It would have been better if we had started out the history of films by never using the same actor more than once.

For a lot of films it’s more about watching Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Jennifer Anniston etc. play a new character with the focus on them instead of seeing a fresh unknown face and the focus on that character’s personality.

I wouldn’t mind a world where once you were in one movie you were never cast again. It would make movies more unique and mysterious. Personally, I like Indie films with unknown actors more than many Hollywood mainstream movies with recycled actors.

I will concede that an amateur actor would probably not have crushed the role of Daniel Plainview in “There Will Be Blood” like Daniel Day Lewis did. But that is an exception where the actor disappeared into the role and I never thought I was watching an A list actor. The majority of actors don’t disappear into the role.

Also, a bonus to never using the same actor is that more people would be able to be in a film at least once.

  • MeatsOfRage@lemmy.world
    0·
    7 months ago

    Hard disagree. Acting is a skill that takes time to hone. Very rarely do you get a great performance from a first time movie actor. I know it happens (The Holdovers is a good recent example of this) but it’s rare. We wouldn’t have iconic characters like Vito Corleone, Indiana Jones or even Gollum because you wouldn’t get first timers with the skill or charisma to pull these off.

    Also, known faces draw crowds, the industry couldn’t sustain on indies alone.

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
      0·
      7 months ago

      Yeah, I get the issue of “we keep seeing the same ones”, but I think a better argument would be something from the guild like “You get 2 movies a year” or something to encourage smaller actors to have more chances.

      I love some smaller actors who are just squashed out by others who are more popular but less “right” for the role. “Oh this actress would be perfect, but look we could get ScarJo!”. Like I love me a good ScarJo film, but casting should be more about “This person would be best for this role”, and having a limit of 2 films a year could make it more for the actor “Is this what I want my name to be attached to?”

      Of course this won’t happen, but it’s nice to dream.

      Also this is not serious, I literally just thought of this, please don’t flame me for “What a terrible idea”, this is not a deeply held belief, this was a random thought

      • leftzero@lemmynsfw.com
        0·
        7 months ago

        There’s a solution ya’ll ain’t seeing: just force actors to have plastic surgery before each new role. That way you get the best of both worlds.

        (Sure, they might end up disfigured after a few roles, but that’s what horror flicks are for, and it’d help prevent unrealistic beauty standards to boot!)

      • MeatsOfRage@lemmy.world
        0·
        7 months ago

        The thing is, most actors do only average about 2 movies a year. On a particularly busy year they might have 3. Marvel have thrown off the equation a bit because the same character will show up for small roles in multiple movies but it’s pretty rare otherwise to see an actor consistently do more than 2 movies every year.

        I like the idea of more diverse casting but we (the moviegoing public) broadly won’t go and see the movie unless it’s someone we know.

  • son_named_bort@lemmy.world
    0·
    7 months ago

    Would that include background characters or an actor who only has a line or two? If so that would take away a lot of talent and would make it more difficult to get actors for future starting roles.

  • Candelestine@lemmy.world
    0·
    7 months ago

    I think you hit on the main issue, which is that acting is a challenging set of skills, and only a very small percentage of them ever really master it. Like, a handful every generation.

    That said, yeah, I could do without the same type-cast folks getting to basically play one character in movie after movie, for instance.

    • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.orgM
      0·
      7 months ago

      That said, yeah, I could do without the same type-cast folks getting to basically play one character in movie after movie, for instance.

      Say what you will about Michelle Rodriguez, but she definitely applies the Unix philosophy to acting. And I’m okay with that.

  • mister_monster@monero.town
    0·
    7 months ago

    So, when Hollywood first began to build what we know today as the modern film industry, they faced a dilemma: talent is scarce, but for people to see the same face in more than one story they’ll have to suspend their disbelief quite a bit. Using new actors for every movie doesn’t scale because most people suck at acting, and you can’t grow your industry as much as you want with this model. What to do?

    Their solution was to turn this into a selling point rather than a downside: they invented celebrity. They created this industry cornerstone of allure and mystery and a whole swath of papers to talk about these individuals that appear in movies. Now, it’s not ridiculous to see the same face in a 10th movie, it’s part of the joy. The movie star as an object was created, fabricated, in order to have a rich film industry at all.

    The fact that you like this actor and that actor, that you know who they married and divorced and who they fucked, is deliberate, the industry needs you to care about these things even though they have no impact on your life at all. The truth is humans only knew of people we knew in real life, some historical figures, maybe the emperor’s name. Most people didn’t even know what George Washington looked like while he was president. Most people around the world didn’t even know he existed. The relevance if celebrities isn’t real and they only are relevant because we follow the noise. Their lavish lives only exist because we give them our attention, their names are in our minds for no reason benefitting us, but to them it’s their bread and butter. Bear that in mind next time you see one of them complaining about their feature in the national inquirer.

  • Froyn@kbin.social
    0·
    7 months ago

    We run into some continuity errors when talking about movies that run in series.

    John Wick, and every movie stars a complete different person playing Wick.
    Sure Keanu gets the franchise going.
    Nicholas Cage keeps it rolling.
    Himesh Patel in the 3rd.
    Leslie Jones brings it home in 4?

    Deadpool, and we keep changing Wade with matching surnames.
    Ryan Reynolds kicks it off
    Burt Reynolds fills the gap
    John Paul Reynolds in Deadpool X Wolverine?

  • the post of tom joad@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    7 months ago

    Well i think your opinion might be coming from a lack of variety in what you watch.

    Im confident there’s enough media out there in the world at this point that if you want to live in a world where you never watch the same actor twice, you can. It might be a fun challenge even.

    Good luck

  • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
    0·
    7 months ago

    If anything, that is likely to happen more than ever before. However, producers typically bring in stars for two reasons:

    1. The name of a movie star has/had significant value. A lot of movies only get made because a star chooses to act in them because having a famous person in the movie gets people to watch it.

    2. A lot of actors are worth it because they are good at their job. They learn their lines, hit their marks, and generally keep production going quickly and smoothly. It is a lot less risky to trust an actor to a movie when that actor already has movie experience.