When is a Performance Too Painfully Real to Watch?
Filed under: Celebrities and Controversy, DIY/Filmmaking
There are times when watching an actor or actress onscreen is absolutely painful, and not because their performance is bad. Sometimes it's just obvious that they're drawing on their personal lives to bring that character to life, and in this tabloid day and age, it's often too easy to know exactly what's making them go all Method on us.
Take Robin Wright Penn. In State of Play, she plays Anne Collins, wife of Ben Affleck's suave senator. Their marriage is falling apart in full view of the public and the paparazzi, and Mrs. Collins obligingly plays the loyal stoic during press conferences. It's impossible not to see art imitating life a little bit, and it's especially difficult given that Penn seems to throb with emotional turmoil in every scene. It's an incredible thing to watch and wonder about, though I'm not sure it's for the right reasons.
Did Penn take the role as a bit of therapy for herself, or because it was easy to identify with Collins? Is she even acting at all? If she isn't, is it brilliance to employ your own anguish to the benefit of a character, or is that cheating? I honestly can't decide, and I don't even know if I'm somehow being unfair to the performance simply because I do know of the back-and-forth divorce proceedings of the Penns. All I know is that it's incredibly difficult to watch, and that whenever she comes onscreen I want her to leave because she makes me uncomfortable with her visible grief.
Take Robin Wright Penn. In State of Play, she plays Anne Collins, wife of Ben Affleck's suave senator. Their marriage is falling apart in full view of the public and the paparazzi, and Mrs. Collins obligingly plays the loyal stoic during press conferences. It's impossible not to see art imitating life a little bit, and it's especially difficult given that Penn seems to throb with emotional turmoil in every scene. It's an incredible thing to watch and wonder about, though I'm not sure it's for the right reasons.
Did Penn take the role as a bit of therapy for herself, or because it was easy to identify with Collins? Is she even acting at all? If she isn't, is it brilliance to employ your own anguish to the benefit of a character, or is that cheating? I honestly can't decide, and I don't even know if I'm somehow being unfair to the performance simply because I do know of the back-and-forth divorce proceedings of the Penns. All I know is that it's incredibly difficult to watch, and that whenever she comes onscreen I want her to leave because she makes me uncomfortable with her visible grief.
It's a strange reaction to have, isn't it? Normally, I applaud inwardly when I see a flicker of "real" emotion cross an actor's face. It's rare, and it's usually because I've stumbled on some personal fact or interview that makes me tune into it. One example that immediately springs to mind (I blame the Gamer ads) is a moment in Dear Frankie when the title boy meets his "dad" for the first time. Before I saw the movie, I had read an interview (you can read it here, thanks Google!) where Gerard Butler mentioned how difficult the scene was to play for him, because it mirrored his own childhood so much. You can see it onscreen, check it out here at roughly 7:42:
But again, I don't know if knowing the story behind it makes it more or less visible. Unlike State of Play, it doesn't make me as uncomfortable to watch. Instead, I find it refreshing because it's "true," perhaps because movies like Dear Frankie are usually built on such staged emotions. Yet at the same time, I feel like I've seen behind the curtain and destroyed something in the craft of Butler's performance.
So, to draw this musing to some kind of point, I'd like to hand the discussion to the readers. Are there any performances that have made you uncomfortable because you know (or think you know) the unhappiness behind them? Any that you admire because it reflected a real experience, or because the actor was confident enough to expose it? How do you think it reflects on the art of acting itself? Go crazy -- but not Method crazy. Remember, it's just a comments field.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
9-03-2009 @ 12:22PM
kafka18 said...
why would it be cheating? in acting, it's called ''the method''...or recall of things that happened to you in your past. an actor can, and should, draw from these things to enhance or create a believable performance. don't be an idiot.
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9-03-2009 @ 4:52PM
Elisabeth said...
Before calling anyone names, you might want to study other schools of acting style. Method acting is almost the exact opposite of Stanislavski, who believed Emotion Memory was unreliable -- he didn't disagree with it, but he didn't think it should be exclusively relied upon.
Control and detachment are big parts of the Stanislavski method, and one MIGHT argue that if you're entering into this role with your own emotions on display, you're not in control of your performance.
But then, that's a thing called "discussion" and not knee-jerk name-calling.
9-06-2009 @ 4:23PM
Jonathan said...
The entire article is b.s., remember this is a professional doing multiple takes. However there is an indication here of why hiring unknowns makes sense, in that your mind can always wander into thinking about what else you know about a well-known actor. But if your mind is wandering that much, either the film is bad or the acting is off anyway.
9-03-2009 @ 1:42PM
Jane said...
Whether it's based on a 'real' emotion or experience in the actor's life or not, they still, as an artist, make choices. What to show, how to show it, when to show it. They understand the character because they're human and have lived a similar occurance but it is the artist that crafts what they give to us.
Acting is not 'making it up'. It's taking what you know of life and using it in 'made up' stories so they resonate with us.
No, it doesn't diminish their talent or their skill because we know they've really been in a similar situation. It makes them a better, richer actor with more to draw on.
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9-03-2009 @ 1:18PM
Julie said...
I don't think its cheating at all, its what makes for a very rich performance. When an actor can make that connection, it brings his character to life and gives real depth of feeling. It certainly isn't something you get to see very often. It's painful to watch because it is so raw. I think the fact that you find yourself feeling uncomfortable is because the performance is so real. You can't deal with all that emotion, you want to get away from it.
It must be incredibly difficult to achieve that kind realism if you haven't lived through those emotions/situations in real life. I know one scene that gets me every time I watch it, is the death scene of Boromir in Lord of the Rings. I doubt that Viggo Mortenson has ever held a fallen friend and comrade in his arms while he died, and certainly Sean Bean has never been a soldier facing his death, yet that scene is so real and so raw. I think it really says something about the actors involved, that they can draw that kind of emotional realism out of nowhere.
Another scene I can't deal with is in the film Hope Floats. When the little girl screams and hangs onto her father, begging him not to leave. Her world is falling apart all around her and her father chooses his new life over her. I want to simultaneously run away and kill the husband at the same time.
Thanks for the great topic for conversation. I'm curious to see what other scenes people bring up.
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9-03-2009 @ 1:43PM
Jessica said...
This movie came out prior to the actual incident, but everytime I see Kelly Preston's reaction to her son's death in Death Sentence I can't help but think of how she would later have to deal with it in real life. I know it's not the same thing, but very hard to watch.
9-03-2009 @ 1:46PM
sa said...
i've caught episodes of "inside the actor's studio" over the years and a very common recurring theme is that the actors chose roles at certain times because the subjects mirrored thier real lives at the time...
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9-03-2009 @ 3:10PM
Rod said...
I don't think it's cheating at all. As previous commenters have noted, it's this kind of background in an actor's life that becomes their "tool chest" of sorts and allows them to pull different moments from different past experiences and combine them into a role at any given moment. The more real life experience, the more self-awareness of them, and lastly, the more fluidly the actor is in being able to draw from and transition between past experience while maneuvering through the character's dialogue the better the performance.
I could list many moments that have had a visceral reaction on me but the two performances that immediately come to mind are:
1) Meryl Streep in "Sophie's Choice" - I remember my jaw-dropping, my gut knotting and tears welling up all at once when she was forced to choose!
I also remember an interview that I believe she did on Oprah way back and Oprah showed a clip of this scene while Meryl was sitting right there. Meryl too had a visceral moment watching it and said something to Oprah asking how she could show such an awfully horrible clip. She was visibly uncomfortable and all I could think was "WOW"... even she is emotionally scarred from acting that scene let alone me being affected while watching her create it.
2) Rena Owen and Temuera Morrison in "Once Were Warriors" - this movie disturbed me in all sorts of ways. Tough movie to watch if you've grown up in an abusive family life. These two actors depicted such a raw and uncomfortable relationship that it made my adrenaline flow in some scenes out of anger and at other times made me well up with tears when Rena's character experiences a significant loss! Great movie for anyone who likes intense dramatic roles with some tough themes!
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9-03-2009 @ 9:59PM
CParis said...
Wow! Two great examples of realistic, truly believable performances. I remember seeing "Sophie's Choice" with my mother, not really aware of the subject of the film - we both, along with everyone else in the theater - men & women were sobbing.
When I saw "Once We Were Warriors", my stomach was in knots, I felt so invested in these people's lives.
9-03-2009 @ 3:46PM
Joe Leydon said...
Seriously: I felt a bit uncomfortable -- but also ineffably moved -- when Charles Bronson talked about his dying wife (Sandy Dennis) in Sean Penn's The Indian Runner -- a movie made not too long after he lost his own wife (Jill Ireland) to cancer.
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9-03-2009 @ 3:36PM
Jim said...
Mickey Rourke in "The Wrestler" comes to mind.
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9-03-2009 @ 4:33PM
JaySin420 said...
Yea I agree, I actually thought it was overrated since it was basically rourke playing rourke if he were a wrestler.
9-03-2009 @ 5:00PM
Dj said...
judy garlands performance in i could go on singing!
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9-03-2009 @ 6:47PM
Karla said...
In recalling performances that were just too real to watch without extreme discomfort, I immediately thought of the character Tully in the movie "Kids".
He was far too convincing in his character. So convincing, in fact, that if I saw the actor walking down the street, my first impulse would be to punch him in the face.
Now, OF COURSE that was just a character, and OF COURSE the actor himself is likely a nice enough person... but on a visceral level, because of how well he played that role, I just can't entirely grasp that it's just a role.
What an excellent job he did!!
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9-03-2009 @ 7:47PM
Holly said...
I don't think its cheating (unless you can tell that's all they have in their bag of actor tricks. I.e. they take the same role and do the same breakdown scene every time) I think it's incredibly brave to expose your own real emotions and traumas like that.
Not many things are coming immedietly to mind (although The Wrestler was really draining, like watching Mickey Rourke slit his wrists for two hours) but I wont even try to watch all of Hope Floats because of that little girl. Isn't that a shame? This child actress turns in this amazing performance and I just can't watch it because its too real and I don't want her to take me to wherever she had to go to do that scene.
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9-03-2009 @ 8:13PM
Matt said...
I think you're kinda seeing what you want to see in this article. I don't know what Robin Wright Penn's personal life is, I don't know what you're referring to, but me and my friends all thought she was pretty bland in State of Play - certainly not painfully real or amazingly honest.
If you went into a film expecting to see something, chances are you probably found it.
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9-04-2009 @ 12:08AM
Jenni Miller said...
I found the performance by the little girl in The Fall, Catinca Untaru, absolutely wrenching, not just because of her great performance, but because from the interviews I'd already read I knew that she (and almost all of the cast/crew except for Tarsem Singh) thought that Lee Pace was actually paraplegic in real life. And according to Singh, "she had no idea what was happening. She thought we were basically going to be shooting a documentary."
http://www.avclub.com/articles/tarsem,14243/
It's a fascinating way to make a movie, and I loved the movie, but part of me feels guilty enjoying what must have been so upsetting for the little girl, and for the rest of the people who worked on the movie who also thought Lee was actually a paraplegic and were shocked to find out he wasn't.
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9-04-2009 @ 4:24PM
David said...
Ugh this may be stupid to bring up, but Mischa Barton will be playing a washed up pill popping (former) it girl in her new show. Its hard not to compare the character and the actress. One line in the preview she says to the new it girl is; dont feel sorry for me, this will be you in a few years. But in cases like this, is it good that they are bringing their own personal experiances into a character or is it sad? I am kind of on the fence.
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9-05-2009 @ 7:20AM
Ruth said...
Isn't this what everyone says about Jennifer Aniston and her 40 and unmarried role in He's Just Not That Into You? How can we ever really know how a famous person is feeling? Surely it's all just inference? I think, if a person is doing a piece of autobiographical work then they're putting themselves out there bravely, but if the role resembles them (according to who?), they're acting. FULLSTOP.
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9-06-2009 @ 5:20AM
Nancy said...
Keisha Castle-Hughes playing the girl Pai in "Whale Rider". The scene where she stands on stage in front of an audience and recites her family's tribal history, a speech for which she has won a school award. She is so hurt that her grandfather, the tribal chief, has not shown up to see her performance that she can barely go on - yet she does with tears streaming down her face. I don't know what life experience, if any, the young Castle-Hughes drew from in order to give this convincing performance. It is heartbreaking to watch. I found this clip on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftEjH-dit4Y
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