Guardian: Pretentious Moi? — Suffering With ‘Actor-Speak’
by Big HollywoodThe Guardian’s Hadley Freeman:
“I have always been interested in what I call actor-speak – and when I say “interested”, I mean “intrigued in the way you might be by a man talking to himself, without having any desire to go over and engage him in conversation”. However, while I continue to march past muttering men on park benches, I am, thanks to my job, an unwitting expert on actor-speak, having spent many hours of my life listening to actors bang on about their “love of the craft” and “the thing about [insert name of director] – he takes you on an emotional journey”.
“Some may call this argument prejudicial, but those who do have never spent a morning with Helen Hunt, listening to her expound on her skills. This has nothing to do with lack of respect for actors; just a lack of respect for the language they learn – perhaps at acting school – to describe what they do.
“The New Yorker event sounded promising: its panel of pleasing scene-stealers included John Turturro and Joan Cusack. But when – just 10 minutes in – panel member and actor Richard Kind (you’ll know him, look him up), said actors do theatre “to nourish themselves”, I knew I’d made a grave tactical error. The verb “nourish” should only be used in a culinary context, and even then with restraint.
“And, lo, they kept a-coming: there was “our craft” and “the journey one goes on”. To finish, actor Christine Baranski announced that “acting is like creating life”. Considering this comment came straight after the clip showing her in the sitcom Cybill, that seemed a pretty awesome claim. Shrieking onset at Cybill Shepherd v being God –I guess it’s six of one, half-dozen of the other. …
The day after I learned that being an actor was like being God, the God-like Sienna Miller was interviewed in the New York Times about her forthcoming Broadway role and, bless her, she seemed to have swallowed a dictionary of actor-speak on the flight from London: “I just try to put myself emotionally in a very dark place. After that, I trust a lot in the writing.” In other words, she pretends to be the character and then she recites the script.
Read the full piece here.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
| 
Follow Us on Twitter
Subscribe via RSS
Got a Tip?
67 Comments
Acting is kind of like being your own God. Perhaps this is why actors often sound so full of themselves.
And I thought it was just another job!
“acting is like creating life”
Meaning, it's like having sex?
Mannequins.
Tired of the crap from the left? Sick of the progressive narrative?
get your "I will not go silently into tyranny" Tshirt at enemiesinwar.com
[...] Won’ Melanie Morgan, Big Hollywood: Is Miss California the New Leo Penn? Big Hollywood, Guardian: Pretentious Moi? — Suffering With ‘Actor-Speak’ THR.com: Sinise on Patrol: One helping thousands Gary Graham, Big Hollywood: All-American Girl [...]
[...] What “Consensus”? Among Climate Scientists, The Debate Is Not Over Big Hollywood: Guardian: Pretentious Moi? — Suffering With ‘Actor-Speak’ Frugal Café Blog Zone: No, Mr. Gore, Polar Bears Are Not in Danger When Their Numbers Are at [...]
[...] Spot on National Review Online: Eric Holder Probably Didn’t Need This Headache Big Hollywood: Guardian: Pretentious Moi? — Suffering With ‘Actor-Speak’ Gateway Pundit: 100 Hollywood & European Kooks Sign Petition in Support of Child Rapist [...]
Look, I'm not a very talented actor, but I've been around a lot of them, and it's not really as easy as "pretends to be the character and recites the script." Would that it were: I can do that.
But actors generally can't come out and say "I make my living by being mildly insane on cue."
What else could you expect from people who make an "art" of reciting canned words written for them by someone else?
To be a tree compacts the spiritual miasma in a myriad of emotional facades peering through the veil of tears one sheds for the love of the stage. I'm ready for my close up Mr. Weinstein.
The HEIGHT of ludicrous self-importance was Halle Berry blubbering onstage with her Oscar as if she'd discovered the cure for cancer. Talk about inflated, grotesque self-importance.
No wonder so many of them voted for Obama.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Big Hollywood, tearead. tearead said: Ah, she THINKS she is working!! Poor Baby! RT @bighollywood Guardian: Pretentious Moi? — Suffering w/ Actor-Speak’ http://bit.ly/4eWV5s [...]
Just hit your mark and say your line you stupid meat puppet.
*Chuckles*
Actually that'd be cooler if they did say they were mildly insane on cue. Because most of the actor's I've encountered have all been a bit like that. Perfectly normal and then like a switch they're the character in some wierd way.
Something that annoys me about showbiz types is the weird pseudo British accent that some of them have. Madonna especially comes to mind, where did she learn to speak like that?
Someone needs to do a piece on "teacher-speak" – where the phrases "my calling," "investing in the youth of tomorrow" and "I need more taxpayer dollars" mix all too often.
One of my favorite parts of the commentary track for Lucio Fulci's The Beyond, actor David Warbeck gets a little worked up about actor speak when he simply states something to the effect of, "people ask me what I am thinking in that moment, and you know what I'm doing? I'm pretending, that's what acting is, pretending to be someone else." It was one of the funnier parts of the commentary track.
Vapid, empty-headed clods with delusions of grandeur are the only thing that comes to mind.
Acting is Doing so Do More and Talk Less. A lot Less.
The sad truth (seeing as how it applies to any in-the-public-eye profession, it may be called a truth) is that the attitude is: "If I'm in front of the camera, I'm smarter than everyone on the other side. Since I have nothing to say about anything, I will blather on in the vaguest of terms and dig out some deep-sounding metaphysical metaphors. No one will know the difference."
If there weren't a sycophantic fawning public to feed this to it wouldn't sell so well. It's half our fault.
Acting is easy. Comedy is hard.
She was awful, I agree, Carolyn, just awful! I felt bad for her mother, as Halle only acknowledged her "color."
[...] here to see the original: Guardian: Pretentious Moi? — Suffering With ‘Actor-Speak’ This entry is filed under America – Blogs, Big Hollywood. You can follow any responses to this [...]
Acting really isn't all that easy if you aren't naturally gifted. If you are, then only the technical aspects are difficult. Daniel Day Lewis in "My Left Foot", for instance. That was no easy task, obviously, but his ability to act the role convincingly (aside from the physical) is an innate gift. But his job on that movie was no more difficult than a special ed teacher's job. Contortions are needed in that profession as well, and the paycheck and accolades are a heck of a lot less.
Still, I won't disparage the job as being so easy as "learn lines, say them" because we've all seen bad acting and we've seen good acting. There's a difference.
Their self-importance is not earned by their profession or their ability to do the job, however. They really don't contribute all that much to the universe except for an hour or two of entertainment every once in a while, for which I'm perfectly willing to pay. Too bad screenwriters and authors don't get the same level of remuneration, though. Actors want to "trust the script", they just don't care whether or not the producer pays a fair price for it.
I don't know, there seem to be an awful lot of criminals who have no problem "acting" when they get caught.
Look, I did a lot of acting when I was growing up through high school. Sure, I wasn't going to get my own tv show, but I could hold my own. That being said, when comparing the difficulty of acting to doing calculus or computer programming or being an adult, acting was easy.
If you don't believe me, consider this: Jessica Alba is an actress.
…just refuse to pay for the ticket to the show and it will all take care of itself. Read a book……
Carolyn, don't forget the other height, or depth as the case may be, of Sally Fields blubbering about how "They like me, they really, really like me!"
Alfred Hitchcock was known for being a director that in effect used his actors as props within the film narrative. He rarely massaged his actors' egos on set.
What is funny is that many actors and actresses resented this lack of ego stroking and bitterly complained about that aspect of working with Hitchcock. On further anaysis years later, these same actors looked back on their performances in a Hitchcock film as some of their best.
My point. Many actors are walking, talking, naked egos that have a need to be "talked up" and loved. It's almost a fundamental desire. Not a good or bad thing. Just a reality. I would hardly call acting an intellectual pursuit. Let's be honest. That's not to say there aren't intelligent actors but intelligence is clearly not a prerequisite for acting.
All of the "arts" come up with this kind of language who's intention is to make them sound smarter than they are….while in college for "Fine Arts" I grew to loath the descriptions of "my images" during critiques. UGH! what pompous a-holes. I moved between calling them "my pictures" or "this snap shot" blah blah blah…its soooooooo tedious.
YES! YES! YES!
It isn't just actors. "Artists" in general are so full of (censored) that when I'm around the "artists" in my family I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from howling laughing. Were comics that funny deliberately!
Listen to them (any of them) expound on "their art", their "connection" to some dimension most mortal beings can never hope to approach. Their "creativity" (which goes along with their getting themselves confused with God sometimes).
Pheochromocytoma!
By the way, screenwriters out there, this would make a perfectly hilarious send-up/satire. Sasha Baron Cohen? Do you read Big Hollywood? If so, this is a perfect "Borat moment". Go in character to "interveiw" some of these preening insufferables; have them "expound". The audience would be rolling in the aisles.
Search for Eduspeak and its variations, Edu-speak, Edu speak, and you will find it is widely referenced. Code words that have nothing to do with learning per say but feelings. How's that working out for your teachers unions?
I've never understood the huge disparity between the pay of actors (who are a dime a dozen, in reality) and writers, who are the ones who do most of the actual creative work. Movie-making is obviously a group effort, so I don't understand why the actors get so much of the credit. Even bad actors occasionally put in fantastic performances if the writing is solid and the direction competent. Meanwhile, good actors put in lousy performances all the time.
Amen brother.
take Obama for instance. Please.
loved it. completely loved it.
I love acting. I hate actors.
You need to pretend you are "one of them" and then talk about the craft. It is amazing that in the end they will come out and agree that acting is nothing more than pretending and even lying. They know just like everyone else that what they do is next to useless, but have a need to ego trip for compensation. Acting is all they have because in the end they are vacuous personalities.
Where is Rodney Dangerfield when we need him?
So when someone says, regarding something funny I've said or written, "where do you come up with this stuff?" I should say, "I go to a place where there is no humor, and I say to myself, let me bring the gift of humorous life to the great un-laughed and bless them with my inner bon-mot," at which point, I'd probably be asked to leave.
Can you imagine plumbers or CPAs or dental assistants being asked such a question and not just looking at you weird? But working actors have no idea how lucky they are just to be able to do make-believe and get paid for it. No. It must be something grander, like wrapping a cat dropping in pretty ribbon.
Today's actors should study the Golden Age greats.
Gable had photos in his study showing his pre-success days when he wasn't "The King" and his reason? "Just to remind you, Gable."
Spencer Tracy said the secret to great acting was (as I recall), "Remember your lines and don't bump into the furniture."
People who pretended to be someone else used to be classified as insane.
Los Angeles-born Gwyneth Paltrow is the worst. Complete phony.
No, "Dying is easy. Comedy is hard."
The most damaging thing a moviemaker can do is let the actors adlib. Giving actors the job of writing the story condemns the movie to mediocrity.
"Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events," for instance, would have been an absolutely wonderful movie if the idiot director had not be enchanted by Jim Carrey's brilliance and given him leave to insert "wax on wax off" and "osh kosh migosh" -type comments throughout the movie. Such actions break the fourth wall. Every time they do it, the director might as well pull the camera back to reveal the set walls and craft services over in the corner.
Any given Robert Altman or Woody Allen movie, too. All hailed by actors, but unwatchable.
Improv can go about 30 seconds before it falls apart. See Whose Line Is It Anyway.
Writers make the movie. Bad writing sucks. See most of the Star Wars series, especially the last one.
The word pretentious comes to mind. And Pompous!
He also said something to the efect "It's the easiest thing in the world. Just don't let anyone catching you doing it!"
nolotrippen
Oh, do try it. What fun to watch the perplexed look on their face, while they wonder if you are serious or having them on.
Yep – I never looked at Sally Field the same way after that! She was my favorite actress until that little bit of "theatre!"
Richard Gere on the Actor's Studio, opined that actors were "the most important people". Really? Not doctors, teachers, the carpenter that built the studio you were in, farmers that feed you, the military that protects you, the police that answer your calls, the fireman that rushes toward the fire?
who knew?
A writer from the Guardian called someone ELSE pretentious??? I think this is the moment when the universe consumes itself.
May I say Sir, Huzzah! Especially on the bit about Jim Carrey. I'm you could light up Las Vegas with the energy generated from the spinning of Dr. Seuss in his grave after his money grubbing widow let Carrey and Austin Powers RUIN two of his most popular stories.
And now, Carrey as Scrooge? REALLY??? I know Hollywood ran out of ideas somewhere in the mid-80's, but do we need another adaptation of A Christmas Carol? Can't we just go back and relish in the mastery of General Patton or Captain Picard as Scrooge? Do we really need "Ace Ventura: Ghost Detective"?
People choose roles that suit their nature. Actors are inherently narcissistic, only fully existing when preening in the eyes of admiring others. Unsurprising that they craft language to further inflate the basically mundane task of feigning emotions to enlist the attention of an audience willingly suspending disbelief.
I am an amateur, truly, having only performed in local civic theatre for the last 20-ish years (dancer first, singer second and actor under duress). Never had the desire to be a pro (and likely don't have the talent). Just last night, a friend and I were chatting on Facebook, and he asked me why I give up 3 months or so of my life at least once per year to do a show (6-8 weeks of rehearsal, 4 weeks of shows, 6 shows per week) if I'm not getting paid. My reply was that the applause was my "pay", that I certainly didn't think what I did merited any monetary reward of any kind. I also pointed out that all performers are a bit narcissistic, at least at times, and the applause feeds that. Lord, please keep from becoming one of "those" performers who engages in artist-speak and is impressed with her own "abilities".
I worked with actors great and small for a lifetime. Never met one that wasnt a monster- or about to become one- in direct relationship with their commercial success.
I love this article so much that I'm divorcing the previous gregalogue I married and marrying this.
Having been a veteran of the movie junket circuit, I can totally sympathize with you. I've heard actors say war movie boot camp "was war", young actresses change once impossible notions of getting naked for a movie to "as long as it's important to the script" and more idiotic political rants than you can shake a stick at. I was there when Richard Gere said terrorists need "the healing power of love". And Spielberg and Cruise telling me that tightened airline security after 9/11 was like pre-crime screening in Minority Report and they can't "wait for all that [the security]" to be over." As if either of them have flown commercial since Reagan was in the White House.
Great article.
The disparity in pay between writers and actors is because actors are the glamorous face of the performance. They are the object being sold.
I agree a lot of these actors are pompous but I sort of feel sorry for them. So many of these answers are obvously canned because they do 8 hours of interviews a day being asked the same questions over and over. It's easier to pull out the usual "I got to a place of X and let the Y come out, but I have a lot of help from Z" crap.
I only have a problem with actors when they try to translate the ability to pretend to be a character into somehow having insights that are beyond that of a regular person and trying to use that as political clout.
Don't hate on Christine Baranski! She's a really good veteran actress, IMHO, excellent in musicals (Chicago, Mama Mia), and currently on "The Good Wife." Any older actress who's still able to work steadily deserves credit for perseverance. I've worked with many actors over the years as well, and while younger ones tend to be short on craft and professionalism (why?? WHY?? can't you get your @$$ to work on time?!?!) to see good acting done well…it's a pretty remarkable skill. You forget how hard it is until you see it being done poorly. I think most working actors (and you have to give credit to people for staying in a profession with a constant acknowledged 95% unemployment rate) know that they're damn lucky to be have the jobs they do. They have to love it and themselves or they'd never last. Of course it doesn't rank with nursing/firefighting/teaching, but none of us would be frequenting a site called "Big Hollywood" if we didn't have some ongoing enjoyment of the craft of acting.
I think plumbers, accountants or dental assistants would look weird at anyone asking about how they liked their jobs at all.
Richard Burton was both one of the greatest and one of the worst actors ever to grace the screen. Intellectual, a tremendous acting talent, yet it is quite clear from the disasters such as Bluebeard, Faust, Exorcist II, etc. that talent without a good degree of modesty about what it is that one does as an actor (pretend, remember lines, hit your marks) soon leads to hubris undermining that gift of being able to entertain people by taking them out of their lives and into the story that is being told (and not just by the actor, but by the director, the set designers, the costumers, the lighting techs, etc.). I can't say as I have been very impressed by this generation of actors and actresses, and have to put down the few successes to good direction and excellent writing. As has been documented here, the star system has come crashing down and there are few bona fide movie stars left, Will Smith being a rare example of someone who can prompt interest in a film on the strength of his personal appeal. And I can't say I've heard Smith drone on about his "craft".
And yet…no movie has ever become a hit soley on the strength of who wrote it–audiences have never flocked to theaters based on the screenwriter. And I still think a good actor can redeem the most banal lines. As far as Star Wars goes, much of the blame on the recent ones has to just as heavily on Lucas' leaden direction. "Empire Strikes Back" is acknowledged as the best of the series not just because it was so much better written, but because it was so much better directed as well.
sad to say, if i end up anywhere for more than a month, i end up picking up the local dialect and accent. never been to to the UK though. if some one wants to front me the dough, i'd be happy to see if it works there.
A friend of mine has lived in London for nearly 20 years. While he has not picked up an actual English accent, his speech now incorporates the local cadence and rhythm. This is much different than Madonna's super-fake-o "accent," which is annoying in the extreme.
I once heard that if you moved to a different country before the age of 14, you would not have a "foreign accent" when speaking that language. After 14, forget it – unless you receive professional coaching to rid yourself of whatever accent you have.
What I also find annoying is the growing popularity of people saying "myself" instead of just "me" or "I," as though they are trying to inflate their own self-importance in conversation: "Jason and myself went down to the corner store to pick up a bag of Doritos."
I have been involved in a local community theater for over a decade. I have acted in a number of plays, and directed my first show this year. Believe me when I say that acting is just learning lines and pretending to be someone else. It is helpful at times to be given a point of direction, your "motivation," but it all boils down to being able to put yourself in someone else's skin. Some people are better at it than others, and some people just flat out cannot act.
There is a place for actors, directors, and other entertainers in our society as they provide a release valve from the humdrum of everyday life. That said, these days too much importance is placed upon a group of people who, even just a century ago, were not much higher than prostitutes in the social pecking order. People of "good family" did not enter the acting (or musical) profession, nor did they consider having respectable relationships with these people. Not saying we should go back to that, but do take into consideration that the "stars" of today are just very lucky to have clawed their way to the top of the heap and make lots of money by, as Brad Pitt said, putting on makeup and pretending. Not exactly the types I look to for guidance in important issues like national security, etc.
Is it wrong if I still think Sienna Miller is as hot as nuclear fire, even though she's a pretentious nit-wit?
Actors speaking without lines! Yikes! That's when they inflict their unfathomable psyches on us in a core dump of self-importance, pretension, and (what's the word for something orders of magnitude greater than "hubris?")
Whenever I want to feel completely sane and grounded, I surf to one of the programs with actors as guests and listen for a minute or two.
There is a good reason why, in the days before movies began raking in dough for the entertainment industry and a few pretty actors began making megabucks, actors were not allowed to stay in respectable hotels.
Yes, but Mouse, most of these pretentious idiots are really bad actors (and actresses. I hate the new PC-speak where everyone is called an "actor.") There are only a handful of truly gifted actors and actresses in the business today. These days all you have to be to get a job is unnaturally thin and maybe good-looking.
Anyone who thinks that actors and directors can get along fine without writers should be forced – at gunpoint if necessary – to watch a cinematic cyst called 'Chantilly Lace' . With an all trendoid female cast and just an outline for a script… I can't go on… Please, God, release me….
Actors are entitled to their political opinions just like my garbage man is entitled to his. But for some reason actors have TV cameras shoved in their faces while garbage men don't.
You must be logged in to post a comment.