Originally Posted by
robcat
Very good point.
Funnily enough, this came up in a discussion at work a while ago.
Whilst there are certainly some who really can't act in any sense of the word (particular popstars trying their hand at acting - just watch 5 minutes of Spiceworld), there's definitiely a difference between acting in the sense of convincingly portraying the correct emotions at the right time, and acting in the sense of convincingly portraying a completely different character on screen. It's a rare talent to be able to do the latter, and the vast majority of actors are probably in the former category.
There are certainly some major names (and hugely sucessful "big name" stars, with many awards to their name), who can only really play themselves on screen, and so are just effectively playing the same character each time.
Many of the biggest names in Hollywood are really very limited in terms of acting range - it's not to say they don't have charisma, screen presence, say their lines convincingly etc, it's just that they don't really do it any differently in any of the roles they take. I think Sean Connery is a great example of this. He's always a physically imposing, gruff Scot whether he's playing a Russian submarine captain, an Irish-American cop, or an Egyptian-Spanish immortal. He's defintely a movie star, he's defintely got bags of charisma, but I don't think he ever "acts" in the true sense.
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