What bugs you more: overacting or underacting?

Neither really bothers me, and I don't know which one bother me "more"...

What does bother me, is when people claim actors overact or underact, when they are not...


In many cases, the Director has told them to do so for some kind of "effect".

Robert Wagner, in one of the Austin Powers films, for example... He cries just like a little kid, and tells Doctor Evil, that he is "through with him pushing him around"...

Overacting? Not really... That is what the director wanted him to do.

And in some cases, one might say, an actor is giving a great performance... After all, it might not be so easy to make Audiences think that you are "overacting".

For me, it depends entirely upon the performer and what I know about their abilities. 

There was no more skilled and versatile a player than Claude Rains, for instance, and I can think of only one performance of his that went inappropriately over-the-top with histrionics: in 1937's They Won't Forget, his prosecuting attorney is a collection of stentorian bellows, rolled Rs and theatrical gestures. He was capable of much better in projects both before and after, even when playing flamboyantly colorful characters. As a temperamental, manipulative and dictatorial conductor/composer in 1946's Deception, for example, his performance is another grand one, but was instead put across with a hundred nuanced subtleties rather than by sheer force.

It's equally disappointing to see an otherwise great performer phoning it in. For years in my movie-watching youth, my only exposure to Leslie Howard had been Gone With the Wind, and I'd mistakenly assumed his lackluster work therein was representative. When I started catching up with films like The Animal Kingdom, The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Petrified Forest and Pygmalion, the difference was like that between a plastic dime-store rose and a living one in full bloom and fragrance. To be fair, there were mitigating circumstances surrounding his participation in GWtW, among which were being pressured into the role by Selznick as a condition of producing and starring in Intermezzo, which shot concurrently and often required Howard to be dashing between soundstages on the Selznick lot from one picture to the other on given workdays. Still, the result of his disinterest in playing Ashley is preserved on film just as is his work of inspiration and depth in those other pictures. And more's the pity, because I'm willing to bet there are millions who've never seen them - nor ever will - for whom Howard will remain only the wooden Mr. Wilkes.

A thread about Ginger Rogers has had me thinking about her, and how fresh, spontaneous and full of invention her performances were during her first decade in films. But into the 1940s, after she'd established herself as an actor to be taken seriously, her work became increasingly mannered and calculated until, by the 1950s, her performances in films like Black Widow (as a self-centered B'way diva) and Tight Spot (as a hard-bitten con sprung from prison to testify against mobsters) consisted of nothing but overplayed mannerisms. 

There are ones whom I always like better when they're underplaying. I'm probably in the minority, but have usually found Carole Lombard stridently grating and overbearing in comedies like Twentieth Century, My Man Godfrey, Nothing Sacred and True Confession. One exception was her final picture, To Be Or Not To Be, in which director Ernst Lubitch toned her down to the kind of delicately elegant control she brought to dramas like In Name Only and Vigil In the Night, and the balance of her cool comedic counterpoint to Jack Benny's film-canned ham is all the better for it. And Spencer Tracy, Cary Grant, William Powell and Robert Mitchum were among performers who came to learn how to refine underplaying into an art form, while remaining capable of unleashing their inner scenery-chewers when the moment was right.

Then there are those who are really at their most richly enjoyable when going big. Peter O'Toole is an example. He had a special ability to incorporate grand theatricality into a character's DNA so that it became a completely credible component of his personality. In a much earlier era, George Arliss and his marvelously stage-trained diction effected similar alchemy, whether playing courtly-but-deadly villain, benevolent head of state, bored businessman or hobo. 

And while I won't name names, there have also been dozens - probably hundreds - of bland, unimaginative, paint-by-numbers actors of both genders who've inexplicably (to me) worked year after year in both films and television, delivering only what the script requires but never a bit more: never "under;" never "over;" never much of anything except hitting marks and speaking lines. 

So whether I find myself thinking, "Were you half asleep when you shot this" or "Jeez, take it down a few notches," my only barometer is how it measures against the actor's other work. Or, if they're ones with whom I'm unfamiliar, it's simply if I buy it or not, whether they're going big or little. As an afterthought, I'll add this: there are few things I enjoy more than coming across a performance that really shines from a player who'd never much impressed me before. I'd like to think that within every cookie-cutter player, there's at least one great performance just waiting for its opportunity to reveal itself.    

Over. I quite like underacting

An actor who consistently underplays with great effect is Alan Rickman. His voice, though very quiet, is filled with suppressed emotion. He expresses a great deal with very little movement , expression or vocal shift

Neither particularly bug me.

Underacting means a trick is missed, an opportunity is lost, an ingredient is lacking from the pie. No worse than "regrettable".

Overacting means poison has been added to the recipe. Very damaging and sometimes fatal.