Eliza as Chameleon Actress

[nerd4hire]

Up until this point the only comments I've seen on Eliza's performance as multiple characters have been critical of the performances.

I've never agreed, but didn't feel strongly enough about it to want to argue. That changed with Episode 6. I agree with this guy.

The show's ensemble cast was in top form last night, but Eliza Dushku also did a lot to quiet the doubters. Her performance as Mynor's wife Rebecca ("It's porn, isn't it? The Internet venture that suddenly pays off!") was different enough from her turn as Caroline the cocky college girl, which in turn was totally unlike her portrayal of Echo the blank slate. Very few actors could completely fulfill the "chameleon" needs of a show like Dollhouse, but I actually think Dushku is doing pretty great. Plus, we have to get the sense that underneath all of this, Echo has an identity of her own that's developing.

I sometimes try to imagine other TV actresses in the Echo role. I try to think of one who could have done better. People often mention a similarity they notice between Dollhouse and Alias. As I recall the reviews for Jennifer Garner's performance were generally postive. So what are we saying Garner's capture of subtleties, and nuance in different characters was superior to Dushku's? Give me a break.

I can't help thinking the critique of Dushku is unjust, and has more to do with some sort of personal prejudice.

 

[MinwaraYana]

Just All right. I still can see Eliza on the screen every week. ^^

 

[Edmund Blackadder]

I wouldn't say any of the ones you have put up.

I would, from what I have seen, say Eliza has a couple of characters that she can do, and she does them well - however, she has yet to show if she can break out of that acting range, and into a better level of acting.

From what I have seen, its going to be the fantastic ensemble that will be the driving force - and to be fair, Olivia, Henry, Alan, Tahmoh and Amy have ALL, to me in other projects, shown they are fabulous actors (though again, from the one episode, I didn't see any of the 'fantastic' yet) - of this show

 

[Silum]

Theres a big difference between 'Alright I guess' and 'I cant see anyone doing better'.

I think she's doing great! But of course there are others who can do as good of a job or better. Eliza's not the greatest actress on this planet and others could fill the role. I expected far worse because I always thought of Eliza as quite limited in range, she is disproving that for me every week but still.

 

[Kean]

For me personally, she is just alright. I find myself looking forward less and less to her scenes, where as the reviewer above found her scene as Rebecca refreshing I found it hard to watch. It felt awkward, especially after her the millionaire guy described his wife...the women he spoke about wasn't the woman that we saw, not IMO.

I keep getting the feeling of her trying to hard, like we can see her acting, if that makes sense. Instead of being the character I see Eliza trying to be the character.

That's where I stand right now but I will be happy to change my mind if I think it is deserved.

I have absoultely nothing against the girl but I am not going to praise her just because she is Eliza Dushku.

 

[Fusions2]

I'm kind of in between alright and pretty good. Maybe now Im just used to it and can see Echo's role being fitted with Eliza. I think she can play different roles well but still when I watch her in Dollhouse sometimes I can see that Faith/rebelness come through. I saw it so much in the episode where she played the singer/bodyguard and again when she was totally kicking Paul's butt in epsiode 6.

But I thought her portrayl of Rebecca was very good especially that end scene where she was playing the surprised wife with the dream house. Also when she plays Echo in the Dollhouse its very convincing I thought I'd find that cringe worthy but so far I haven't. I think we still have roles to come from Eliza in Dollhouse that will up the alright factor to the wow factor. If she can convince us with Tru Calling then she can certainly do it in Dollhouse even if it takes time.

 

[white avenger]

But just how really diverse have her roles been? So far, she's played Echo, who's pretty much a blank slate, a 4 year old in the body of a woman, and some variation of Action Girl. Except for a few quick scenes where she's either a midwife or somebody's wife thrilled with her new house, she's either kicking the crap out of someone or being chased by someone. I'm not saying that Eliza can't play diverse parts, but so far we just haven't seen her do it.

 

[Schillaci]

I'm not onboard with the criticism at all. I've only come across it the past couple of days while I've been searching anything to do with Dollhouse to see what people are saying. So I don't know if this is a new thing or if people have been criticising Elizas acting for a while.

I was kinda blown away by how many are saying she can't act, or she's just about average. I have a couple of theories about the criticism.

I can't be bothered typing so I'll keep this short.

1 - She is super hot. It doesn't matter what you do to her, Eliza oozes sexy.(which is probably the main reason people say all she can play is Faithlike characters). You can't turn that off, unless you put her in a fat suit.

2 - This is a biggie, people are lemmings. It's cool to criticize nowadays, its the in-thing, all the 'cool' kids are doing it. There's no thought process involved, its almost like mentally copy and pasting. You can see something similar with Joss whedon, the Joss meme. Popularised by sites like TWOP, where the plebian little automaton members just don't get it. The Joss meme where if anything is unsuccessful its not his fault he blames someone else. Even though you can't actually find interviews where he critizes all these other people, in fact he actually usually says the buck stops with him. He has so far with Dollhouse, yet you can find so many statements on fan forums that Joss blames the network for the initial episodes of dollhouse being so poor.

I've completely ran off up a dark alley and I forget what I initially wanted to bring up about the Dushku debate. Man I had two other points, I'll come back to this topic when I remember what else I wanted to say.

 

[Edmund Blackadder]

I'm not onboard with the criticism at all. I've only come across it the past couple of days while I've been searching anything to do with Dollhouse to see what people are saying. So I don't know if this is a new thing or if people have been criticising Elizas acting for a while.

I was kinda blown away by how many are saying she can't act, or she's just about average. I have a couple of theories about the criticism.

I can't be bothered typing so I'll keep this short.

1 - She is super hot. It doesn't matter what you do to her, Eliza oozes sexy.(which is probably the main reason people say all she can play is Faithlike characters). You can't turn that off, unless you put her in a fat suit.

2 - This is a biggie, people are lemmings. It's cool to criticize nowadays, its the in-thing, all the 'cool' kids are doing it. There's no thought process involved, its almost like mentally copy and pasting. You can see something similar with Joss whedon, the Joss meme. Popularised by sites like TWOP, where the plebian little automaton members just don't get it. The Joss meme where if anything is unsuccessful its not his fault he blames someone else. Even though you can't actually find interviews where he critizes all these other people, in fact he actually usually says the buck stops with him. He has so far with Dollhouse, yet you can find so many statements on fan forums that Joss blames the network for the initial episodes of dollhouse being so poor.

I've completely ran off up a dark alley and I forget what I initially wanted to bring up about the Dushku debate. Man I had two other points, I'll come back to this topic when I remember what else I wanted to say.

I can't speak for anyone else but I definitely don't agree with 1 and 2 for me.

Angelia Jolie oozes sexiness, but she has managed to pull completely disparate characters out of her ass, from her Girl, Interrupted character, via Tomb Raider to The Changeling.
Charlize Theron did an amazing job in Monster, where 'sexy' wasn't a word I would use, but then in other stuff she IS sexy.

As for the automaton, well there are definitely people like that out there - look at the Whedon fanbase for that in its extreme, but again, my opinion is based solely on what I believe.

I haven't seen anything from Eliza that shows me she is a great actress with a large range.
She is very capable at what she is known for, but as yet I havem't seen anything that has truly tested her.
Does that mean she is a bad actress? Not at all, she might just be saving it OR she might have found her comfort level and decided to stick with it.

This show is a chance for her to prove her critics wrong, from what I have seen, she hasn't yet, doesn't mean she won't.

 

[Revolver]

I think I'm right in the middle on this one. It is unfair for people to throw around terms like "horrific" when describing her acting, but I think it's offbase to imply people would only critisize her because of their own stigmas, as if her acting is perfect and beyond criticism. She's not a bad actress, but she's not an amazing actress either. I've seen better, even within the Dollhouse cast probably. Eliza has a type that she's great at playing, but that bit of Eliza comes through in almost any of the roles she's played, regardless of subtle differences between what the roles were supposed to be. Compare that to Amy Acker's transformation in Angel. As Illyria and Fred, she carried herself completely differently, her screen-presence was dramatically changed, the way she spoke was quite different, etc.

 

[Edmund Blackadder]

As Illyria and Fred, she carried herself completely differently, her screen-presence was dramatically changed, the way she spoke was quite different, etc.

Not just Fred to Illyria, you compare Fred season 2 to Fred season 5 and you see two completely different characters.

---------- Post added at 10:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:03 PM ----------

Schillaci agrees: to be fair, you're not the sort of person I had in mind with regards to those (re)actions

Fair game.

Having said that, she could be the worst actress in the world - she is, in my opinion, one of those incredibly beautiful women that could do anything and you just have to watch her...unless like me, you don't!

Wait, why am I not watching Dollhouse?
I think I should just have it on with the volume down low!

 

[Crazy Flakes]

I voted that she's been all right. The thing is, in some roles, she's great, while in others, she's borderline embarrassing to watch. It's very clear that she's more comfortable with Action Girl, Faith-type roles, since she seems to nail those, but in everything aside from that, it's just...ehhh, not so great (her scenes as the midwife in episode 6 were pretty much cringe-worthy). You can see that she's slowly improving, though, particularly when it comes to playing mind-wiped Echo (but she's still the least convincing of the three main Actives in their default states, in my opinion).

 

[Schillaci]

Silum disagrees: Mindless automaton, No thought process here, mental copy and paste, thoughtless lemming, thats me! ...Or maybe....no....thoughtless lemming, couldnt possibly think for myself.

Did you have a point? Because I don't see it. The only thing I can decipher is that you want to be offended as if I was persaonally attacking you.

As Illyria and Fred, she carried herself completely differently, her screen-presence was dramatically changed, the way she spoke was quite different, etc.

I don't buy this at ALL. Amy was playing a larger than life over the top superhero. As well as being blue whilst wearing a sex suit. Someone with downsyndrome could pull that transformation off.

Eliza is playing multiple nuanced human characters almost in every episode.

 

[goldenboy]

There are certain actors that are just appealing, charismatic and they don't necessarily have tremendous range. Eliza plays a certain type really well...and it seems like an extension of her own personality. That being said, I think she's done well on the show so far. To me, that first ep, as the hostage negotiator came across as the most stilted, artificial so far. The character herself was pretty interesting.

That internet mogul's dead wife character seemed almost too over the top, farcical. But she was hilarious. It's funny to see Eliza try her hand at helpless, clueless types.

Even if she's not utterly convincing, it's usually interesting to watch her struggle with a new persona.

 

[Revolver]

I don't buy this at ALL. Amy was playing a larger than life over the top superhero. As well as being blue whilst wearing a sex suit. Someone with downsyndrome could pull that transformation off.

Eliza is playing multiple nuanced human characters almost in every episode.

Right, because there was absolutely nothing different about the way Amy was acting aside from being blue. But we'll pretend there wasn't. Okay, we'll put Illyria completely to the side. But as Al said, Fred was completely different in the Pylea episodes than the character she turned into in season five. And it wasn't just the writing. Amy pulled off the transformation really well. Far more convincingly than Eliza has pulled off many of her roles. This wasn't meant to turn into a "bash Eliza" comment. I really do think she's okay. But I think she's almost certainly in this role due more to her charisma than to her acting chops. She hasn't been completely and utterly convincing in every role she's played thus far on Dollhouse.

 

[Silum]

Did you have a point? Because I don't see it. The only thing I can decipher is that you want to be offended as if I was persaonally attacking you.

Um, what particular response were you expecting when you called those who believe Eliza's acting range to be limited as.. lemmings, doing the in-thing, having no thought process, mentally copy and pasting, or plebian little automatons?

Do you want a thought provoking crituque of your post?...No, I dissagreed with your post, hardly the place. Im not looking for an argument, but clearly with your post you are.

I dare say Ive never even talked to you directly so theres no reason to assume your talking to me, no, im commenting on your ignorant point of view that people cant have an opinion that differs yours, unless, its original. And that when people have an opinion that aligns, you of a different opinion feel the need to slander them because they disagree with you.

I would hazard a guess and say the majority of members on this board believe Eliza to be a good actress but with limited range, not because they listen to other members, but because they watch their little television box.

 

[Schillaci]

Wow.. I'm looking for an argument? You completely misinterpreted what I said, you put words in my mouth and claim I'm ignorant when you actually ignored the majority of my post and picked out buzzwords.

---------- Post added at 11:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:21 PM ----------

Right, because there was absolutely nothing different about the way Amy was acting aside from being blue. But we'll pretend there wasn't. Okay, we'll put Illyria completely to the side. But as Al said, Fred was completely different in the Pylea episodes than the character she turned into in season five. And it wasn't just the writing. Amy pulled off the transformation really well. Far more convincingly than Eliza has pulled off many of her roles. This wasn't meant to turn into a "bash Eliza" comment. I really do think she's okay. But I think she's almost certainly in this role due more to her charisma than to her acting chops. She hasn't been completely and utterly convincing in every role she's played thus far on Dollhouse.

The transformatoin from goofy fred to less goofy fred was almost instantaneous, so I have no idea what you're talking about. Thats one of my biggest peeves about that character.

As for the Illyria thing, I'm not saying she wasn't great and played the part well, but the process for her to do that was not difficult.

 

[Silum]

Wow.. I'm looking for an argument? You completely misinterpreted what I said, you put words in my mouth and claim I'm ignorant when you actually ignored the majority of my post and picked out buzzwords.

I picked out buzzwords because your posts was laced with them but ok.... what words did I put in your mouth? Sure you go offtopic into a 'Joss can do no wrong' rant, but your still making the point that Eliza can act and the only reason were opposing this is because 'its cool to criticize' ...oops, theres a buzzword.

Btw, im not calling you ignorant, im calling an opinion where noone can oppose you for fear of being slandered, ignorant. For obvious reasons. Your point on Eliza itself I have no problem with, I like tons of actors that others deem as terrible!

 

[Schillaci]

For a start I wasn't talking about anybody on this site. Last night is the first time I've been to this site, in about maybe a year. I said I had a theory as to why there are SO MANY people proclaiming Eliza to be a bad actress.

You wanna pretend that men are all equal and everybody is super intelligent, go ahead. I prefer the truth, and reality. There are a lot of 'Andrews' out there.

 

[atticus]

I'm just going with alright. Her performance hasn't amazed me at any point. But then again the characters she has been given, are fairly limited. We don't get any back story, or insight into their feelings. That is probably the main problem with the show. We know that these characters will be gone by episode's end. We are only really left with Echo in her doll state to relate to, and again this is fairly limited. Doe eyed and innocent. I don't doubt that when we reach the point, where Echo is a character, with feelings and emotions, Eliza will be at her best. At the moment, she is a blank slate, or a character we don't care or feel for.
Eliza can act, no doubt. Watch the end of the Angel episode "Five By Five". When she breaks down in Angel's arms. Fantastic. One of the best moments ever in both shows. She becomes a million miles away from the character we knew as Faith.
I'm sure Eliza will prove herself, once they figure her character out.