Actors and stars

I wrote about Adam Sandler yesterday and the way his screen persona doesn't seem a lot different from his real life persona. Persona might be the issue: having played a lot of crude-mouthed characters, perhaps that's the 'image' he now portrays in real life. It's hard to know. Screen actors, more so than stage actors perhaps, tend to mould their parts to themselves, and get parts that are moulded to their natural person. I find Danny de Vito, for instance, always seems to play loud-mouthed, and often foul-mouthed, characters. Different, but similar, to Sandler's.

Denzil Washington, on the other hand, is more in the vein of the gentlemanly person, and rarely plays a villain, especially the sort of villain who has sadistic or violent streaks. Whether these are just outside his natural acting limits, or whether he prefers not to play them, it's hard to know. He has played a few unpleasant characters, but something doesn't quite work, it seems to me, when he does. This is not to say he can't be aggressive or strong, or domineering when required. But in general it's his humanity and warmth that we go to see him for.

Maybe because we seem so close to screen actors we find it hard to distinguish between them and the kinds of roles they play. The camera doesn't let an actor away with a lot; it readily picks up false notes in a screen performance, especially that of a major star. (Character actors and supporting players are a different kettle of fish.) You can sense when a star isn't comfortable in a role. The most recent example I've seen of this was Michael Caine In Educating Rita. Caine playing a professor, even an alcoholic, washed-out professor, just didn't seem to work; and you sensed the actor being out of sympathy with the character in a number of scenes.

Johnny Depp, though he produces great characters, still brings a sensitivity and vulnerability to all his roles. This meant, when he played the writer in secret Window, he could engage our sympathy throughout the movie, and give us a nasty shock at the end when he turned out to be the murderer.

Of course, producers play to their stars' strengths. That's only natural. And I guess if a scriptwriter turns up with a story that requires a crude character in crude situations, then they'll ring Sandler's agent, or de Vito's. There's no way Washington or Depp would fit the bill. And equally, you can't see Sandler in one of the 'commanding presence' roles that Denzil Washington – or Harrison Ford – plays.

I suppose actors get cast to what they do best. Whether that's the best approach is another matter, since it never stretches the actor. Whether stars can be stretched may be another issue as well.

Sandler's trademark

Yesterday we arrived at my daughter's place, where we're staying for a few days before flying off to England. I was too tired to do anything much on the computer or to read, and so I finished up watching an Adam Sandler movie, something I'd rarely do. I've seen others in the past, and they're a puzzle to me. Invariably they're loaded on the side of crudity, even including children in the crudity. (There's an Asian character in this movie who has nothing to do with the story; his sole role is to make crude comments on what's going on.) Plainly Sandler appeals to a certain audience, because he's certainly popular enough to keep making movies. The audience doesn't seem likely to be a young audience either; perhaps it's the middle-aged beer-drinking boys' night out audience. But I'm not sure that the movie I saw last night was likely to appeal to such an audience, since it's a romance; though anyone less likely to strike me as romantic is Sandler.
The movie was 50 First Dates, and in it Sandler plays a crude marine biologist who has two even cruder off-siders. One is either a man or a woman - no one seems sure which - who has a mouth like a cesspool. The other is played by Sandler regular, Rob Schneider, who plays a Hawaiian with half a dozen young sons constantly in tow. He not only speaks crudely (often in front of the boys), but acts even more so. Drew Barrymore is the girl Sandler improbably falls in love with, and Sean Astin plays her dorky brother. Dan Ackroyd makes some occasional appearances - and of course is given some crude lines.
There are some funny moments, though most of them are overdone. There are even some funny lines - between the crude ones.
I saw Sandler on Rove one night. He was almost as crude in that interview as he is in the movies, which makes you think he feels this is an okay way of life - and performance. At the end of this particular movie there's a dedication to his Dad. He hopes that he'll always make his Dad proud of him. You have to wonder what his dad was like if Sandler thinks these movies do him proud.