Tom Cruise Syndrome
I often get into discussions (I guess you could call them arguments) about the best actors and whether so-and-so is a good actor or not. Usually, my definition of a good actor isn’t the same as the other person’s. In fact, I would go so far as to say that my definition is not the normal definition of a good actor.
I consider a good actor to be one that can change personalities, change physical behavior, and change their reactions to fit the part of each character. In other words, a good actor is someone who, when you see them in two different roles, you don’t recognize them.
There are plenty of good actors out there — unfortunately, most of them are not in movies or on TV. In fact, I’m going to go out on another limb and say that most movie actors aren’t good actors. Popular favorites like Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie, Julia Roberts, Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler, and Denzel Washington aren’t good actors. Before you jump up in horror at my blasphemy, take a minute and see my reasoning here.
Let’s take Julia Roberts as an example. There is no doubt in my mind (or anybody’s mind) that Julia Roberts is a movie star. She’s a very bankable actress. Actually, she’s one of the most bankable actresses out there, making something like $25 million per film (Julia Roberts’ Salary). This is not an opinion, this is fact. Julia Roberts is a movie star.
Is she a good actress though? I sincerely doubt it. You can find a sampling of reviews at Defamer.com. As you can see, they’re pretty negative. She was boring and intimidating, she couldn’t maintain her Southern accent, she was awkward and tense, and she was unsatisfying and ultimately ruined the play.
You see, the difference lies in the method through which the audience sees the performance. Julia Roberts has been in several blockbuster movies, including Erin Brockavich and Runaway Bride. She did a pretty good job in those. However, for any given shot, she had to maintain character for as long as that shot lasted. Should she make a mistake, no problem! Just reshoot the scene.
On Broadway, or any live theatre for that matter, you only get one shot. You have the whole rehearsal process to screw up, but come opening night, you better have it down. And it’s not just for a few minutes either. You have to hold that character in your mind for hours. It’s not easy. It’s not supposed to be.
There are plenty of actors out there who have made it a point to be different, to be able to carry a variety of roles. Some of my favorites include Leonardo DiCaprio (salary), Kevin Spacey ($4.5 mil for The Negotiator), and Michael Caine (no salary listed). These guys are definitely paid what they deserve, if not too little. There are plenty of others, sure. Johnny Depp ($20 mil for Pirates 3) is amazing, but he has what I call “Tom Cruise Syndrome.” TCS is when I can’t stop thinking of the character as the actor.
When I see a Depp movie, I always think of him as Depp, not Willy Wonka or Sweeney Todd or Inspector Whatever-his-name was. When I see Mission Impossible, I don’t think Ethan — I think Tom Cruise. Kate Winslet has TCS (for me, anyway), as well as numerous other actors. Morgan Freeman, Adam Sandler, etc. I will admit that each of these actors I’ve mentioned has had performances that completely blew me away (Adam Sandler in Spanglish, Tom Cruise in Collateral, Depp in the first Pirates of the Caribbean, etc). But by and large, I attribute those changes to directors, not to the actors. I could be way off on that, though.
A friend of mine has this terrible habit of rocking on his heels when he gets nervous. Every single time he’s on stage, he’ll rock on his heels at some point. He also has some other mannerisms that repeatedly show up in his performances. Often, I’ll point those out to him, and he works hard to reign those nervous behaviors in. When he manages to reign them in, he is a phenomenal actor. It’s distracting, though, to see six performances in six different shows, and he has the same physical mannerisms in each one, when the characters are completely different characters. Sometimes the rocking on heels works — like Nicky in On the Verge, but sometimes it doesn’t, like when he played General Whats-his-name in Arms and the Man.
Of course, my definition is slanted towards stage acting, but theoretically, it should be able to carry both ways. After all, many actors have transitioned from film to stage and back again with no trouble at all. The trouble truly lies with the producers and with the fact that some actors are hired because of their performances in other movies. I’m sure Tom Cruise could be a phenomenal actor if he chose — but people don’t want him to play Collateral roles. They want to see Cruise in roles similar to Minority Report and Mission Impossible. They want Maverick back. And until he pushes himself to become a better, more diverse actor, that’s what they’ll get.
Tags: Acting, criticism, julia roberts, tom cruise