Michael Cera often plays the Michael Cera role in feature films – sweet, soulful and barely masculine.
Jennifer Aniston isn’t about to play a coke-addicted trollop any time soon.
Each has carved out a successful film career hitting similar notes with each role. But are audiences tiring of their routines, or do they appreciate the fact that they know what to expect when they see names like Aniston or Cera above a movie title?
Ask any actor about his or her career and you’ll likely hear something about wanting to try something new.
Who can blame them? It’s like The Who dying to play something besides “Pinball Wizard” in concert. But as soon as Roger Daltrey announces, “here’s a track from our latest album,” the bathroom line swells.
The same often holds true for actors.
Jim Carrey’s career hasn’t been the same since he started mixing in dramatic roles with his flat-out comedies.
Adam Sandler has deftly handled his need to stretch. His ratio of funny to dead serious roles remains imbalanced in favor of comedy, so fans can forgive him for the occasional “Punch Drunk Love.”
Other actors blow right past the whole argument. George Clooney started out as the romantic leading man type with “One Fine Day.” Today, he could play a flying nun and audiences wouldn’t blink.
It often comes down to talent and, more importantly, film choices.
Clooney is a fine actor, but he’s hardly a master thespian. He aligns himself with the best directors on the scene to ensure audiences will stick with him when he throws us a curve ball.
So if Cera or Aniston dare to move beyond their preferred film roles they better team up with a talented director to guide them along the way.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I think it depends on the so called level of stardom. I’d actually love to see Aniston in one of those indie films totally out of character, as in a goth or drug addict or something of that nature. The closest she’s come to doing that was in “The Good Girl” which wasn’t very close. Could she pull it off? I really don’t know.
As far as Cera goes, I don’t think he’s been around long enough to really know. He does tend to play the type of character I hate in movies these days (namely the effeminate guy but still clearly a guy), but I won’t rule him out yet unless that’s all he plays for the next 10 years.
I’m always a fan of seeing actors stretch. I never would have thought of Heath Ledger for the Joker, and like Aniston, I would love to see Amy Adams in a darker role of the type I’ve described above, just to see how she would do it. Like a remake of “Double Indemnity” that was actually good.
I believe it was a stretch for Michael Keaton back in the day for Batman as he was only doing comedy roles, and in retrospect we all wonder why. Likewise what would it be like to see Tom Hanks playing a really bad guy in a film? Or for that matter, any of the leading female actors of today. It seems like females are regulated to supporting parts in thrillers and action movies and it would be great to see an ultimate female antagonist in one of those roles.
No.
At least, not those who were not stretching to begin with – which is the majority of them. Like our television situation comedies, we audiences apparently prefer our actor’s and actress’s vehicles to be comfortably familiar (and comfortably numbing to those of us who tire of it).
WWTW’s examples underscore that point: actors who attempt to stretch usually are penalized at the box office, and since they essentially are contractors, they cannot long afford to lose their audience base as a consequence and hope to remain employed in the profession.
So it goes.
~ D.
I remember listening to the commentary for “The Bench Warmers.” and Jon Heder mentioned something about a fan asking why he’s always playing napoleon dynamite, and David Spade made one of the most sensible comments on that line, saying something like.
“So What? You could be out of work for 10 years tomorrow, so you should take every chance you can to get as much as you can now so that if you stick with it you won’t be broke most of the time.”
Perfect sense to me. Why I don’t have a problem with large wages for “artists.” though I do find the experience A-listers basically stealing money from the new guys who really hold a movie together.
Fickle biz, and if you can break out, you need to capitalize on it as fast and as soon and as best you can.