Actors and Acting Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Actors and Acting - Essay Example Just like the stories being told, there are also various categories that these actors fall into, depending on the role being portrayed. The 5 definitions of actors are impersonators, interpreters, personality, wild card and characters. These are the actor types that I will be discussing in the following pages. To get started, I first want to discuss the Impersonator. Our text clearly defines this type of actor as "suggesting that the actor has simply copied the manner, dialect, and behavior of a character, instead of creating the character." Examples of effective character acting provided as an example include the portrayal of Phillip Seymour Hoffman of Capote, an impersonation job which, due to its effectivity, won the actor an Oscar, and Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth in The Queen. As an impersonator, they were required to be as similiar as possible to the real life person they were portraying. For Hoffman, it was the trademark lisp, for Mirren, it was her uncanny resemblance to t he actual Queen. Aside from these two people, another effective personator who comes to my mind is Frank Langella in Nixon. His similarity in looks and his ability to copy the actual speech pattern of Pres. Richard Nixon helped the audience immerse in a total viewing experience. He was not just acting as the president, there were actually times when you would believe that he was the president because of the way he conducted himself while in character.