What exactly is a "character actor?" (1 Viewer)

[Shane Gralaw]

Hey I was going to say J.T. Walsh but everyone beat me to it! He really was great. I also like Jeannette Goldstein a lot (lots of James Cameron films and Near Dark, among others). She's so good that even after being a fan for years, I didn't realize she was in some pictures I have seen several times until I looked her up in the IMDB.

 

[Terry St]

[/list]
Now, chances are you had problems getting the answers I put in the spoiler tags. Why? Because the answer to every single one is actually John *freakin'* Wayne. John Wayne is the opposite of a character actor. He never really plays a role other than himself. What John Wayne happens to be called and happens to be doing in any particular film has no impact on the fact that he is, at all times, John Wayne.

A character actor, on the other hand, submerges his own identity within the role. You might have seen a character actor in dozens of movies, but if he did his job you'd have to be one sharp cookie to actually spot him.

Now here's where I think your biggest misconception is... Character actors are *not* "'B' Grade" in *any* sense of the word. Most of them are far better actors than Ben Affleck will *ever* be. Actors like Tom Cruise or George Clooney, no matter how good they are at playing themselves in different roles, would probably not be able to tackle a character actor's role even if they could hide behind the kind of makeup reserved for space aliens and the elephant man! Another important point is that "A" movies need character actors to play roles without attracting attention to themselves. You don't always want your audience to say "Oh, I know who that is!" when every single significant character walks on screen. Sometimes you don't want people to realize the significance of a character right away. At the same time, you don't want to hand off an important role to a completely untried actor just because nobody recognizes him. Therefore, you look for a character actor.

Character actors are like chameleons. They blend in so you don't even realize they're anything other than what they're pretending to be. That is no easy task!

 

[Mark-W]

TerrySt.

That is excellent!

I guess I always think of Phillip Seymour Hoffman, JC Reilly, and William H Macy as "character" actors because they are nearly always supporting players. Personally, I tend to think of these guys as "actors" and many leading stars as personas.

Hoffman doesn't play the same person over and over again and he changes little nuanaces that, frankly, impress me in a way very few actors do.

Then again, I do look at an "A-List" star like Russel Crowe who, as much as he can personally grate on me, I do think is one of the most versatile actors...he can play everything from a sensitive, insecure, pot-smoking Aussie looking for love with another man in The Sum of Us, to a skin head in Romper Stomper, to a charismatic captain in Master & Commander. He just seems to become a whole different person in a way people like Tom Cruise never do.
(And, yes, while he did an amirable job in Born of the Fouth of July, he was still playing a "Tom Cruise pretending to be Bruce Dern pretending to be Ron Kovic" kind of role.)

Mark

 

[ChrisWiggles]

The perfect place to find wonderful supporting characters and little character actors is the X-files (not the movie, but the older TV episodes).

 

[Jack Briggs]

Fritz Weaver is another classic-mold TV character actor.

 

[Mike Broadman]

"Character actor" is Hollywood parlance for "ugly," as in they can't get romantic lead parts.

Kathy Bates is often referred to as a "character actress" even though she has played many starring roles. But she's not going to be starring opposite Brad Pitt in a romantic lead anytime soon.

 

[Derek S]

i will have to go with John Turturro. the guy can do anything....i just watched Millers Crossing last week...

 

[Anthony_J]

Check out Dennis Hopper in "Cool Hand Luke" for an amazing example of character acting.

 

[Seth Paxton]

Rex already addressed Alex's point, but I'll still follow it up too. Character actors are not traditionally those actors that can fit into any role and dissappear into the character, those are usually just stars who haven't broken through yet (see Ed Norton).

Character actors are more like William Macy who have a unique style that automatically relays their character to the audience. The actor also must excel at having some unique schtick/method that makes the character memorable despite it being a limited role.

It is only really in more modern film that we see some of these great SUPPORTING actors starting to be labeled as character actors, but its not the same thing. Macy's unique look made him an ideal character actor, but his talent is so strong that he quickly became a star supporting actor and then eventually an outright star lead actor.


Steve Buscemi, while a good actor and always enjoyable, is much more in line with what a character actor is, especially as he works within films like Sandler or Coen films.


None of this is to say that character actors can't be famous themselves. It's actually quite the opposite. Audiences are supposed to recognize them or at the very least to feel as though they understand them (and their character) immediately upon seeing them.

Character acting is a bit of an offshoot of the typecasting of real people used by the Soviet Montage directors, which had a similar purpose of instantly telling the audience who the character was by look and style more than in the actual script.


I agree with Anthony that Hopper in Cool Hand Luke is character acting, but it also goes to show that looks, acting ability, or potential star power are not restrictions on a person being a character actor.

They are just the colorful, generally very one dimensional characters that spice up the main narrative. See Ghost World for an example where Buscemi is no longer working as a character actor, but instead we have Dave Sheridan playing the goofy Doug who loiters at the convenience store.

Big on color, small on actual addition to the narrative.


And let me also add that I agree/disagree with Terry's point. These people have lots of talent, or at least being a character actor doesn't imply a lack of talent. It's the type of role you are playing.

But I disagree (again) with the "blending into the film" aspect quite a bit. The top character actors tend to be the ones that you remember more than anyone else in the film except the star, and sometimes they even outshine the star.

Walter Brennan is by most accounts the greatest character actor ever, but he sure as hell didn't do it by blending in. Think of his rummy in To Have and Have Not. Compare that character to his Stumpy character in Rio Bravo. Not really all that different, not a main character, yet extremely memorable...and also not necessarily a "real" character.

Clint Howard is a nice modern version of Walter Brennan to some extent, but with a lot less of the success at it.


I think the reason that appearance sometimes is tied to character actors is because an unusual look does allow an actor to become memorable in a small amount of screen time, and to convey some unique sense to the audience that a "normal" looking person can't (they end up forgotten without a distinguishing part).

But had Sean Penn continued to play his Spicoli character in film after film he would have become known as a character actor, despite star looks and star talent. But of course if you do have star looks and star talent then you often are raised up out of character work into the lead roles, or top supporting parts.

I disagree strongly on Kathy Bates as a character actress. Maybe some people use it as a euphemism for the restrictions on roles her weight gives her, but she has done way too much lead work or top supporting work to just be a character actress. Maybe if her whole career was About Schmidt and The Waterboy, but not when it also includes stuff like Fried Green Tomatoes, Misery, and Dolores Claiborne in which she plays a lead character.

After all there are plenty of lead roles that are NOT romantic leads. Kingsley doesn't become a character actor just because he plays Ghandi and Don Logan. Those aren't romantic leads, few of his roles are, but he is clearly a star lead actor and not a character actor.

 

[Joe_Pinney]

To me, a character actor is an actor whose face you have seen in more than one film, TV show, commercial, etc., but you have no idea what their name is. Strong supporting actors like John C. Reilly, Philip Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy, and John C. McGinley, are, in many respects, not so much "character actors", as the term is used, as they are well-respected secondary-level working actors (which is not to say they are "B-level" actors, which implies a lesser degree of acting ability). Why? Name recognition. No, not name recognition on the level of a star (and by "star", I don't mean a lead, but a name-above-the-title, bankable lead), but instant or near-instant name recognition by most viewers, critics, and industry folks. The above actors' names don't usually elicit a "who?" response and a scrambling to IMDB.com to see if they can find a photo. Sometimes these actors are leads in smaller productions, or have major supporting roles. A character actor, however, might have a major supporting role, a minor supporting role, or even a cameo in a given film or TV project (and may have anywhere from several pages of dialogue to a one-word line), and do this for years, all without name recognition. Character actors are the ones that make you say "hey, I've seen that guy before, what was he in?" and you start racking your brain to remember.

Guys like Dennis Burkley or Leon Rippy. (I know, "who?" If ya saw either one, you'd probably say "hey, I know that guy....") Or Richard Lineback (if you saw Speed, Natural Born Killers, or Twister, you saw him). Or Danny Trejo (trust me, you know him). Or James Gammon, who's been in a ton of stuff you've seen. If it wasn't for Tom Bower's terrific performance as Cecil Skell in 1989's True Believer, we might have forgotten that the phone company killed Kennedy! William Sadler, who had all the best lines in Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (yet no one would know he was the same guy who menaced Bruce Willis just a couple of years before; he plays literally ALL kinds of roles) and the terrific Max Perlich are both two of America's finest character actors. Wilford Brimley is a character actor, but in a way, he's also like John Wayne in that he plays Wilford Brimley in just about every role (which makes him a lot like Walter Brennan, come to think of it). Richard Masur, on the other hand, is very much a character actor, because most people couldn't name him off the top of their heads, but because he's also very well known and respected within the industry (having been SAG President for two terms in the 90s) and has had a few leads or major supporting parts, he's probably more in the same camp as Reilly, Macy, Hoffman, and McGinley, or at least close to it. Lois Smith is a perfect example of a character actor, so much so that you swear you saw her at the store or the library, not in another movie, although she's been in movies since 1955! One of my favorite character actors is Wendie Jo Sperber, who will probably never get the fame and glory many of her co-stars have, but who has been a star in my book for the last quarter century.

Thank God somebody mentioned "Cuddles" Sakall. If there was a Character Actors Hall of Fame he'd be one of the first inducted. But what's this, no love for the great and inimitable Jack Carson or Eugene Pallette?

Some people say that "real" character actors are never really known until they show up in the obituaries (and even then!). But they really are the backbone of the film and TV industry.

 

[smantha_b]

Bruce Campbell! And he's not ugly either.