Eliza as Chameleon Actress

How is Eliza doing in her performances of different characters in Dollhouse?

  • Horrible. She's embarrassing to watch.

    Votes: 1 2.2%

  • All right, I guess.

    Votes: 15 32.6%

  • Pretty good. I can't think of another TV actress who could do better.

    Votes: 19 41.3%

  • Great. She's found a new level.

    Votes: 11 23.9%
  • Total voters
    46
Schillaci said:
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.
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Well i guess you "completely misinterpreted what I said" if thats what you took away.

Schillaci said:
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.
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Either way, I think the reason "SO MANY" people believe that Eliza will never have a great acting range, is because she doesnt have a great acting range... nothing to do with peoples manipulations. Its the reason why she'll never be compared to the big greats of acting (which, if she was a great actress...with that face...she would be a great im sure). Im not gonna call people lemmings if they think she IS one of hollywoods greats though.

---------- Post added at 12:02 AM ---------- Previous post was Yesterday at 11:52 PM ----------

atticus said:
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. .
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Now that i think about it more and more though, has she really been limited? Hostage negotiator, Safe cracker, Outdoorsy gal...all of which are 'actiony' sure, but does that mean she can't play completely different character types?

I think its hard for any actress to pull off and I dont really expect to see anything majorly different in any of the characters. I said a while back that Eliza playing different characters is not crucial to the show. Eliza just has to act as 'Echo' imprinted with different memories and skills....if she finds the 'voice' of Echo (which she seems to be doing very well) then the individual characters and memory subsets she has to play will just be Echo's take on these. Its a difference between friendly echo and angry echo... emotional echo and stone cold echo...their all Echo, just variations...all of which should be easy to act.
 
I don't think she's one of "hollywoods greats", if that's what you think my opinion is. I think she's a good actress, and definitely competent enough to pull this job off.

And people criticize with no actual thoughts behind it. Its cool to be a pr1ck, which is why shows like American idol, or house are popular. Its like a cycle. Feeding off people. Then you extend that to mocking, and making fools of people, with reality tV. What's that show about overweight people? Americans biggest loser, or something similar.
 
She's just "OK" . i mean we can all take comfort in saying we know Amy would do better, but Eliza's does an adequate job. Shes average at the normal roles and exceeds at the bad ass super chick roles.
 
Wow. There are some vastly different opinions of Eliza arn't there? Well here's mine, thanks for asking! If you weren't already her fan, hadn't seen her in anything else, didn't know who she was....how would you rate her "acting chops"? Personally, I already was and always be an Eliza Dushku fan. I think it's an amazing thing to be able to take a new character and bring enough life to it that the viewers want to watch every week. (And I hope they do!) Not to say that she's not still evolving as an actress. Up until now she's played virtually the same types of roles, Buffy/Angel, Tru calling, that scary movie Wrong Turn...even the knife in the leg girl in True Lies!!!! Joss have her a real opportunity as Echo. I don't think we've seen anything yet, at least I hope not! I do have to agree that as Rebecca she was at the edge of her convincibility....I'm so used to sexy mysterious Eliza its hard to want to believe. And in a way do I want to? Would I feel the same if it was the first time I was watching her? Still, I think she'll get credit when credits due.
 
I haven't seen it yet, so I don't know if I can say this...but:

I think every actor have their moment where they step it up a nodge. Some a lot, and others not so much. It all lies in what teh actor is willing to do to make his/her performance better. Eliza had, without a doubt, really searched herself and learned her strongest and weakest acting points for Dollhouse. She is talented yes, but I wouldn't say that she's the best actor on television
 
I voted alright, only because pretty good had 'I can't think of anyone who could do better.' And I can.

Although, don't think I'm suggesting she should have been cast for the role, or that I have anything Eliza because I do like her and I think she has done well in Dollhouse, but Jennifer Garner is better.

Jennifer Garner was extremely good in Alias and she had the 'chameleon' acting down to a tee, and so nerd4hire I would suggest that yes, she received better, or more generally positive feedback, because she was better. However, her 'main' character of Sydney was not quite as docile as Eliza's of Echo, and for that reason I think Eliza has been doing well. I've been impressed with her performance as Echo and I think she deserves credit for provoking feelings from an audience towards such a blank character.
 
S
Summerlilly
Good point
nerd4hire
nerd4hire
I disagree with you on Jennifer Garner, but I agree with your right to be wrong. ;)
I think she's more than capable for Dollhouse. There's better actresses, sure, but I'm not consciously thinking about her acting while I'm watching the show.
 
i think eliza does a pretty good job, much better than i could
but i'm not on board with Joss's whole. elizaisthebestactorthateverwas thing. but it could also just be i'm not interested in the random people she plays, i only care about Caroline and Echo at this point. Also i haven't seen Eliza in much, but whatever she is in she seems to be the same kind of person, so maybe she just hasn't had a chance to blossom yet.
 
I think overall she is a great actress at her roles and I couldn't see anyone else doing it.
The only issue I have with her is playing more innocent roles. she's great at playing the badass and playing the leader and the quirky bitch.
but at more immature roles, I find it hard to see her playing a more...pathetic? character. Her body is very toned and you can see it in her face that when she plays the btich, shes good at it.
But at playing more 'follower' roles, I find it very hard to see it as real.

Of course this could be due to seeing her play Faith "Isn't it funny how slaying makes you hungry and horny?" LeHane.
May also have to do with her lower, scratchy voice. It's hard to imagine a younger girl with that voice.
 
I don't really think Eliza's a "chameleon" actress at all. That's not really a bad thing, and it doesn't even really speak poorly of her acting skills. She just has a very distinctive personality that always shines through. It's something seen amongst the biggest stars in Hollywood, people often cite George Clooney and Sean Connery for always being very noticeable as themselves even when doing iconic characters, well. From what I understand, in many cases that trait is somewhat sought after in Hollywood because it helps them establish a fan base.

The best example I can think of for a real "chameleon" actor is Gary Oldman who is literally referred to as "the Chameleon" in acting circles. With him, his characters are often wildly different from himself and each other. The Russian Terrorist in Air Force One, Jim Gordon in Dark Knight and the Eccentric Brit in Friends only has his facial bone structure in common, Oldman disappears into his characters. Does Eliza? Not at all. She pulls them off well, and is completely convincing, but it's clearly her.

As far as Whedonverse actors go, the only one I could even see making an argument for (based on their work with Joss) would be Alexis Denisof. The Wesley of Buffy S3 was an Upper-class British Academic where in the latter Angel seasons he pulled off downright gritty.
 
I think she's been doing all right so far - very well in the action roles and not as great in the wife/negotiator/softer roles, but not horrible. But i do keep seeing the same Faith-like persona in all her action roles, which could have different personality traits while still being bad-ass action heroes, so it does seem a little like putting her own personality into all the same roles rather than channeling new people for them. But she does do a good job. I did think her acting was great on Buffy and Angel as Faith, and also when she played Buffy trapped in Faith's body - i thought both she and Sarah did a good job playing each other's characters.

But i can't say that i couldn't imagine anyone doing it better, and i strongly disagree with the lemmings/hotness theory suggested by an earlier poster. Sarah regularly blew me away with her acting on BTVS, and she also happens to be extremely good looking. But it is her acting that makes the show so watchable, along with the excellent acting of all the other cast members and the brilliant writing.

Which brings up a point that i sometimes wonder about - how much of amazing acting comes from pulling off nuances and subtleties of a character that is extremely well-written? I always thought of James as an excellent actor while watching him play Spike, but then saw him in PS I Love You and was underwhelmed, and couldn't tell if it was the writing or a lack of versatility for playing a different role. Same with Alyson playing an over-the-top character in Veronica Mars. I wasn't impressed with the job she did, though i thought she was fantastic as Willow. Maybe Eliza was amazing as Faith due to the writing, whereas playing Echo, we haven't yet been exposed to the range of emotions that would make us say wow about her acting due to the limitations of the character so far, and having only one episode each to develop all the other characters/personas, so that they remain necessarily underdeveloped, acting-wise?

What do you all think?
 
^^ I think writing's important. I think good directing's critically important too.

Look at the later Star Wars films for instance. Truly great actors giving some of the most wooden performances of their careers (at the direction of Lucas).
 
^
re: Sarah Gellar
The Buffy PTB say that the reason that they cast her in the role was because she could "pull anything off" with a classic type of acting style (they said similar things about Boreanaz). In Buffy she did a great job, but she never did the Chameleon/Method type of acting in that role, in my opinion. Maybe she has in her other work, but I don't know. Sarah evolved the Buffy character perfectly, and the role didn't call for a chameleon style because Buffy grew and didn't have wild overnight changes.

re: Alyson
I agree with your assessment pretty much. I think she's a great actress, but her quirks are always recognizable.

But hey, even Robert De Niro, who has had one of the most successful acting careers has his personal quirks visible in all his roles, so not necessarily a bad thing.

re: Marsters
I don't know. Since I'm pretty sure he's nothing like Spike in real life, I think that in itself is an example of some skill.
 
I agree that Alexis showed a great range on the buffy/angel series, and showed great acting talent and a large personality change from bs3 wes to as5 wes. And i do think that James had great comic timing, and also played sincere, loving, funny, scary, and sarcastic very well all within the spike role, which is what got me thinking that writing might have a lot to do with our perceptions of acting ability after seeing that other (minor) movie role that he was in.

I do think Sarah had some chance to play a huge range of emotions within the buffy character (sad, heartbroken, angry, bad girl, good girl, fighter, lover, mystery-solver, nervous student, lonely girl, etc.), and she showed a great acting range even within that one role. But then she also had some opportunity to play other characters on btvs, and i think that she pulled them off beautifully, too, even when they only appeared in one ep., so putting her side-by-side with Eliza, i'd vote for Sarah having the broader range, demonstrated through both her one-episode different-personality roles, and her series-arc emotional range as Buffy.

For example, she pulled off the buffybot with a completely different personality (or is that robotality?), she played Faith in Buffy's body, and various mind-altered or alternate-reality different-personality roles, such as the wishverse buffy from Cleveland, the little girl in Giles' dream in restless, memory-wiped buffy in tabula rasa, marrying-spike buffy in something blue, actress-flapper buffy in death of a salesman in willow's dream in restless, maybe some others. And i think that she did them all very well and convincingly.
 
I think so far she's doing pretty darn good and living up to the task. I think she does Echo fabulously, and Echo is arguably the toughest to play, it has the potential of coming across horribly cheesy and forced in the wrong hands. I was pleasantly surprised by how well Eliza has taken it on, its made it fairly easy for me to believe that Echo is the standard and all the others are personalities imprinted on her. Rebecca has so far been my favorite portayal Eliza has done, genuine and so comical, but not funny because it was over the top, funny because given those circumstances I bought into that that is exactly how that woman would have reacted and I was dying to see more of her. I have faith that as more extreme personalities are written, Eliza will do a good job acting up to the challenge.
 
I really think some people are not appreciating the enormity of the task. She is being asked to act as several different characters, PER EPISODE. I don't care who you are, some characters are going to be flat. Some scenes off.

We also don't have much to compare and contrast it with. The strength of Whedons shows is not the main character, all the actors play their part. SMG, ironically became disliked the more she got into the role of Buffy. The more she became that character, the more people disliked her. Hmm, blast my ridiculously horrific memory. I've forgotten the point I was going to make.
 
Schillaci said:
I really think some people are not appreciating the enormity of the task. She is being asked to act as several different characters, PER EPISODE. I don't care who you are, some characters are going to be flat. Some scenes off.
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Which is commendable - I mean she's obviously better at multiple characters in one movie/show than Eddie Murphy, but it doesn't make her a great actress.

It makes her capable.

The only character I have ever seen her do fantastically was Faith and to be fair she had alot of growth in that character, but she was always kind of 'samey' too and this character has transferred to alot of her other characters.

She does a decent enough job in the role, may even win awards for it, but at the end of the day I don't see her shedding this show and becoming a fantastic actor (note I didn't say movie star) that is critically acclaimed.
 
I think she's doing great!!! The only character I didn't really believe her in was the first one - the negotiater - the others were great, i think, my favourite would have to be the third one, the back up singer.
 
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