Actors Who Should Stop Acting: Now Disc. Michelle Trachtenberg

From TWOP:

The Telefile

Judging Strangers

10 Actors Who Should Make Like Evangeline Lilly and Quit Acting
by Mindy Monez February 2, 2010 3:38 PM

"Evangeline Lilly has said in the past that she doesn't plan on continuing her acting career after Lost ends, and with the show's final season premiering tonight (!!), that story has resurfaced, and she's sticking to it. Which is perfectly understandable; she's made her money, she's not passionate about acting, and she did the respectable thing by not quitting in the middle of it when she was somehow miserable in Hawaii. (I'm not a Kate fan, but at least she didn't Rob Lowe or Mandy Patinkin the show by throwing a tantrum and leaving prematurely.) So happy trails to Evangeline Lilly after May. These people should really get inspired and do the same.

Kelsey Grammer

Frasier is a thing of the past, back before we knew him as the American Carol and Back to You star who accused Fox of giving him a heart attack and then went on to star in the insufferably snobby and unfunny Hank. Time to just spend your days at home counting your money on your caviar abacus, Kelsey."


Well, I don't agree. Grammer just needs to stop jumping at every offer he gets. Job insecurity is no excuse for bad material. But he's funny when the material is right. And yes, I'm a Sideshow Bob fan.

 

agreed (with zaz)

 

He has such a wonderful voice, maybe he should try voice acting as a career in and of itself.

 

[image=http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h113/MagicSpork/simpsons_sideshow_bob.jpg]

Guilty as charged!

I honestly can't remember the last thing in which I saw Kelsey Grammar that wasn't Frasier...

 

I was going to make a crack about wondering if Kelsey Grammer ever started acting. That's not fair, though; he does play the same role over and over, but he's hardly alone in that. But he's never going to get another show as whip smart as Frasier (or another supporting cast or just as great a character, for that matter).

But, yes, it seems there should be enough parts for a guy this funny to play. And, given his track record with Sideshow Bob (but also in the rather forgettable Meg Ryan Anastasia, in which he was quite good in a supporting role, even nailing the best song in the show), I'd love to see him do more voice acting.

 

To be fair, he stretched outside his comfort zone as Beast in X3. Most fans hate that film, but Grammer made a fine Beast IMO, in the sense that he nailed the Marvel character and was very entertaining and amusing in his own right.

 

I agree. Kelsey Grammer worked really well as Beast. The only downsied was that there wasn't more of him in X3.

 

Oh yeah, I had forgotten that. That was the only real reason I wanted to see that movie, but I never quite got around to it.

 

Next on the list:

Ashlee Simpson-Wentz

"She got fired from Melrose Place, but that's not going to stop her from popping up on some other show for god knows what reason. I don't care what she does for money as long as it has nothing to do with acting or music. (Though full disclosure: "L.O.V.E." is an amazing song and karaoke jam.)"


To this I have only one word to say: Who?

 

She's Jessica's younger sister.

Although I had pretty much forgotten about her too.

 

I never knew about her, and don't feel I missed anything.

Next:

Charlie Sheen

"It's impossible to know why some actors' disastrous personal lives ruin them while others get to have scandal after scandal after scandal and still bring in gangbuster ratings, but Charlie Sheen is the miraculous latter. Obviously he has some appeal I'm not seeing, but even if Two and a Half Men ever ended and he joined a show I could actually stand, there's no way to divorce his celebrity persona from his fictional one, whatever it may be. Which is sad. I can barely bring myself to watch Hot Shots these days."


I have watched bits of this show, trying to understand why it's a rating winner. I can say without fear of contradiction that it has nothing to do with acting, writing, directing or talent.

I suspect it is the situation: a lot of people envy the set-up; an all male household with one member of it having no obligations to anyone or anything except his libido. Fantasy time.

Re: Sheen. In his short shelf life as a movie star (sort of), he was handsomer and taller than his older brother, whose name I forget. He couldn't read lines in the beginning; that has corrected itself, and he has acquired a modicum of comic timing. He has a sort of pleasant obnoxiousness onscreen at least, but I could do without him very nicely.

 

I honestly haven't seen him in much. But I find it slightly ridiculous that he held a knife to his wife's throat on Christmas but CBS still thinks he's a great person to top a headlining sitcom. Ah well, lots of actors have controversy. The bottom line about Sheen, though, is that he annoys me. I don't find him funny. That alone is enough for me to want him to go away.

As to why Two and a Half Men keeps doing well... I honestly don't know. I'd love to blame it entirely on old people but unfortunately it's still top 10 in 18-49. Although according to this week's overnights for Monday, CBS is substantially behind both ABC and Fox in the 18-34 rating overall. So maybe there are just a lot of 35-49 year olds watching Two and a Half Men.

-sj loves kevin spacey

 

Do I feel sorry for his wife?

In a word: Nah.

It's not as though she didn't know what she was getting into.

 

Two and a Half Men was hilarious in its earlier seasons. The older the kid got, though, the less funny it became.

I like Charlie Sheen. I could care less what kind of person he is (I hardly think any of us are in positions to judge anyway), I think he's funny as an actor and Major League is one of my favorite movies of all time.

 

Well, hopefully none of us have ever held a butcher knife to someone's throat. If we had, we'd probably be in jail. The thing that angers people about actors and their drama is that they get away with ridiculous things no one else would.

Still, ultimately it's not relevant to the work you do if your work is good enough to stand on its own. In my opinion, Charlie Sheen is not remotely in that category. Roman Polanski's work, for instance, stands on its own and is worthwhile (though the man himself should be in jail). The trouble is, when someone is *both* a low-life and a hack, there's absolutely no reason we should be paying attention to them and feeding their low-lifeness.

-sj loves kevin spacey

 

We get Two and a Half Men down here in Oz too, and it's also extremely popular. I've caught a few episodes myself but don't get the popularity either.

Emilio Estevez (he also played the coach in all the Mighty Ducks hockey films). Funny personal confession - for years I assumed Emilio's name was a some sort of jazzed up stage name to distinguish himself from the 'blander' names of father Martin and brother Charlie. I was astonished when I later discovered that, in fact, it's the other way around - Estevez is the actual family name, it's Martin (aka. Ramon Estevez) and Charlie (aka. Carlos Estevez) who have adopted the stage name 'Sheen'.

 

I always thought that was a little odd, too. Evidently Martin Sheen adopted the name before he ever acted because he was never credited by his real name. I presume he switched from Estevez because in the 60s particularly he didn't want to have a Spanish last name.

-sj loves kevin spacey

 

Still my all time favorite Charlie Sheen performance

 

I liked Charlie Sheen in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Then again, he was playing a scumbag.

Count me in the baffled about how Two and a Half Men get's its ratings crowd. I've seen it a couple times, and it's not that good.

 

Oh yes it is. It is totally fair; it is completely, absolutely fair. It is fair beyond all human measure, standard or relevance.

Kelsey Grammer is a mincing ponce who has pretended to act his entire career. What the hell... he's damn good at it!

 

Well, your definition of a non-actor and mine are obviously different.

Sigourney Weaver, for example, frequently can't say lines convincingly. This is a problem. And it's not as easy as the great majority of non-actors imagine.

This is not Grammer's problem. His technique is good. His problem is that his range is very small, summed up by the snotty intellectual; but certainly, he's an actor.

I believe Sheen is the surname of Martin Sheen's mother.

 

Grammer, I think, really brought a lot of dimension to Frasier beyond the superficial. In other roles, he was not able to always do that.

As to Sheen, this list is far behind the times; he actually stopped acting years ago. Two and a Half Men is painful to watch. Sheen seems to be mumbling his way through the show, trying to coast on the 'look-a-debauched-charlie-sheen' wave. It doesn't help that the show isn't funny and that it's essentially a one note show (sex, if you didn't catch it the first fifty times they did the same episode).

Platoon he was good in. And, yes, in Hot Shots he had something like brilliant comic timing. It's weird and a little disspiriting to see him shlub around in 2 & 1/2; he seems to be not trying at all. He used to have energy.

 

I thought that too.

 

See I think Grammer is quite good in Frasier (although he's definitely outshone by David Hyde Pierce). The thing is, yes, his range is very small. But I think too often people define acting as "being someone totally different." That's not the case. Sure, the best actors have range. But it's a lot harder than you'd think to inhabit a character convincingly in imaginary circumstances, even if that character is close to yourself. Bad actors can't even do this (hence, wooden line readings, because they're not actually living that moment, they're just affecting).

-sj loves kevin spacey

 

Actually, comedy is generally harder than drama, and comedy technique in particular is harder; it requires timing, pace and instinct. You often have to co-ordinate your movements so that the dialogue and your movements are funny. You have to know what emphasis is necessary to make the line amusing.

This can be extremely difficult. Some people are instinctive comedians, but Grammer is not one of them. His effects are extremely contrived, and abetted by the writing. That doesn't, however, mean that he can't act, in the sense of delivering the performance, and making the performance funny. And Frasier is a guy who is constantly undercutting himself, so that his ego takes knock after knock; this wouldn't be as amusing if he were less arrogant. He's not a stick figure, any more than Niles, who is a similar type, is. Niles, in fact, is quite emotional. He is devoted to ultra-neurotic wife (it's a great touch that we never see her) as well as having a monster crush on a very unlikely woman, with whom he has nothing in common, to say the least of it. Niles knows the crush is lunatic (after all, he's a shrink) but he can't help himself. And that's funny.