Are The Most Famous Actors Really Good Actors?

We are in a great ironic age where emotion is suspect. You could never make " Casablanca" today-the comedy yes but not the raw emotion of that disastrous thwarted love.

 

Worse than Keanu?

 

Go watch Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Taylor could act very well when she was in the right role. There are cases where even bona fide movie stars have had to go out and actually act in a role that really challenged them in terms of what they've done before. I'm reminded of Charlize Theron in Monster, where she allowed herself to look really, really scuzzy, with very little makeup. Cher also made the transition to a fairly serious actress in the 1980s. So it does happen.

I don't think there was a more famous actor on the planet than John Wayne back in the 1950s, but his role in The Searchers was a lot tougher, crueler, and more emotional than anything he had done up to that point. I dislike a lot of westerns, but that's a great film by any measure, and Wayne is strikingly good in it.

 

Yes. I agree. Albee just passed b/t/w.

 

Keanu is not bad. ''River's Edge'', ''My Own Private Idaho'', ''Scanner Darkly'' or "The Neon Demon'' and ''Constantine''.

 

The most famous and iconic actors in Hollywood played themselves in most cases; John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant.

One actor I really admired, who really disappeared into his role was the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

 

I've seen 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf' at least a couple of times over the years. It's never convinced me that Taylor was a good actress. (She screams a lot in that film and uses that fake accent.) Taylor at best was 'adequate' in some roles, but never a very good or great actress. 'Monster' isn't my favourite Theron role - for me, I could see her 'act' in that. It's a showcase role for her -"Hey, look at me. I'm a serious actress. I'm really so beautiful but I'm wearing all this makeup to make me ugly. See, I'm ACTING" - so the attention is directed at her and not necessarily the performance. The art of 'acting' should never be that obvious. I think Cher is very good in several roles, for two reasons - that she picked roles that suited her own personality and her abilities, and that she aspired to be a better actress than she was before. My theory regarding Taylor is that since her childhood she got away with being an actress and being praised for her acting based upon her beauty. I don't really see much of any progress between the quality of her acting as a child compared to adulthood.

Wayne is perhaps the most unrated and maligned major Hollywood star when it comes to criticism of his acting ability. Beyond 'The Searchers' there are many other films that demonstrate how good, even great of an actor he was: 'Stagecoach',' 'They Were Expendable', 'The Quiet Man', the Ford/ Wayne cavalry trilogy, 'The Cowboys', etc. 'Red River' predates 'The Searchers' with a similar type character. (There's a famous quotation - a back handed compliment - of John Ford regarding Wayne in 'Red River', "I never knew that big son of a bitch could act". ) I find most people who dismiss Wayne as an actor do so out of ignorance and prejudice and have no idea what they're talking about.

 

I love John Wayne in ''The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance'', one of my favorite films.

 

There's no accounting for good taste.

 

Not always. But Jennifer Lawrence, for instance, who I think is the highest paid female actress at the moment, is IMO a very good actress.

 

Some are; some aren't. Among the old (and unfortunately, some are deceased) guard, I consider Paul Newman an excellent actor. Surely Dustin Hoffman is versatile, playing a host of different characters. I just like Michael Caine and find him imminently interesting, in almost anything.

Among the new(er) guard, Phillip Seymour Hoffman (RIP) was a brilliant actor, IMO. Naomi Watts is great as well, but she hasn't lived up to her early career (maybe because really good scripts are few and far between). Viggo Mortenson has actually surprised me, rising out of his Lord of the Rings persona to greater heights. A personal favorite is Gael Garcia Bernal (his movies up brilliant to not so.)

I think Tom Cruise is overrated, but my wife doesn't. Raquel Welch -- not so hot as an actress, but she definitely could communicate with body language.

Edit: Correction to spelling of Welch's name -- thanks to another poster.

 

You beat me to it with John Wayne in The Searchers, he should have won best actor Oscar for this rather than True Grit IMHO. The Duke was a true Movie Star and as such his own persona tended to take over a lot of the roles he played. The first time I saw The Searchers I really wasn't sure how the movie would end and what Ethan Edwards would do when he finally found his niece and as a result, it is to me, an incredibly moving scene when he does find her and that is because by then you've bought into his portrayal and come as close as it can possibly be to forget it is John Wayne. He also gives a great performance in The Shootist which of course when watched retrospectively has a tremendous poignancy to the role of the dying Gunslinger given The Duke's condition and in essence it was an epitaph to his own movie career as much as it was to the character.

However, not to divert this any further into a John Wayne direction I agree there is a difference between a 'movie star' who has the charisma or whatever it is to bring in the audience to a 'great actor' who has the ability to bring a role to life without their own persona taking over. Daniel Day Lewis springs immediately to mind here, whilst one can debate the merits of Lincoln as a movie (for the record I enjoyed it) Lewis' performance for me was tremendous to the point of forgetting he was the actor... Some great actors are also genuine stars and vice versa.

 

Agreed, I think similar to how Clint Eastwood is / was judged as an actor as well by some.

 

She was great in Mulholland Drive, she should have been nominated for an Academy Award. But since then, nothing I've seen her in has matched that performance.

 

You mean Raquel Welch? Her best performance as an actress in Myra Breckinridge.

 

Agreed. I did like her in The Painted Veil, though Mulholland Drive has -- so far -- been the high point of her career.

 

I've never rated Elizabeth Taylor. I don't get the fascination with her. I think a lot of the old school Hollywood stars are often quite wooden in films. I think their glamour and notoriety clouds people's judgement.

I'm not a big Meryl Streep fan. I like a few of her films (Silkwood, Death Becomes Her, Postcards from the Edge), but she's spent the last two decades taking on gimmicky roles that enable her to show off and to be the one and only Meryl Streep. The Academy have such a hard on for her. I think a quarter of her Oscar nominations were undeserving.

 

He was very good in John Wick.

John Wick 2 should be coming out sometime early next year. I think in February.

 

Leonardo DiCaprio is probably one of the most famous/hottest actors right now and I think he is also one of the best. Similarly, Matthew McConaughey is too. They both can pull off many different types of roles. They are very diverse.

 

The very best actors are certainly not necessarily the most famous. The most famous tend to be the ones that are in the movies that make the most money.

I think, as mentioned before me, Philip J Hoffman was spectacular. I think Paul Giamatti has his brilliant moments also. But they were rarely going to be the leading man. Therefore, rarely going to be the most famous.

But there is some crossover. But one doesn't have to be linked to the other.

 

I was just watching "Dark City" (I couldnt' get through it) and was reminded how little I think of Keifer Sutherland as an actor.

 

Aside from River's Edge and maybe A Scanner Darkly, I don't think Reeves has ever turned in a consistent, strong dramatic performance. He's good in comedies or action movies that don't require a lot of depth or serious displays of emotion, though.

 

While I agree, for the most part, regarding Keifer's acting chops (especially the weird breath-y way he chose to act in that movie) you might want to give that one another shot. It is visually stunning and original (says someone who ordinarily doesn't care at all about sci-fi movies). It's a keeper.

 

I liked him a lot in Parenthood. But he was hardly the star. And, maybe...that's where his awful "...what? Whoa...dude..." shtick started.

Other than that, I'm not aware of any redeeming bits he's done. But I'm not sure I've seen River's Edge.

 

For the most part you're right about him; however he does play a different subtle kind of character in the movie Mother And Child.