The Great Acting Blog: “How Critics Misunderstand Acting”

The Great Acting Blog: “How Critics Misunderstand Acting”

Criticism of acting is a major problem. In my experience, critics have absolutely no clue about the aesthetics of acting. They have no proper way of assessing an actor’s performance. Consequently, they latch on to anything the actor did in preparation or anything obvious in the work and amplify it. The tragedy is that what they usually latch on to are the lies. This is a problem because the purpose of acting is to tell the truth. If an actor wants to get good notices, then lying is the way to go about getting them, and thus the whole art and craft of acting is undermined.

So, here are five myths commonly put out by critics about what constitutes great acting.

1. That losing weight for a role is the sign of a great actor. No, anyone can go on a diet, my auntie does it all the time.

2. That being able to cry on cue is great acting. No, being able to cry on cue is simply about being able to manipulate yourself. It is a lie. Any emotion which is not organically created by the actor’s effort to accomplish the action is a lie. Lying is the antithesis of great acting.

3. That a good looking actor who “made themselves look ugly for the role” is brave. No. No. No.

4. That great acting involves the actor transforming himself into the character. A double no. The character does not exist. The character is an illusion created by the mind of the viewer in response to the juxtaposition of the fiction of the scene and the actor’s actions. The actor does not “become” anything. In fact the reverse is true, great acting is about the revelation of the actor’s soul.

5. That when an actor played a “real life person” it was no mere impersonation, they captured the “very essence” of the person. Sounds impressive at first glance but after a few minutes of contemplation, we realise that it is a statement without meaning. It’s just words.

If you have other critics’ myths, I’d dearly love to hear from you.

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