Thursday, March 15, 2012

To Be or Not to Be Me or the Character

I was recently asked who my favorite actor is.  (And, of course, today we use “actor” to include both male and female thespians.)  I could not come up with just one; there are so many compelling performers doing wonderful stage and screen roles.  But what I was able to do was to identify two broad types of actors:  1. those who bring the role to themselves, and, 2. those who go to the role. 

Those who bring the role to themselves.  By this I mean actors who are themselves no matter what role they play.  For example, Bruce Willis is Bruce Willis whether he’s doing John McClane in the Diehard series or the self-unaware Dr. Malcolm Crowe in The Sixth Sense.  His cool persona is always the same; his mischievous smirk omnipresent.  For those of us with longer memories, John Wayne was another actor who was essentially always “The Duke” no matter what character he was doing. 

Those go to the role.  Then you have the actors who adopt the persona of the character so fully and so totally immerse themselves in each role they play that you lose sight of the actor and take in only the wonderfully developed character.  Johnny Depp is such an actor.  From Depp’s Edward Scissorhands to Johnny Brasco and from pirate Jack Sparrow to Sweeney Todd, you can hardly imagine a more diverse range of characters.  Another actor unafraid to lose herself in her roles is the magnificent Meryl Streep, e.g., from Julia Child to Margaret Thatcher. 

What kind of actor do you prefer, and who might be your favorite?