What is scenery-chewing? (1 Viewer)

[Mark-W]

I am not a fan of Jim Carrey's but aside from ESoTSM, he performance in Doing Time on Maple Drive was anything but scenery-chewing. Frankly, if it had been a theatrically-released film, he should've been nominated for Best Supporting Actor.

 

[Gary->dee]

Actual physical chewing of the scenery aside, if an actor can out-act those around them that might be deemed as scenery-chewing and that might not be a "bad" thing. It depends on the story, the scene and who's involved. These days there are more people that can't act than can, so in the presence of a better actor they might blend into the scenery hence, making it seem as if the better actor was chewing the scenery.

 

[Eric C D]

Maybe in keeping with this thread, that should read:

Well exCUUUUUUuuuuuUUUUUUUSE MEE!

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

What, I have to TELL you people that I have an exclusive patent on Truth? You're even less perceptive than I thought.

Look, words mean things. This particular term has a long and well-understood meaning among actors (and yes, as a matter of fact I've acted in over 50 plays, produced and directed a dozen or so more and have also written for the stage in addition to doing a few student films and video productions.)

An actor who is "chewing the scenery" (see any of the examples of the genuine article given above) is never giving a better performance than those around him. The whole reason he needs to resort to scenery chewing is that his performance sucks. There is no way to mistake the two. Sometimes even a good actor just can't get a handle on a character - or gets a completely off the wall idea of the character that doesn't fit the tone of everything else going on around him - and just thrashes around wildly trying to make a performance happen. The result is never a good thing.

Scenery chewing is acting that calls attention to itself and therefore to the actor. Great acting is acting so good you lose sight of the actor and see only the character. The one can never be mistaken for the other. A great actor surrounded by lesser lights won't look like he's chewing the scenery, he'll make them look that way - even if they're only doing fairly conventional, not-terribly good melodramatic acting that look that bad if all the actors were on the same level.

I was involved in a production of Hamlet where the lead actor, the summer before he started a Yale Drama, very nearly overbalanced the rest of the cast. There were only three other people in the show who could share the stage with him without being blown away - unfortunately, the guy playing Kind Claudius wasn't one of them. Several of the other actors knew how badly out-classed they were and they did indeed veer towards chewing the scenery just to avoid disppearing entirely. It is a quite natural instinct. The director had to really sit on them to make them stop. In the end the actor playing Claudius embodied a famous, but probably apocryphal review: "He played the king as though somebody else had just played the ace."

But nobody could ever have accused our Hamlet of chewing the scenery. (Ophelia, maybe, but not the scenery. )

Regards,

Joe