days.
@Bren, I don’t think “u r wrong” is trashing tv actors. I think his point is that its hard for a regular tv performer to have a successful career in movies especially when they or the audience can’t separate them from the tv role. In Aniston’s case, since she apparently doesn’t have the range or desire to separate Rachel from the movie work, her characters and movies are repetitious. He is clearly talking about the paper thin performances of Aniston which she brings to the big scree.
@Bren… TV is garbage and does NOT hold its own. with few exceptions (Seinfeld, HBO programming, etc.) television is the nutraloaf of art.
Thanks,Bren. I also thought of Felicity Huffman,who got a well-deserved Oscar nod for starring in the film Transamerica.
Bren is absolutely RIGHT about television being better than movies these days. There is a lot of good tv right now, SUPERB tv, and I can’t think of a single movie out right now that I would watch over Mad Men or Dexter or True Blood. Certainly not hour for hour, although admittedly I’m not well-informed on what indies are showing. If you think tv is garbage, you aren’t watching the right tv, and you’re being a snob. Turn off the Kardashians and turn on AMC, Showtime, HBO, or FX. That’s just for the truly flawless in television programming, but you can still be easily entertained by shows on USA, TNT, and a few others and not be ashamed to tell your friends what you watched last night. I’m thinking of Burn Notice, Covert Affairs, Psych, The Closer, all of which are clever and fun in their own way, but aren’t exactly Mad Men or Breaking Bad. No, tv is the best it’s probably ever been right now–movies aren’t better just because they cost more to make and have bigger names (sometimes). That’s just ignorant.
I could not disagree more. The last few years films have frankly sucked. Scripts are boring, unoriginal or trying so hard to be quirky and interesting that they’re just bizarre. There is so much great tv out there with fine performances where, because of the medium itself, you get to know characters much better than movies since you see them every week. This is an outdated attitude. Nowadays tv holds its own against films in every way from acting to production. Of course there’s crappy tv, but there are just as many if not more crappy movies.
What movies are you watching? Because I’ve seen plenty of really good ones in the past few years.
This is Acting 101, you want to bring as much of yourself to a character as possible to anchor that character. Respected actors who we see this in include: Denzel Washington, Kate Winslet, Harrison Ford,Julia Roberts, Morgan Freeman, Penelope Cruz, Tommy Lee Jones, Michael Cane, Gwyneth Paltrow, Clint Eastwood, Reese Witherspoon, Javier Bardem, Kevin Spacey. What separates good actors like those above, and average actors like Anniston and Cera isn’t the variation, but the choices they make as that character that draw you in and keep you interested.
Excellent post! I agree.
Agree, but you failed to mention Robert Duvall, Judi Dench, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Dustin Hoffman, or Johnny Depp.
And you failed to mention Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett. And I’m sure I falied to mention many many others.
That’s a good point, too. But I do think that Aniston and Cera deserve better roles. Ever since ‘The Good Girl’ and ‘Juno’, respectively, they seem to be typecasted in these comedic roles AGAIN and AGAIN.
if jennifer would have followed up, say, the good girl with another indie drama or an action flick or something, she wouldn’t be “typecast”. her choices have put her in this corner where nobody’s going to see her as anything other than rachel green.
@…: Well, maybe typecast was the wrong word for Aniston. But it seems like apart from those 2 indie films, she always resorts to rom-coms.
I disagree that it is their ‘choices’ that is an issue, as Aniston has more than proved her acting shops in indie films like The Good Girl. I think that either Aniston is being pigeonholed by casting directors (into the same parts) or she has poor selection skills. That recent film with Aaron Eckhart was just a bad film (even great actors can’t overcome a disaster like that, and they didn’t).
Ralph Fiennes! Hands down one if not the best.
Ooops posted under the wrong comment.
Was going to say the same!!! Ralph Fiennes, Cillian Murphy and Daniel Day Lewis are three incredible actors who mix it up. I mean going from a Nazi, to a charming gentleman, to Voldemort (each of which are arguably oscar winning performances).
And then the sweet cherry on the cake is that they are less well known and ‘famous’ than the likes of Aniston, who doesnt even act, she literally plays herself with hairstyle and clothes included in EVERY film, even the good girl which is about ten years old was a one-note performance.
I think I prefer the fact that European actors are less famous than their American counterparts. It feels like they do roles then to challenge themselves as oppose to make themselves lovable and to get on the covers of all the mags.
@Sophia: I wouldn’t give him an Oscar for Voldemort, but he was very well cast and definitely one of the best performances in a children’s book adaptation in a while.
Excellent Post, Christopher. I definitely agree.
This pursuit of “cred” and “authenticity” is a most inauthentic philosophy for a medium devoted to re-creation, re-production, re-presentation. Hepburn and Bogart and Stewart and Grant were of a time when no one wanted authenticity in their entertainment. They wanted drama, or comedy, or vicarious adventure. Perhaps it was because in the Depression and World War II there was way too much authentic life going on. Perhaps ever since the Fifties we’ve been weaned away from authenticity in our own real lives, so now we demand it from our entertainment.
Y is jenny & julia top $ actors? They can’t touch Mery! The peeps that pay too see these 2 talentless actresses need some culture/help!
They’re not talentless. Not everyone can be Meryl Streep. In fact the only actress who comes close is Helen Mirren.
I disagree. IMHO Dame Judi Dench and Emma Thompson belong on that same level. Anniston on the other hand belongs on a shelf with Heather Locklear.
Stormy, I couldn’t agree more. It’s grotesque that Aniston seems to be out pushing yet another mediocre movie every 6 months or so, while you only infrequently see fantastic actresses like Kristen Scott-Thomas and Mare Winningham, to cite a couple of other examples.
Aniston just needs to chose better material; again, she’s more than proven her acting chops with multiple indie films were she was awesome. Lyn, I’d put Mare one shelf below Locklear – ugh. Thomas also has a movie selection issue (like Aniston) – only she chooses dull, arty films that don’t do much traffic.
You need to add Cate Blanchette to that list.
@Stormy: Well, of course, but I meant that Mirren is 2nd.
Julia may not be a top actor in terms of critical acclaim but she was a top movie star when it comes to making bank. She was the first actress to make $20 million for a film.
I think this about Ben Stiller. I don’t really like watching his movies to much because I would really like to see him do something different.
Stiller makes me uncomfortable. He seems to have zero sense of humor.
I completely agree with this article. I am tired of hearing people bash actors who appear to be doing the same thing in every movie. Sometimes I’ll go see a movie mainly because of the actor whose in it. Not because I expect him/her to do something completely different, but because I enjoy watching them on screen regardless. Not every actor needs to be a chameleon for me to respect.
Michael Cera is definitely one of those actors who’s a “repeat performer” in a lot of movies. That doesn’t really bother me. I enjoy him because he’s him. Althought in Scott Pilgirm if you do watch his performance closely you can tell it’s a little different. He’s not changing himself completely, but it’s not exactly the same character either.