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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Aug 16, 2016 16:44:12 GMT
The thread started off with a couple of people who, after seeing the choice of 'Some seem it only natural after giving everything of yourself night after night for two hours, other feel it self-indulgent nonsense.' indicated they thought it was the latter. The thread was doomed to go off the rails from that point.
Although this board may be run by people from the audience's perspective, there are, I would imagine, a large proportion of performers and other people involved in theatre who contribute and/or read.
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Post by DuchessConstance on Aug 16, 2016 16:56:42 GMT
Oh come off it, there's been a ton of actor-bashing on this thread. We've had five pages banging on about how actors can be "rude", "self-indulgent", "very arrogant", "pretentious" and "unprofessional"; that actors "look down on people who aren't actors themselves", "act as though their job make them better than others" and "vastly overstate their own significance to the world"; and that actors who say acting can sometimes be emotionally challenging are "making a big deal of it", "talking as if their work makes them unique and special" and are just "trying to talk themself up" and "promote themselves" when actually their job is "no big deal".
Why bring all that up in the first place, when it has zero relevance to the article and actors whom this thread is about? Yes, obviously there are lots of people who are rude and arrogant, and some of them are actors. Why raise it in a thread that's specifically about Kate and Michelle and this one article?
Matthew, you've strongly implied that actors who mention finding certain roles challenging are lying in order to self-aggrandize and self-promote: And in response to being directly asked, "why do you think they're lying?" you replied: Why do you need to choose "who to believe"? Why do they need to be lying, or self-aggrandizing? Why can't they simply have a different opinion or have had different experiences from your friends?
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Post by The Matthew on Aug 16, 2016 17:41:02 GMT
Oh come off it, there's been a ton of actor-bashing on this thread. We've had five pages banging on about how actors can be "rude", "self-indulgent", "very arrogant", "pretentious" and "unprofessional"; that actors "look down on people who aren't actors themselves", "act as though their job make them better than others" and "vastly overstate their own significance to the world"; and that actors who say acting can sometimes be emotionally challenging are "making a big deal of it", "talking as if their work makes them unique and special" and are just "trying to talk themself up" and "promote themselves" when actually their job is "no big deal". Why bring all that up in the first place, when it has zero relevance to the article and actors whom this thread is about? Yes, obviously there are lots of people who are rude and arrogant, and some of them are actors. Why raise it in a thread that's specifically about Kate and Michelle? Threads drift. I was talking about my experience with arrogant actors I've encountered who have treated me as an inferior, and I genuinely apologise if you thought I was specifically attacking your friends, although this is not the first time I've told you that I wasn't referring specifically to them. When I originally replied to you it was in response to the second sentence of: You were the one who took the subject away from the interview alone, and I responded. Then you seemed to forget what you'd said and treated me as if I was attacking the interview and the people involved in it. That's what you inferred. It's not what I was saying. I didn't say they're lying if they find roles challenging (and "challenging" is not the same thing as "emotionally draining"). I'm saying that in an interview context people have an incentive to big themselves up in a way that they don't when talking to friends in an informal context. You said it yourself: "giving interviews is part of an actor's job. Often it is part of their contract". In a sense, in an interview an actor is playing a role: they're playing the version of themselves that the reader of the interview will find most interesting, because an interview represents an opportunity to raise their profile and the profile of the work they're doing at the time. That doesn't make them liars. It makes them canny users of the media. But it also means that things said in an interview need to be taken with a pinch of salt, because they're said by people who are fully aware of the importance of creating the right impression with the public. My own experience is that the actors I've known who have actually talked about it compartmentalise. I remember having post-show drinks with a happy, bubbly woman whose character had committed suicide half an hour earlier. On stage she was fully engaged with her character, but when the curtain came down she locked that away and became the actress rather than the character. I'm not saying that all actors do that, but the ones I've talked to about it have.
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Post by DuchessConstance on Aug 16, 2016 18:01:03 GMT
I've worked in theatre both here and in NY since the late 1980s, for every major company you could name. I've known literally thousands of actors over the years. And plenty of actors talk about how emotionally draining it is when they're in private and with friends. There is nothing in the article you don't find being discussed constantly in green rooms and rehearsal rooms across the planet.
It's nice for your friends that they find acting "no big deal" but that's not typical. And in my experience actors simply don't talk the same way when they're with non-industry people. Who knows, maybe the actors you know feel they have to put on a bit of an act and downplay the emotional side of their jobs with you, knowing your strong feelings on the matter?
I just think it's silly to cling on to what a handful of people have told you, and be derogatory towards anyone whose experience has been different. Why can you not just accept that everyone is different?
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Post by The Matthew on Aug 16, 2016 18:57:32 GMT
It's nice for your friends that they find acting "no big deal" but that's not typical. And in my experience actors simply don't talk the same way when they're with non-industry people. Who knows, maybe the actors you know feel they have to put on a bit of an act and downplay the emotional side of their jobs with you, knowing your strong feelings on the matter? You have it wrong. I don't have a problem with most actors. My problem is with one type of actor. As someone who grew up on the edge of a show-business family I've always thought of actors as ordinary people, and my problem is with actors who believe that as I'm not working in theatre myself I cannot possibly be permitted to think that way. That's what I hate: the arrogance of someone who thinks they have a right to tell me what my opinion of them should be. The people I know have never been in that category. I don't have a problem with actors who find their work challenging. It's good that they do: anyone who finds their job easy could probably try harder. I do have a problem with actors who tell me that their job is more challenging than any other; who tell me that I can't possibly know what their job involves but nevertheless feel qualified to pass judgment on mine and everyone else's. (Also, I know you don't mean it, but that "don't talk the same way" thing is exactly the sort of we-are-not-the-same-as-you thinking that I hate.) I do accept that people are different, but I haven't spoken to every actor in the world. I can only speak in terms of what I've been told, and what I've been told is a fairly consistent story: that actors compartmentalise their work, just like other people who have to deal with strong emotional situations. (I mentioned a while ago that in my last job I had to handle child abuse records. If I hadn't locked that away when I left the office it would have torn me apart.) I'm prepared to be convinced otherwise, but an interview isn't going to do it because I'm sure you're even more aware than I am that an interview is a working tool for an actor and only a fool wouldn't use it as an opportunity to manipulate their public image. It's not that I think your friends are lying, but that I don't believe they're so stupid as to pass up an opportunity to say the things they want the public to hear. Interviews are always filtered through the interviewee's awareness of their public image.
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433 posts
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Post by DuchessConstance on Aug 16, 2016 19:17:53 GMT
For crying out loud, no one's trying to tell you what to think, just getting tired of the constant off-topic actor-bashing and insistence on putting down other opinions.
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