Overly Distracting Actors: Now Disc. Actors with Plastic Surgery

Check out Sam Rockwell in Moon. He is very subtle in each performance. You'll see what I mean when you see it. To me, he got robbed out of a Best Actor Nom for Moon.

 

Drew Barrymore has some good moments, but there's always parts of the movie where her weak chin crumbles and her googly eyes get larger as she sounds like a smoker and it's always an overdone scene and I don't like it. I liked her best in ET.

 

I liked Barrymore in Ever After (I have a soft-spot for that film, it was one of my favourites when I was eight) - and that is it. I have seen her in little else; her most recent work that I have seen includes all those really annoying Cover Girl make-up ads on TV.

I do like Sam Rockwell. I found his Zaphod Beeblebrox wonderfully over-the-top. And yes, I like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film and I will say it loud and clear - and I am fan of the books (and the radio play, for that matter; can't comment on the TV series).

...though now I am liable to have a 16-ton weight dropped on my head for liking such a ridiculously bad thing as the HHGttG film.

 

I think Sam Rockwell was really good in "Moon". I found him very irritating as Zaphod, though.

You're making me feel terribly old there, Idri...

 

I do my best, Mar!

I found him irritating, too, but it was a rather enjoyable irritation. I'm weird like that.

 

Jumping back to Christian Slater, I actually liked him in Pump Up the Volume. Of course, in that movie he did both his best Nicholson and an entirely different kind of performance.

 

Steve Heisler

"I get totally distracted every time I see a cast member from Friday Night Lights appear in, well, anything. Part of it is just the way FNL shoots: Hand-held cameras lend a documentary vibe to the series, and loose, partially improvised dialogue means the actors likely infuse real-life quirks into their characters. Everything feels very real. Thus when Taylor Kitsch is gallivanting around with a (terrible) N?Awlins drawl in X Men Origins: Wolverine, or Kyle Chandler plays a poof-y, self-important leading man in King Kong, I can?t help but think ?Hey, Coach Taylor is in this.? I just saw the girl who plays Tyra in the Lonestar pilot, and the minute I recognized it was her, I felt pangs of disgust at seeing her with a man who wasn?t Landry."

 

So what he's saying is that they're so good and believable as their characters in FNL...? I guess that part's a compliment I don't find Kyle Chandler in King Kong to be distracting. He's 100% different there. I haven't really seen FNL cast members in other things, though.

-sj loves kevin spacey

 

Claire Zulkey:

"Recently, I saw an old picture of Will Smith from the Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air days, and felt nostalgic. I missed that Will Smith, the dorky, gawky, goofy up-and-coming young star. Back then, he reminded me of the coolest boys in school: famous, but identifiable, friendly, relaxed. But as far as I?m concerned, movie fame has reshaped Smith into a rigid plastic model of Movie Star. Those rumors of him converting to Scientology wouldn?t surprise me, just because Smith now reminds me of Tom Cruise?they?re both grinning-yet-inscrutable celebrities. This isn?t to say I dislike Smith?s movies (in fact I probably enjoyed Hancock more than most people) but due to the way he?s calcified into the role of the huge movie star who is a permanent part of the cinematic landscape, yet strangely unknowable, it?s impossible for me to watch one of his movies without thinking, the whole time, ?Will Smith is fighting vampires. Will Smith is fighting aliens. Will Smith is fighting homelessness.? All this led me to wonder, was the loose-and-fun Fresh Prince Smith really what I thought he was, or was that just one of his better acting jobs?"

 

I'm gonna have to go with Jack Nicholson.

 

it?s impossible for me to watch one of his movies without thinking, the whole time, ?Will Smith is fighting vampires. Will Smith is fighting aliens. Will Smith is fighting homelessness.?

Dear Claire Zulkey, bless your rusty little heart. What you are describing is EXACTLY why Will Smith gets 20 million dollars a movie or whatever it is. People LIKE Will Smith. They want to go see him fight whatever. While it's true his personality tends to overpower the story or his character, it's what makes a lot of movies tick and what gets them financed. The studios bank on the fact that people want to go see him do that.

This is nothing new. I was reading a book recently on old-time Hollywood and Spencer Tracy said no matter what role he played, he always felt he was just playing himself with variations to accomodate the role.

What you seem to be complaining about is exactly how the movie industry works, at least on big-budget, star driven movies.

 

To quote Peter O'Toole in My Favorite Year, "I'm not an actor, I'm a movie star!"

I love naturalistic acting as much as anyone and more than most. I love actors who can disappear into their roles. But the guys who tend to make the really big bucks aren't the actors, they're the stars. They're selling their recognizable, charismatic selves on screen.

 

Tracy could at least do variations on himself. Smith doesn't even do variations anymore.

 

I know that this is precisely the reason why I very rarely pay to see such "stars" in the theater anymore.

And does anyone think that the "blockbuster star" era is fading? The trend as I see it for upcoming movies is that producers are casting unknowns who are able to become the part, rather than casting "stars" just to see their version of a character.

Now, the exception to this are roles that are iconic to the specific star. For example, Men in Black III is going to come out soon. Will Smith gave life to "Agent J" since the beginning, so it's ok to revisit the same character even though he's huge now. The problem is that every role he plays is basically "Agent J," so it dilutes the persona.

 

Men In Black raises the question of Tommy Lee Jones. Like Smith, he also has a 'star persona.' Unlike Smith, however, he often stretches in his movies, tweaking his persona in subtle ways. No Country For Old Men, for example, in which his character is very much a part of Tommy Lee Jones' star persona and yet also very different in many ways. I don't mind star personas; but I do like to see the stars genuinely act inside those personas at least some of the time.

 

Noel Murray

"I get distracted by the sight of any actor who?s had obvious plastic surgery on his or her face. Unless they?re playing characters who might have had a facelift or Botox or collagen injections, it?s impossible for me to take Meg Ryan, Dolly Parton, Garry Shandling, Kenny Rogers, and so on, seriously on the rare occasions that they appear in a movie or on TV. (And the reason they appear so rarely? In a lot of cases, it?s because they look like freaks now.)"

 

When I read the topic title the first person to come to mind was Meg Ryan, though I think Nicole Kidman has gone off the deep end as well. What the hell happened to her???

 

I'm torn on Nicole Kidman - on the one hand I think she's quite beautiful, but on the other I miss the 'tom boy' image she had when she was younger:

[image=http://img2.timeinc.net/instyle/onlyonaol/images/pg/pg_01_070604.jpg]

 

Jeremy Piven's plugs or wig or whatever it is always get me.

 

I'm not sure you can be a tomboy at 45.

Hair plugs are also ye distraction, no error.

 

Kidman is the one that came to my mind. Too bad. She was much hotter (and a better actress) when she could move her forehead.