Actors who are overly mannered

You rang?

Judith Light. She seems like a nice lady, but is stiff and overly mannered in all roles I have seen her in, except on "Who's the Boss?".

She was on Law & Order with some distractingly bad nose-in-the-air manner and disjointed way of speaking. She put on that same character in a Lifetime move (I think. I was just flipping the channels).

Eva Greene. Too self-conscious and neurotic to ever be a convincing actress. A later day Tippi Hedren.

Nice tits though.

Meryl

Jeremy Davies, the guy from creep David O. Russell's disgusting mom-fucking fantasy, Spanking The Monkey. He was in Solaris 2002 as well. So many vague hand gestures.

Paging Blythe Danner, Ms. Danner please pick up the blue courtesy phone.

Blythe gets a lot of inexplicable love on DL (mostly because she's not her daughter, I suppose). Frankly, she's had as big a career as her talents merited. It's not just a question of being mannered--and she is--but of being pretty limited overall.

And... Sandy Dennis for the win.

Tippi Hedren

Janet Leigh

Eva Marie Saint

Lawrence Olivier

Joseph Cotten

Joan Fontaine & Olivia De Havilland

I forgot Greer Garson

Deborah Kerr, though not in everything. Olivia DeHavilland in Gone With the Wind.

So many Method actors became very mannered:

Geraldine Page Shirley Knight Sandy Dennis Al Pacino Even the much-admired Kim Stanley had her overly-mannered moments (watch SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON sometime)

On the British front: Maggie Smith (talking about mannered!) Glenda Jackson, when she was a tad lazy

Nobody has mentioned Katharine Hepburn?

No, R13, we're not going to TOUCH La Kate !!

She is timeless & fabulous....

Teresa Wright & Patricia Neal

But I frigging LOVED Patricia Neal anyway. Go figure.

G

"Olivia DeHavilland in Gone With the Wind."

So many of you - and this is a clear example - are confusing a mannered actress with a mannered character.

Norma Shearer

Lesley Ann Warren and Jennifer Jason Leigh Neve Campbell and Jennifer Love Hewitt

R17 = Little Lord Fauntleroy

Roddy McDowall.

Why do I get the feeling he was acting like himself always?

Martin Sheen

Dennis Hopper

Steve Martin

Latter-day Bill Murray

Scarlett Johansen

Christopher Walken gets a pass for his awesome performance in Pennies From Heaven

"She is timeless & fabulous"

She always talked like she was riding a vibrator.

"The caaaaaahhhhhla lilies aaaaaarrrrre in bloooooom ahhhhhgain."

[quote]Why do I get the feeling he was acting like himself always?

His voice?

R5 Jeremy Davies?? He was great in LOST and heartbreaking in Rescue Dawn.

R17, I think her performance here seems artificial. I don't always feel that way about Olivia. She's wonderful in other films, especially her pairings with Errol Flynn. But she appears to be acting in GWTW; still doesn't keep me from loving the movie though.

Jessica Lange, your thread is up!

Miranda Richardson

Matthew McConaughey

Nicholas Cage

Sally Field

Elizabeth Taylor

I agree Al Pacino is the worst, though.

You people have terrible taste. Most of the performers are great , have distinctive personalities, and have been recognized for their work. Just how boring does acting have to be?

Very boring.

Whitney Blake

William Shatner

The loudmouth father on Scandal. He's exhausting.

Eric Roberts

ashley judd

and for shame those of you who said sandy dennis!!!

Angela Bassett. Watching her mouth act tires me out.

Stockard Channing used to be MUCH better onstage. She has gotten extremely predictable in her line readings. In "Other Desert Cities" I did the role with her from my seat. I guess it didn't help that it was such a sucky play.

Joan Crawford

Peter Lorre, George Sanders, Leslie Howard, Bogart, Cagney, Kurt Douglas, James Dean (poor dear never got the chance to relax), Christopher Walken, Woody Allen, the two Hepburns, Garbo, Dietrich, Maria Casares, Jeanne Moreau, Danielle Darrieux, Monroe, Streisand (Madonna, Bette Midler)

I mostly love their mannered styles except for Katherine Hepburn's which makes my skin crawl.

CIcely Tyson, Paul Robeson, Orson Welles

and me!

Glenda Jackson

Ryan Phillippe is near top of the list. Past overly mannered included Polly Bergen and Kitty Carlisle.

Ryam Phillipe? He can't even act at all. Why include him? Is stonefaced a mannerism? Cate Blanshit and Meryl Streep belong at the top of the list. Maria Bello, Julianne Moore when they aren't trying hard enough.

Another vote for Ashley Judd. She seems to be reciting lines and following direction from a hidden earpiece, instead of portraying a warm, living, breathing human being, in most of her films. She's even worse on talk shows, where she still seems to be playing a character by displaying her huge vocabulary. She just never seems relaxed.

Anne Hathaway. Every move, every line reading, seems carefully rehearsed.

No, Anne Hathaway is good. An intuitive actress.

My vote goes for Miss Betty Buckley. What a hamola!!!' She shouldn't have taken an acting tip or three from me.

[quote]Is stonefaced a mannerism

Yes, it is, just like being hammy

Judith Light is horrendous on Transparent. Horrendous.

[quote]Jeremy Davies, the guy from creep David O. Russell's disgusting mom-fucking fantasy, Spanking The Monkey. He was in Solaris 2002 as well. So many vague hand gestures.

Jeremy Davis has thing with vague hand gestures and a variation of twitches before he speaks his lines. Unbearable.

Michael Gothard.

Just a bad actor, period. Completely one note.

According to this thread, all actors are mannered.

Julianne Moore ...Seriously.

Jane Fonda owns this thread. Has she ever created a believable character? She's so self-conscious.

Christine Baranski

Vanessa Williams

Viola was always very polite. Always got an extra water for me when she'd go to craft service. She has lovely manners.

I'm just... what I mean is... would it be too much... to say hello?

I've always considered Streep very mannered. I can still recall the unbelievably wooden and mannered performance in the first movie that brought her to the attention of the public, "The Deer Hunter", which nonetheless remains in my favorite top ten list. And just about every role she's done since. I like her, but have never understood all the raves.

Me!

Jessica Lange and her hands stroking her throat, all that. I like it, but she used to do it a lot.

R60 finally a valid answer!

Blanchett owns this thread.

John Litgow never met a role he couldn't chew the fun out of.

McConaughey and his hand-talking owns this thread.

Phylicia Rashad

Big and Little Edie Beale of East Hampton.

Bette Davis (and her damn Bette Davis eyes)...she always played a version of herself.

dr frasier crane comes to mind. He speaks in a weird, almost british accent.

Let us not forget the execrable Jeff Goldblum!

R67, thank you. I couldn't agree more. I've always hated that Bette Davis cunt and I couldn't understand about how she fooled the American public into thinking she was a great actress when she bulldozed her way through every part she ever played.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned how Katherine Hepburn criticized Meryl Streep's acting by saying she could hear the "click-click-click" in her performances. Isn't that kind of similar to saying her performances are "mannered?"

I know, Bette Davis was always like, "Look at me, I'm an actor and I'll do anything to be the centah of attention."

Her mother Ruth was an insufferable cunt too.

R41 Darling, you are so wrong. One of the few who can go big and still be 200% natural. However, I recently saw that Rome-set film with Woody Allen as your husband (you poor thing!) and his performance is an apt example of this. There's a scene where he meets a mortician who shakes his hand, and Woody keeps looking at his own hand, disgusted, then looks around to see if anyone else has noticed, then looks back at it again, and repeats it about eleven times in the most wooden and self-conscious manner.

He was always much better at molesting kids than acting.

R73 You didn't seem to mind being my wife back in the day.

Christina Hendricks and Elizabeth Moss (Mad Men). After they pull the crowbars out of their big asses?

Moss's rom-com's were DOA.

Grayson Hall

No to Sandy Dennis.... I loved her😍

I didn't think Stockard Channing was mannered in West Wing.

Holland Taylor, in virtually every one of her comedic roles.

Laura Linney

I'm actually a fan but I've never seen her in anything where I couldn't tell she was ACTING!

My mother always told me to speak nice of the dead. She's dead, that's nice.

Bette on hearing of Joan's death

Here's the pic that should've gone with that post.

Joan be all, "Bitch, I'll bust you upside your ugly head."

Cumberbatch

[quote] She's dead, that's nice.

She's dead. Good.

I love Sandy Dennis but when she died I was reading some remarks made by a film director (not sure which one) that said "Sandy Dennis is the only person that can put a pause in the middle of an 'Uuhhh' "

Rob Morrow -- then I saw him play John Wilkes Booth. He did a nice job.

Stockyard Channing WAS great in six degrees. . . .

Another vote for Geraldine Page. Agree with the person who said her Oscar-winning performance in The Trip to Bountiful is unwatchable because of her self-conscious fiddling. The Actors Studio has a lot to answer for.

Sandy Dennis. I like the comment Ian McKellen made about her in A Touch of Love/Thank You All Very Much, in which he co-starred with her. He said the director edited out all her pauses and therefore gave her a good performance.

Stockard Channing has not impressed me on film. I don't know why she got Oscar-nominated for Six Degrees.

Carol Channing. Everyone can do an impression of her.

Alec Baldwin.

Lindsay Lohan

Debbie Allen! From Fame to Grey's Anatomy. Just awful. Whenever she appears on screen in GA, I either mute or change the channel.

Stockard Channing's performance in "Six Degrees" on stage was one of the best I've ever seen. Transcendent.

You could argue that her more recent stage work has been more mannered (though I wouldn't), but aren't you glad to have someone who's at least interesting to watch? Would you really prefer capable-but-boring actors?

[quote]Darling, you are so wrong. One of the few who can go big and still be 200% natural.

r73 Thank you for saying that. I've been watching as many Judy Davis films as I can get hold of in the last few weeks and I agree 100%. For me, she's the greatest.

Meryl Streep. In a number of films, she doesn't know what to do with her hands; and usually ends up playing with her chin. In the film with Uma Thurman, she kept rubbing her eyes, it was a distraction. I guess she really does act from the neck up!

Miranda Richardson. Whenever someone says they think she's good dramatic actor, I know they have no taste at all--she's all affectations and twitches in drama. She is excellent, though at comedy.

Mia Kirshner

[quote]I didn't think Stockard Channing was mannered in West Wing.

Are you kidding? She chews up the Oval Office and eats it for dinner.

Emma Thompson.

Pretty much anybody from the 20s, 30s and 40s because the actors were still "stage acting."' They acted as if in a theater. People like Marlon Brando and James Dean were exciting because they acted in a new, more realistic way. They allowed themselves to slouch and mumble, like real people do.

Vincent D'orfinio and the rest of the L & O cast. Including the current SVU. All terrible, but him especially.

Erika Slezak, or as some call her on here, Viki Sleestak. Very hammy and overrated. Not surprised she hasn't gotten work elsewhere after OLTL ending.

I wouldn't say that r100 More like she plays the same type of character

Most British actors and actresses own this thread.

Do anyone think Michael Keaton is mannered in his acting. He seems to have a very recognized way of acting that seems self conscious, I really don't know how to really explain it. I will describe as smucking, birdman was the first time i saw him show more range. Still a fan of his work.

http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47d9-b997-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

Well, I disagree with you r106. Whenever I watch her, I feel like I can see the big neon light above her head that reads "Serious Acting Here!"

Helen Hunt Jodie Foster Tom Cruise trying too hard to be earnest

I always say 'go big or go home!'

Grace Kelly

Alison Brie is kind of mannered (which makes sense considering her theater kid vibe in interviews).

Jamie Lee Curtis is very charismatic, but kind of mannered.

Step off, bitches! *I* own this thread!

[quote]...confusing a mannered actress with a mannered character.

r17, Excellent point.

Joan Collins is always too busy being Joan Collins and too self conscious making sure she looks like Joan Collins to bring believability to the role

Should probably specify god and bad overly mannered. Sometimes it works.

Judy Davis