Perfect Roles

0Giordany • 9th Jul 2009 • Articles, Filmmaking

You CANNOT make a “poor” actor better. Don’t even try (Trust me). You can only give an actor a perfect role(s).

I am a strong believer that any actor can be considered great if they are given the perfect roles. However, this usually means that they’re type-casted for life because their range is limited to these certain type of roles.

I strongly believe that there is a perfect role out there for every actor, even you think they’re “poor” actors. I realized that term is relative. Took me a while, I know, but these last couple of shoots have only reinforced it.

A poor actor is only “poor” because he doesn’t live up to your expectations of greatness. If you change your expectations, you’ll change your opinion of his performance.

So what does this mean? He can’t do comedy? She can’t do drama? He can’t play a badass? This means they’re born without certain acting genes. You can’t force Clint Eastwood or even Christian Bale to do a comedy. You can’t ask Will Smith to stop acting like Will Smith, because he gets paid to play Will Smith, and he does it well!

If you have a friend, and he wants to play a certain role that you know for sure he sucks at, you must trick him into experimenting. Challenge him, I’m sure he’ll love it, and see if you can find out more about his acting genes.

What are acting genes? What makes up acting genes?

First off, it’s physical. Does he have a serious face? A funny face? An ugly face? Some things just wont fly: like a man with a funny face in a serious drama. Imagine Ron Howard’s brother, Clint, in a lead role.

If you have an acting friend with big eyes, funny nose, a lisp, and awkward movements, you can’t make him into a bona fide star by forcing him to play something he’s not.

Riddle me this: I’m a big bulky mass, I have a funny accent, and I can’t act. Who am I? Many thought that Arnold Schwarzenegger couldn’t be a super star, but he proved them ALL wrong. It definitely wasn’t his acting that made him a Hollywood Legend, it was the perfect roles.

Second ingredient is personality. You need to hang out with an actor for about the equivalent time of 3 weeks, or 567 hours. The minimum is 24 hours. This is to make sure you get past all of his “social shields” and get to his true personality. You’ll arrive to the core of person’s true pattern of behavior and beliefs. This is when you can begin to mold and establish key characteristics into a character that will be the perfect role for this actor.

What to look for:
Good Voices/dialects
Certain Mannerisms
Certain Beliefs

Voices and dialects: If he/she uses certain voices to express certain emotions, then take note and install them into the perfect role.

Certain mannerisms: If they have an awkward walk or hand movements, install those too.

Certain Beliefs: If they have a particular view of the world, i.e. very religious, anti-authority, pessimism, optimism, this will go well with their perfect role. It’s this point of view that will add meat to the character/role.

As of now, I have my scientists at Vexacorp, working hard ’round the clock decoding the actor genome. Soon, I’ll have the whole acting genes mapped out to the letter, and we’ll have a better road map for creating perfect roles.

Until next time! Adieu.

I'm an LA filmmaker and USC alumni. I blog about my life as a filmmaker, human, and business mang. Read my shit, son.