"Security" vs "Danger" Acting? (Pacino Quote on Redgrave)

I definitely agree with him. It's much the same with any art or craft, some people are more conventional or more experimental than others, or at least more conventional or more experimental to their own standards. Some actors you have a good idea of what they're going to give you (idk why but my first thought was George Clooney apart from his Coens collabs) and some where the unpredictability is the draw (Klaus Kinski, Cage as you mentioned). It's all a continuum. In my own tastes I have favorites that I would say are more predictable (Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise) and others that ride the lightning (Gary Oldman, Christopher Walken). I probably gravitate more towards dangerous actors generally, though.

"But with that said, it depends entirely on the material"

I gave a review once that talked about the "dangerous" performance LaKeith Stanfield gave in Judas and The Black Messiah (link below, read it ffs) - but that was a performance and I'm not sure he's actually a "dangerous" actor.....he may be....I dunno....

movie-awards-redux.freeforums.net/post/348501

But I do think Rampling, in particular is in that "Redgrave way" of almost always being hard to read in a manner that transcends different material - I have A LOT to say about Rampling......... but not yet - that post will be behind a paywall - it's about time I started getting paid ffs so join my blog/newsletter and pay the man
Here's another actress I think is dangerous and what I wrote about her once: Niamh Algar

Discuss actresses you are CURRENTLY into
Feb 18, 2022 at 10:19am Post by pacinoyes on Feb 18, 2022 at 10:19am

I've talked about her A LOT but she's the most fascinating young actress to me besides my beloved Adèle Haenel who is peerless.

Niamh Algar - who plays almost every part at a slightly off angle - making you think she's off, or miscast, or maybe even "bad" - and later ends up fitting the role exactly to her conception of it and making you come around to what she's doing. No actor male or female right now has baffled me as much as her - either in leads (Censor, Deceit (on TV) - both essential performances) or in small roles (Without Name)....in everything I've seen her in, she sticks out and I think about her choices constantly.

.....she's like an Indie Punk Star in Waiting........she never gives you what you "think" you want.......

What's very interesting about Rampling (imo) - is how she can be dangerous - or at the very least challenging - in roles that are built in sympathetic and built in to give the audience what they want.......in Under The Sand -I don't think many actresses (any?) would set the performance at the pitch level she did from the start - she seems happy but removed - and at fault - right from the start ........ so when he goes missing it's an extension of her initial uneasiness......I think another good actress might have eventually got there but she sets the arc of that character in a far more interesting and challenging way......

As great as that performance is (and it is very great)  - she risks alienating a whole segment of the audience who put themselves in her place in a more "simple" way........

I think she's one of the best - and I'm talking at a Huppert, DePac level for these 2 attributes ffs -  at suggesting "backstory"  and also "self-loathing" - these are 2 extremely hard things to convey and are (very) often missed by a lot of actors - even good ones -  even great ones actually........

Rampling suggests one or both in almost every character regardless if it is obvious on the page:

- a life already lived and often horrors seen and survived........I think about her in The Verdict - and you initially are struck by what a bitch she is.........but on multiple viewings you are struck by what her life must have been like before we knew her........how sad she is and has always been and carried it around........how she thinks she deserves where she is at the end of the film........and how she was suggesting it all to us all along..........whether we got it at first or not.........

Along those sames lines as Chastain ^ - one of my favorite quotes about acting, below...I can almost say this is 100% true actually ......not quite but almost.........for a while, in my younger days (um) I used to say if I could "guess" the performance an actor would give before I saw it then to me it couldn't be "great"......now of course it can still be great in a different way (I've mellowed!) but I always remain less impressed if that's the case......if I know an actor can play a role already it seems "too easy" or something if he's also playing it early ........in my own head

At least with regard to Ledger, I feel like the myth that he was somehow so immersed as the Joker that it had anything to do with his death a gross idea that feels like a bunch of people trying to cling onto the mad/suffering artist trope. Ledger was by all accounts perfectly normal on set, skateboarding around, chatting it up with his fellow actors, talking to Nolan about his own ambitions to direct (including his plans for a possible Nick Drake movie). And he had already finished the role and was well into production on Doctor Parnassus but nobody ever says how being in a Terry Gilliam movie wrecked his sleep. He had struggled with insomnia for years, the Joker didn't have a thing to do with that. Nobody would be drawing a connection between the two if the performance weren't so good and in such a high-profile movie.

The trope around Ledger of course is "the role affected him without him realising it so he "lost control" ..........and it is quite different imo than a different kind of mythologizing of actors the "harmful dangerous acting" type like De Niro in his younger days and Ledger's Batman co-star Bale ........that De Niro, Bale, etc. were always in control .......so committed to the role look and how far they could .........and would go ....

Mr Bale revealed he lost the weight in just four months after switching his normal diet for one apple, a tin of tuna and a black coffee every day. He also smoked cigarettes to help reduce his appetite. This was a measly diet of less than 200 calories per day, well below the 2,500-calorie average recommended for men.

The actor lost 62lbs, or a third of his weight, for a psychological thriller. When he was cast as machinist Trevor Reznik for the 2004 movie 'The Machinist' who was emaciated due to his insomnia, the star set himself a target of slashing his weight from 182lbs to just 120lbs