And...
Okay, dumb question, but why would anyone care if an actor portraying a comic book character has read the comic in question?
I mean, scriptwriters, yeah. You would hope the scriptwriters have read the damn comic. Directors too. But actors? Their job is to act according to the script/direction. I'm not saying it doesn't take skill, but it seems to me that if the part's well defined enough, the actor can manage.
And there's nothing stopping the director/writer from handing the guy/gal a damn trade paperback.
Sometimes we geeks are SO WEIRD.
I mean, scriptwriters, yeah. You would hope the scriptwriters have read the damn comic. Directors too. But actors? Their job is to act according to the script/direction. I'm not saying it doesn't take skill, but it seems to me that if the part's well defined enough, the actor can manage.
And there's nothing stopping the director/writer from handing the guy/gal a damn trade paperback.
Sometimes we geeks are SO WEIRD.
posted by kalinara @ 10:55 PM
6 Comments:
At April 11, 2010 6:07 AM,
LondonKdS said…
Oh, I've seen this sort of thing in several TV fandoms. There's this sense among some fans that actors shouldn't just give a good performance, they MUST do DVD commentaries and conventions and always talk about the show as the absolute highpoint of their career. Just look at the poo that gets flung at Christopher Eccleston by some Doctor Who fans, because he only did one year and has made comments since suggesting that he doesn't actually like the show very much.
At April 11, 2010 9:07 AM,
Anonymous said…
I'm going to have to say because the best comic book movies adhere to the spirit of the comics, if not the exact storylines, and you can best understand that spirit by being familiar with the source material. Also it helps to know your character ahead of time. No one would expect an actor to play Lear without having seen others do it. My assumption is that actors don't live in a vacuum and that they shouldn't. But I don't really know anything about acting, except from dating a former film student for like six years.
I'm not saying that, personally, it's a dealbreaker if the actor has a complete lack of knowledge of comics. And I'm sure some serious nerds have made some bad comic movies, but I do feel a bit more optimistic when everyone's geeking out all over the place, including the actors.
At April 11, 2010 12:48 PM,
Maddy said…
I think the hope is that if the actor is familiar with the source material and/or a fan of the character, they'll stay truer to whatever it is fans have in mind for the character's portrayal.
I do think that kind of thing can influence an actor, though, so I don't think it's an entirely futile thing to hope for.
At April 11, 2010 8:12 PM,
Your Obedient Serpent said…
Bookslide and Maddy have summed it up nicely.
For my part, looking at directors, I was greatly pleased to find that Kenneth Branagh was a hard-core Thor fan, and will bend your ear at length about Kirby and Simonson if you give him half a chance. I figured he was going to do a good job, just because of his Shakespeare films, but now I'm convinced he's going to give us an epic.
At April 12, 2010 10:43 PM,
Anonymous said…
I think that if the actor doesn't care to become familiar with the character, it suggests a general lack of enthusiasm for the role which is likely to result in a flat, boring, or shallow performance. You'd expect an actress playing Anne Frank to have read her diary. An actor doesn't need to be a comics geek, but if they have no respect for the source material, we're liklier to get Batman & Robin than The Dark Night.
-- Jack of Spades
At April 13, 2010 4:53 AM,
kalinara said…
Didn't George Clooney say something somewhere about being a comic book fan?
Just sayin'.
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