You see it all the time. An actor in a role on TV or a movie that anyone can play. CSI and LAW and Order have trapped some fine actors in very forgettable parts. I am thinking particularly now of Gary Sinise but it is also true for Marg Helgenberger and virtually all the stars of these franchises.
Gary Sinise showed his acting muscle in
Of Mice and Men, A Midnight Clear, The Stand, That Championship Season and ever
Forest Gump. But here he is stuck in a generic role in
CSI New York. I suppose they are glad for the steady income but still...
Who else is playing way below their talent level?
21 comments:
Dana Delaney in Body of Proof. I so loved her in China Beach and the TV movie The Patron Saint of Liars.
CHINA BEACH may be one of my top ten favorite shows. She was also badly wasted on DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES.
Needed the paycheck I suppose. Body of Proof is awful. I've totally disassociated her with McMurphy now.
Jeff M.
I don't watch any of the L&O spinoffs, but my guess is a regular paycheck and predictable working hours on a franchise show could get most non-A-list actors to sign on the line. On the original L&O, a lot of small roles would be given to actors who were having medical or financial difficulties so that they could keep their union benefits. Also they did some interesting not-really-stunt casting, such as Fran Liebowitz in a recurring role as a judge--she was perfect!
Deb
Mads Mikkelsen, Vincent D'onofrio, Bruce Campbell, Joe Mantegna, Jeffrey Donovan....
I would love to see D'Nofrio play a character that was totally sane.
I'd say most of them. One thing I learned as a musician is, there is not enough "artistically rewarding" work to go around. Symphony orchestra musicians play pops concerts or small ensemble gigs in parks. That's the nature of businesses where the supply of people who want to work in them so far outstrips the demand for their work.
To me, the actors who work most often below their level of talent are the character actors who can be unrecognizable from part to part as they mold themselves to suit the character. Stephen Root comes to mind, thinking of his characters in OFFICE SPACE and JUSTIFIED. Ray McKinnon is another (DEADWOOD, JUSTIFIED, APOLLO 13), as is Saul Rubinek (UNFORGIVEN, TRUE ROMANCE). These guys do a lot of spear carrying work on TV when they can act rings around most stars.
Personally, I'm glad Jeffrey Donohue is still doing Burn Notice. But it does remind me that that show has kept a host of good character actors in work with one shot appearances. My niece mentioned one of the actors to me the other day as her family is watching about season 4. It was Richard Schiff, more famous for playing Toby on West Wing. Once we'd established who we were talking about she said, "That's my friend's Dad."
WEST WING brought us so many fine actors that still show up repeatedly. Elizabeth Moss has really come into her own. Rob Lowe, Alison Janney. What a fine job of casting.
Saul Rubinek occasionally gets to act on WAREHOUSE 13 but not so much.
Margo Martindale was wasting her talents on A GIFTED MAN, which made her Emmy-winning role on JUSTIFIED look that much better.
Deb, it used to be when you went to a Broadway show everyone in the cast had been on at least one soap opera. Now it's at least one L&O.
Jeff M.
THE GOOD WIFE is also filmed in NYC, which is why so many Broadway and other East Coast talent shows up there.
I actually don't see Stephen Root in too many One for the bills roles...but perhaps I'm not watching enough routine/dull tv (KING OF THE HILL was close enough, at times)...he seems to be able to pick and choose better even than the likes of Kelsey Grammer (who isn't hurting financially, at least). There are only so many NEWSRADIOs one gets to be on...
D'Onofrio would really have to stretch to play it sane, but there was that episode of HOMICIDE, "The Subway," with him as a guest, that was highlighted with a FRONTLINE episode on how an episode was produced.
While Dana Delaney's career has been one of doing what she can to upgrade bad projects, for the most part, since CHINA BEACH. A less lucky John Astin.
FWIW, Sinise (and the similarly wasted Sela Ward) won't have to worry about wasting their talent on CSI: New York any longer...
Pity the scripts on THE WEST WING were so jejune.
I thought the first two years were very good if unrealistic. No one works from that ideological stance successfully. As we can see....
"Unrealistic" is what kept it from being good from jump. Shallowly so. If well-acted enough. THE NEWSROOM is every bit the logical next step, even as STUDIO 60 was as self-indulgent.
Dana Delany (it's tempting to typo her name as I did above) did have at least one worthy series since, KIDNAPPED, which was done in by being a continuous serial that started poorly and improved markedly as soon as it had scared away most of its potential audience. I hear that the slightly satirical primetime soap PASADENA was better than one might expect, but also got insufficient support from its network (I missed that one).
Other than a peek at Despwrate I have seen none.
Yes, D'Onofrio was superb and amazingly subtle in that HOMICIDE subway episode.
And then he played the bug in MEN IN BLACK...
Jeff M.
That Homicide episode was amazing. I first got on to him, though, in the movie The Whole Wide World, where he played the guy who wrote Conan the Barbarian, Robert E. Howard.
I guess I hadn't really thought of this question before. I don't know if I watch enough TV to really answer it from my perspective.
Dana makes a good point. A lot of actors feel that work is work, whether it's King Lear or Mr. Whipple. It's hard enough to be a working actor.
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