The Great Acting Blog: “Boring! Boring!”

I love reading interviews with actors, filmmakers, playwrights etcetera, infact. with anyone of note who I admire, it gives me pleasure, and sometimes I gain an insight or hear something articulated which makes sense of something I felt but couldn’t understand, and sometimes these interviews are simply entertaining, certainly I hope to gain a greater understanding about the work of the person being interviewed. I also accept however, that when these interviews take place within mainstream media, they usually serve as part of the marketing effort for whatever product the interviewee is involved with at that time, and this is especially true of movies. There is nothing wrong with that, this is the way of things, afterall, word needs to get out, livings need to be made, and if I am reading an interview with someone who interests me, then chances are I want to know if they have new work being released. Ultimately I suppose, the marketeers want my interest piqued to the extent that I buy whatever they’re selling, whether that be a film, or a book, or a gig, and so on.

However, in the past few months I have read interview after interview with leading actors in the mainstream press, which have been so dull and content-less that I have hardly been able to get through the whole article, and worse from the interviewee’s point of view: the interview was so boring I lost all interest in seeing the movie that the interview sought to promote. One would assume that the filmmakers want the opposite and offer a thrilling interview, ie: if we’ve been thrilled by the interview, then we might think we would be thrilled by the movie, and so buy a ticket to see it (unless any marketeers out there want to correct me?). So, it is in the filmmakers’ own best interest to ensure the marketing materials around the film are a reflection on the film itself (right?).

So what use is an inane interview with one of the stars of the film? Surely that would drive people away? Or would it? Perhaps the interview is intentionally devoid of any real content. Perhaps that is exactly the point the filmmakers are making with their marketing materials, it’s as if they’re saying: “Roll up! Roll up! Come and see our film, it will not threaten you, it will not confront you with any awkward truths, infact you will feel nothing, you will simply buy a ticket and go through the motions of watching a film, you will experience absolutely nothing, and at the end you will leave as though nothing has happened because nothing did happen, and all will be rosy in the garden. Roll up! Roll up!” These interviews with leading actors in mainstream media are intentionally inane because the films themselves are intentionally inane. Inanity in our culture has become a virtue, a selling point.

Now, I dont know how much of this inanity can be placed at the feet of the individual actor being interviewed because I don’t know how free they are to speak, but I’m guessing not very, and must work at the behest of their paymasters. Fine. So must we all. However, our leading actors in the mainstream are seen as the heroes of acting, generally they are the ones who inspire young people to become actors in the first place, and it is they who set the standards, and surely must do more with the platforms they are given. This week I posted an interview with a young and acclaimed actor on Twitter, and someone remarked that the most interesting thing about it was the actor’s jumper.

We don’t need anymore vaccuous gossip, we don’t need anymore “celebritizing”, and our culture is overloaded with ungenerous careerists. What we are short of is true heroes, leaders, we need to see real courage enacted and not it’s facsimile, we need greater seriousness, genuine rigour and not the blustering waffle we have come to accept. We need to see conviction. The art and craft of acting is under attack from all angles, most actors are seen as airhead poodles or amiable buffoons, certainly few believe the actor’s intention is to become an artist. This has got to change otherwise the currency of acting will continue to fall. We cannot wait for our leading actors to set an example, we must take it upon ourselves to speak about our work as seriously as filmmakers and playwrights do theirs, with wit and genuine insight, without self-regard, but to enrich the listener, as is the object of all our work.

During the early 19^th centrury, when the great Edmund Kean (pictured above as Shylock) was playing all of Shakespeare’s tragic heroes at Drury Lane one after another, actors were pelted with rotten fruit if their work was no good, and would beg the audience to forgive them for the poverty of their effort. Aye, they were actors then.