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The Difference Between Poor Acting and Poor Scripting

Mark

Mark

Strata Poster
I was having this discussion with Marc and decided to bring it here, to see what you guys all thought.

For many years, I have always thought that an actor could only be as good as the script and screenplay that he is acting from.

For example: Ewan McGregor in the Star Wars Episodes 1-3.

Now, for me, McGregor, is a very fine actor. He has been in a fair few films which has demanded it that way. Little Voice, Black Hawk Down and Moulin Rouge being some examples of this. In the Star Wars films, he spent a lot of the time running around and referring to Anakin as "my young padawan" and that was about it. Every line of dialogue the poor guy had was just so rigid and generally furthered the ineptitude of Lucas as a script writer. A genious in creating a franchised special effects bonanza, yes... a decent script writer... I think not! It also didn't help that McGregor was made to play the part like Alec Guinness and not to give his own slant on the role. Telling an actor to act totally how another person has done, 30 years previous is a tall order and a very risky move. Now I understand that, naturally, Lucas would have wanted a consistency between the new and old, but forcing the actor into a very rigid space limits what he can do with the part.

Another example would be Arnold Scwarzenegger. Now the guy is probably not one of hollywoods hottest actors, BUT he has played certain parts very well indeed, probably due to the fact they are almost tailored to him in the Scriptwriting. This can go horribly wrong too. See Batman & Robin. Now, Joel Schumacher, had already diverted the story away from the original Burton style in Batman Forever but got away with it, JUST. He gave it a nice glossy feel and people lapped it up. So then with Batman & Robin he pushed that. Big names are in that film. There is no way it should be so bad... But it is! Why? due to the sheer idiocy of constantly having silly quirky one liners throughout the film from the Villains.

Freeze: "Your not sending ME to the cooler", "Mercy? I'm afraid my condition has left me cold to your pleas of mercy.", "Tonight, hell freezes over!", "I hate it when they talk during the movie.", "Hello, Sorry about the door, Is the party over? " , "Ice to see you!", "Adam and Evil!".......

Yes Arnie, is famous for a couple of one-liners in Terminator. I'll be back and Hasta la vista. But therein lies the point. It was just a couple of them, handled in a slighty more serious manner. In Batman & Robin went overboard and then when you tie this into Joel Schumachers rather camp and kitcsh gotham it becomes a whole washing machine of complete tripe, long before an actor starts filming.

I would go so far as to say that it is also one of the things that really bugged me in T3. (I actually quite liked the film). T3 played up a massive comedy element in Arnie and totally destroyed the sense of character I feel.

So anyways, I feel that sometimes actors get slated when it really isn't them that is the problem, it is the person sat in on the scripting and thinking.. yes, lets say that, that will be funny... (Obviously when this is out if context, some films work perfectly well when stocked full of cheesy no brainer one liners)

Your thoughts?
 
Totally agree.

If a film is written crap and has the best actors, but they cannot change the script, then its going to be crap.

If a film is crap and has the best actors that can change a script a bit, then it might be good as they should have changed it.

However if a film is great, then great actors will make it even better. Poor actors may spoil it but it should be still good.

So I agree with you Mark.
 
Yep, totally. And then of course it can work the other way, and some actors are only ever good when the script is at such a level, they have to be good (also tied in with having a decent director on board). An example of this is Uma Thurman. The woman should give up acting outside Tarantino films. The woman can not do it. But, she works with Tarantino, and you get gold. I mean, she's so god-damn awful in The Producers (though that does have a sloppy script and terrible direction), it's hard to believe it's the same woman that played Mia Wallace and the Bride so well!

So, totally. Like, I think Anthony Hopkins was SO let down by his part in Hannibal. He just doesn't get to have the same fun with it as he did in Silence. And so, you get the same actor delivering a good performance in Hannibal, but, a truly Oscar worthy one in Silence, almost entirely because he doesn't have the place to work from.

Penelope Cruz is another example. If that script for Vicky Cristina Barcelona hadn't been soooo brilliant specifically for her, she would not have been holding an Oscar in February (... or was it March?)

However, I think it also comes down to direction. Burton gets brilliant performances out of people who otherwise, suck (Sarah Jessica Parker), as does the aforementioned Tarantino, and Lynch who seems to be the only person capable of not making Nicolas Cage utterly awful (though he still ruined Wild at Heart, he did less damage to it than some other things he has been in)... Same goes for Naomi Watts' brilliant (debut!) performance in Mulholland Drive. Had that script and direction not been what it was, her performance would have been as average as most of the things she does.

So, I do think you have actors that regardless of script or direction, will still be terrible (Nicolas Cage in Wild at Heart crops back up as my example), but, a bad actor can be helped by a great script and director. Of course, good actors can be ruined by a script and director, usually, as you say Mark, because they're limited in what they can do with it. There are, however, times when a script can be terrible, but, a performance STILL stands out as genius (Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls springs to mind! A quite frankly bad film just made by that woman's amazing performance).

Oh, and those Batman films were ruined the day Burton left.
 
^Nolan has made very good Batman films, don't forget them :P Schumacher should have never been trusted with the franchise, he ruined it.


Umm, I partly agree. I think a film can only succeed if all the main elements are working together. The director has to get the performance out of the actor and the actors have to get a performance out of a script. If any of those three elements are bad then the whole film pretty much fails.

Ben gave an excellent example with Tarantino and Thurman. If Tarantino didn't direct Thurman the way he did in Kill Bill the film could have been a disaster as she is on screen for most of the film.
 
peep said:
^Nolan has made very good Batman films, don't forget them :P Schumacher should have never been trusted with the franchise, he ruined it.
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That's why I said "those" ;)

I count the first four as the "original" series, and then Nolan's as a totally different set of films that happen to have the same characters and setting as the others xD
 
Sorry for the double post, but something other than my obsession with a certain footwear producing German came up.....

Mark said:
I would go so far as to say that it is also one of the things that really bugged me in T3. (I actually quite liked the film). T3 played up a massive comedy element in Arnie and totally destroyed the sense of character I feel.
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I think it's quite the contrary. From what I have gathered from my love and adoration of the Terminator films (much less so SCC), the fact that over the 3 films he gets progressively more human was the point. (After they'd decided to do three films of course :lol: )

John begins to teach him in the 2nd, which is extended into the 3rd. With the great T "in-joke" when instead of hotwiring the truck at the start, he gets the keys from the flap above his head. :P

So I'm afraid I have to say I disagree with you Mark, it didn't ruin the character, it developed a machine into a character. :wink:
 
Well, it's not as if the actors don't read the scripts beforehand.

If they accept a crap part and can't manage to uncrappify it, then they're equally responsible for it. I'm talking about established actors here. Obviously younger/newer actors would/should take whatever they can get, but when it's someone who doesn't need the money or recognition, they should be more careful in what roles they accept.

If they're being thrown millions of dollars and/or the chance to be in a big, ego-boosting film, then it's understandable, but if they want to sell out for a **** part, then they should be blamed along with the crappy script.
 
Arnie was infamous for his one-liners, he usually got at least one into every film after Commando - "Scroooo yooooo!" in Total Recall, "I am de party poopah!" in Kindergarden Cop, think it was "Stick around" in Predator etc.

I think Arnie hit his acting peak with Cameron, and also in Total Recall, but it's a physical acting thing - the scene in TR where they try to ambush him and he suddenly kills everyone, and the final scene in T2 when he realises his fate, were both excellent acting.

Have you watched the extended T2 Neal? Much more "Terminator learning" stuff :).

You see both sides of this all the time though - usually a slightly crap script, some actors find ways to deliver it, others fail miserably, and occasionally a good script gets trashed!

Taking the Hannibal example, it's a rubbish novel which became a fairly rubbish script. Hopkins tries to find something in it, Julianne Moore is utter tripe and just looks dead, while Gary Oldman is AMAZING in it, a staggering performance.

I watched X-Men again recently, and Halle Berry was hilariously bad - don't go for the French accent again love, it's embarrassing.

I'll definitely be posting back in the this topic when I spot more examples :P.
 
I watched X-Men again recently, and Halle Berry was hilariously bad - don't go for the French accent again love, it's embarrassing.
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Isn't that an African accent...?
 
Firstly, well done Mark for creating a topic where members actually have to think and post more than +1.

I have to admit that I don't watch that many films, my low attention span/need for a cigarette means I can't sit on my arse for two hours and concetrate on one thing in one go.

Therefore I can only really contribute to this topic in regard to TV shows.

Take for example the Sopranos. Fantastic series, I watched all of them in eight weeks effectively back-to-back and I started to subconsiously take note of the script writers as a few episodes were dire compared. It guessed it couldn't have been the actors as they never changed, but the people putting the words in their mouths.

For example, the epidoes written by Burgess (sp?) were crap compared to those written by Winters. I supose you could argue that they had to write along a timeline, so circumstances change etc, but the episodes Burgess wrote seems flat, less Sopranoy.

Another good example would be Red Dwarf, that I'm currently making my way through. The ones written by Grant & Naylor are ace, then comes series VII...

So yeah, scrpit is more important than actors imo.
 
But not all actors keep to their lines, so it would depend...

I've never really worked out what a *good* script is. I mean, it's kinda obvious when it's an awkful one, with all the clichés, and the cringing and that-- but I keep hearing Slayed say, "hmm, pretty bad/mediocre script", but I never pick up on it myself. It's not a quantifyable thing. There are so many different bits that come together to make a cohesive whole that it's hard to point the finger at one thing over another.

It's different for every film, IMO.
 
Agree 100%, it can make or break the film.

My example is my favourite film actor Christian Bale, he's a brilliant actor who has had some tricky parts in the past.

Good Part but Bad Scripting: Patrick Bateman in American Psycho
Only problem I found with the scripting was it tried too hard to be the book and failed to capture the amazing detail in the book. But Bateman is very strong in his role as Patrick Bateman and does it really well, with such great humour which needed to come out otherwise it would've looked like Saw.

Bad Script: Equilibrium, just mindless action with a feeble script loosely tied with 1984 and The Matirx, which is a nice little idea they made in the film, but because the script is flawed in a number of areas it kinda falls on its face. Christian Bale's role was alright, just nothing to be amazed by.

Good Part, Good Script: Trevor Reznik in The Machinist.
Now I've watched little snippets of this film (bad point about Film Studies) and think he is amazing in the role, he lost all that weight to play it and looks, breathes and lives the part of the man and it really does come across. May have to back this up another time when I've watched the film.

I would mention Batman, but loads of people told me 'he dosen't act' in the film, but to be honest we all have a different perception of good acting. Most people think its when an actor/actress can shout a lot in a convincing manner.
 
I like Bale, have done since Empire of the Sun, but he does have a tendency to lapse into "inscrutable" mode. I'll be interested to see how he is in the upcoming Public Enemies.

Ploddish said:
I keep hearing Slayed say, "hmm, pretty bad/mediocre script", but I never pick up on it myself. It's not a quantifiable thing. There are so many different bits that come together to make a cohesive whole that it's hard to point the finger at one thing over another.
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Lol, yes, I do that a lot :P. There are so many elements to a script, never mind a film, that it's difficult to be detailed about what's good or bad without getting boring! I'll have to do a proper analysis of one sometime.

Most scripts are mediocre/clichéd/safe, since it's fairly easy to achieve. You've seen a recent example of a cracking script though Plod - Frost/Nixon :).

It's rare that a film is good with a dodgy script - last one I saw would be 28 Weeks Later, it definitely transcended the level of the script.
 
Dave said:
Bad Script: Equilibrium, just mindless action with a feeble script loosely tied with 1984 and The Matirx, which is a nice little idea they made in the film, but because the script is flawed in a number of areas it kinda falls on its face. Christian Bale's role was alright, just nothing to be amazed by.
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I couldn't agree more. The concept of this film was superbly thought up and then let down by a meandering script that only lent itself to overblow the action as if to compete with The Matrix. Shame really, because I really like the film and the concept that it portrays.
 
I know! Apparently they have no rage or anger, yet they still have tone in their voices when on Prozium, especially Taye Diggs at the end when he's screaming "I am not feeling!! He is the one who is feeling!"

If it was done montone and straight faced then that would've been brilliant and surreal.
 
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