What makes someone a good actor?

[Nyoken]

Like... Heath Ledger as the Joker...You don't see Heath...You see the Joker.

[Swalload]

Sasha Grey is a pretty talented actress if you know what I mean.

[LiiLoSNK]

Move dem goalposts after I answered your question accurately. Beats admitting you were wrong. /s

You didn't, but if denying reality and lying to yourself for 20k posts makes you feel better, then I'll drop it.

Top Gun still sucked though.

[melodramocracy]

All of the above.

Your example of Tilda is a good one, she's one of the better actresses in the biz. Kate Winslet, Cate Blanchett, and Charlotte Gainsbourg are also up there.

Good actors? DeNiro, though it's been a very long time since he showed all of what he's capable of. McConaughey, Cooper, Pitt (at times), Depp, are top shelf as well. Daniel Day Lewis, William Dafoe, etc etc.

It should be noted that actors are often only as good as the parts they're in. I think some folks with potential simply do limited roles, or are shoehorned into doing the same sort of thing all the time.

[oplawlz]

Other: keeping their political opinions to themselves.

[Queen of Hamsters]

There is no single trait that does it.

[Xenyatta]

I've been taking film acting classes for 4 years now and the one thing we keep getting harped on and is constantly being brought up is the need for reality. Belief that it's real even to us. If we believe it's real, that realism will show on the camera or on the stage. How many actors look like they were goofing off just as the director said ACTION and they put a talking head on? It's obvious and you get taken out of the moment.

Sophie Turner in GOT is definitely one of those for me and she admits to doing it. She says it takes a few tries to get into character because the moment CUT is called, she's back to being Sophie. Compare the quality of acting from Sophie to Aidan Gillan. That man is flawless in his performances. He is without a doubt into the moment.

I'm not saying all actors need to be method like Daniel Day Lewis but more in the moment and realism is needed in some actors today.

[Xenyatta]

Other: keeping their political opinions to themselves.

I don't mind if someone asks them their opinions and they share it because they live here, they pay taxes and they are humans with opinions as well as your next door neighbor. They have every right to share that opinion.. it's only obnoxious when they go so far as to shove it down people's throats and stand on soapboxes yelling it from the rooftops providing us with their unsolicited perspectives is where I have a problem.

[oplawlz]

I don't mind if someone asks them their opinions and they share it because they live here, they pay taxes and they are humans with opinions as well as your next door neighbor. They have every right to share that opinion.. it's only obnoxious when they go so far as to shove it down people's throats and stand on soapboxes yelling it from the rooftops providing us with their unsolicited perspectives is where I have a problem.

Yeah, what I was going for, really. I don't care if they spew that nonsense on their twitter or whatever since that's what everyone does. It's when people hijack non-political platforms (award shows, film festivals, NFL games) that I get irritated.

[Wondercrab]

Ultimately it just comes down to whether they're entertaining to watch. "Good acting" encompasses a whole range of skills, the same way "good writing" can vary wildly between authors. You have actors who completely suck you into the moment with the nuance and authenticity of their performance, like Anthony Hopkins in Westworld --



Then you have actors who play to the complete opposite end of the spectrum and ham things up so hard that it becomes a joy to watch. Class acts like Jeremy Irons or Raúl Juliá understand that bad or silly movies can be saved by entertainingly over-the-top performances rather than ones that try to take the script seriously --





All of these performances are immensely entertaining. That's ultimately what a good actor is; a good entertainer. If I had to boil it down to one thing, though, I'd say the best actors are those who know how to tailor their performance to the production at hand. That kind of falls under having a good range, but I think there's more to it than just being able to depict a broad variety of characters or emotions. It involves knowing when to improvise, how far to push a performance, being able to play off the rest of the cast, and how to adapt to the script or other elements of the production.

[Deleted]

A good actor to me is someone that can play different roles and play them well. A good example is Eddie Redmayne . A bad example and why i find this actor so limited is Jason Statham. This guy just plays one role , that of the angry, tough, bald guy.

[melodramocracy]

A good actor to me is someone that can play different roles and play them well. A good example is Eddie Redmayne . A bad example and why i find this actor so limited is Jason Statham. This guy just plays one role , that of the angry, tough, bald guy.

And this is an odd one, because he plays the laid back guy so much better (see: Snatch). He has the build for it I suppose, but I don't think he's that good of an action movie main guy personally.

Paul Giamatti.... here's someone who can certainly act, and I tend to enjoy the movies he does (that I've seen anyhow), but if you watch enough of his films, you see that he seems to have a pretty limited range to what he does.

[Primohastat]

First: define "good".

For the industry, good means the amount of money an actor can generate through his presence in the whole project (movie and marketing campaign around it).

Best idea is to monitor imdbPro top 100 list. View status of your favourite actress/actor before and after the most recent movie, compare with other top 10 at the moment. Clues for answer should be there

[Thagrynor]

A good actor to me is someone that can play different roles and play them well. A good example is Eddie Redmayne . A bad example and why i find this actor so limited is Jason Statham. This guy just plays one role , that of the angry, tough, bald guy.

Not sure I agree with the "angry" part for Jason Statham. There are plenty of roles he has had where he is definitely the tough bald guy, but isn't so much angry. The Italian Job, for instance, is less angry and more annoyed and joking around. Still definitely the tough bald guy though. That is part of what I enjoy though. Sometimes, you just wanna watch an action movie with a tough bald guy. How do you think Bruce Willis sustained such a long career? lol

OT: I would add Phillip Seymour Hoffman to the list of great actors. He was pretty much a top notch performance in almost everything he was in, even his little bit role/cameo type appearances, he was one of the best in the scene.

I am not sure I would label Tom Cruise a "great" actor. Entertaining, sure. But great is a bit of a stretch. He plays very, very similar characters in everything he is in. Example: His characters in Mission Impossible, Jack Reacher, Knight and Day and Mummy were basically all the same guy: A generic action "hero" with agility and decent fight moves. I know this is the basic description of most action hero characters (and there are many that are played by terrible actors that are similar), but he doesn't bring anything great to those roles. Bruce Willis made John McClane a hero you really rooted for by playing up his everyman quality and infusing a bit of that dry humor he has. The Rock is really enjoyable as, aside from him being the size of a goddamn mountain, he definitely brings humor and a larger than life personality to most of the roles he takes. It is definitely possible to make the action hero more than just a generic action hero, and yet, Tom Cruise does not elevate those roles beyond "generic action hero". The movies were entertaining, sure (well, Mummy was a bit meh, but the rest were fairly entertaining). Even in his more dramatic roles, he played in a very narrow window. His character in A Few Good Men was, military career aside, very similar in personality to Jerry Macguire, who was very similar to Maverick in Top Gun. Again, he isn't a bad actor by any stretch, but I am not sure I would really put him in the category of a "great" actor. Better than average, maybe.

[shaunika123]

A good actor to me is someone that can play different roles and play them well. A good example is Eddie Redmayne . A bad example and why i find this actor so limited is Jason Statham. This guy just plays one role , that of the angry, tough, bald guy.

there are different types of acting.

morgan freeman plays the same role every time, and yet noone would dare to call him a bad actor
matthew mcconaughey, for all the criticism i give him for taking all those shitty roles for like 10 years straight, has given amazing performances, but he's still mostly the same guy.

even jason statham has given good performances in snatch and lock stock, he's a good comedic actor, it's just that he got typecast into action movies because of how he looks.

for me a good actor is someone who can elevate a movie by the power of his performance.
think heath ledger in the dark knight, robert shaw in Jaws, daniel day lewis lincoln or gangs of new york. Javier bardem in no country for old men, or sean penn in Milk (ofc there are other examples, but these came to mind right off the bat)

I am not sure I would label Tom Cruise a "great" actor.

watch magnolia

[LiiLoSNK]

Having a narrow range doesn't make an actor weak.

[PACOX]

Entertaining. That is all.

[Fonduset]

Not being accused of sexual harassment

[Kokolums]

Bad actors will take a line of dialogue and say it with a flat tone of voice with either a lack of pauses or pauses placed in odd places. A good actor will take the same line and place emphasis on a key word to deliver a punch and possibly insert a dramatic pause done correctly (by correctly I mean in a natural way to make it sound like something a normal person would say when feeling emotion). Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart are really good at emphasizing key words and adding pauses to great effect.

There is a trick to cover up bad actors tho. Make them read their lines REALLY fast and slightly annoyed. Research shows this CAN make someone appear charismatic. Steven Spielberg is a devout follower of this technique. Most characters in his films ramble the dialogue at light-speed with a hint of underlying annoyance to try to generate charisma. War of the Worlds has most of the characters talking as fast as possible and all almost angry at each other for almost the entire film. The Indiana Jones films has Ford and the girl or Connery rattling off dialoque super fast both slightly annoyed with each other. Close Encounters of the Third Kind has lots of rambling dialogue and people annoyed with each other. Its almost like they are all really the same film with different actors.

[Perplexify]

A good actor is someone who is believable and immerses you into what you are watching, if you were to see them in public your feelings from their performance would almost overwhelm you and bring you back to who they personified in their work. A good example would be the kid who played Joffery from Game of Thrones. He is someone we all loved to hate and when he finally got what he deserved we all cheered. We had an emotional investment in him and I think that is what makes a good actor, is immersion and emotional investment.