A Filmmaker's Guide to: Rethinking Actors

In this chapter of ‘the filmmaker’s guide’ we’re going to be thinking and rethinking about actors that I have personally called ‘awful’ in the past and seeing why I was wrong, and actors whom I called ‘great’ in the past and seeing why I was wrong. Hopefully, this helps you to identify how your opinion can change as a human being and how, through research and observation, you can make a more informed conclusion even if your previous one was the entire opposite. Film and literature is all about changing our opinions and if our opinions remain static throughout our study then we probably haven’t had the full experience of the subject at hand. We need to be open to change in our thought processes and really, that’s what criticism and theory is about. If we start by opening our opinions up to change on particular base level types, then we can slowly build these up to see how we could possibly change our opinions on a grand scale. I will start by rethinking actors and actresses I have either previously thought as not very good at their job or very good at their job and will be arguing the opposite; demonstrating my change of opinion. So, if you see the ‘rethinking…’ line in my title, you can bet it is a part of this series.

Structure

The structure of these articles will more be based within opinion than fact. They will be about the following things in this order:

- What I have previously stated my opinions are on the actor

This will include things such as: my opinions on the actor previously, the works I had watched up to this point and how and when I made my decisions on whether I enjoyed their work or not

- What my new opinions are

This will include things such as: the journey towards my new opinion and why I wanted to be more open to their work, what made me change my mind and finally, what I am looking forward to in the future of their filmography

- Why has my opinion changed?

This will be about the fact that I have actually changed my opinion on this person and why I believe that has happened. It is always good to have an evolving opinion, but I want to pin-point why mine has turned in the opposite direction and where it is now heading.

Why am I doing this?

During the course of the series, I hope to go through other people in occupation such as: directors, screenwriters, authors, personalities and anyone who fits the bill of either changing my opinion of them or changing my opinion on a particular subject. This is very important to me as a person because I also believe that the development and change of opinion must be for a reason other than ‘I thought about it for a while and…’. Instead, it must be a conscious decision upon several different factors and that’s where the third bullet point in the list above comes in. There is something fascinating about the human opinion, yes. But there is something even more fascinating happening right now and that’s polarisation. It has become a world of ‘the opposite to me like this thing so I must dislike this thing…’ and that is basically politics nowadays. I have always made sure not to leave anyone out on account of their race, gender, political beliefs etc. and will continue to do so. But, I am very interested in why my opinion has changed recently when in reality, I do not often change my opinions about anything, let alone something as important to me as film.

During the last year or so, I have changed my stance on a lot of things and film is one of them. Hopefully, it was the polarisation of everyone else that put me off having such a narrow-minded point of view upon everything. But in reality, I think it was the process of rethinking and we will investigate more into that. This is why I have called this series “rethinking actors” and hopefully, if you like/dislike these actors, you can focus on rethinking them as well.

I hope to see you there when we cover our first 'rethinking' article:

"Rethinking Lucy Boynton"