Cameron Diaz at the Saturday Night Live afterparty, NYC (09/30/07)

**John Robie** · October 15th, 2007, 01:37 PM

John Robie made me laugh

My very pleasure.

**John Robie** · October 15th, 2007, 01:41 PM

Let's face it -- Diaz doesn't have much range but then neither did John Wayne or Katharine Hepburn and they did OK.

I totally agree.

Range, thy name is Meryl Streep.

**travelbug** · October 15th, 2007, 02:18 PM

About good/bad acting. In my experience, the director has a lot to do with an actor's performance. I have only done amateur theatre, but I have had good/bad directors and when a director tells you to "do it like this" and acts it out for you, you do it like they said, even if you think it's bad.

Also, sometimes you have to follow the lead of the other characters. If they are "overacting", you cannot do a more subtle, realistic performance. It just looks weird. Kind of hard to explain, but the type of "overacting" I am talking about is like one of those Nickelodeon kids shows like Zach and Cody or a sitcom like Family Matters. The type of skits I am in now are like that, they are aimed at kids and the characters are like caricatures and everything is bigger than life. But it's supossed to be funny in a campy kind of way. It's definitely "bad acting" in the sense that no one in RL would act that way, so it's not realistic. But that is what our director wants and what is called for in the script.

When an actor makes a movie they do many takes until the director is satisfied. The director can always say "Next time, do it like this..." until it is done right. Only a very poorly skilled inexperienced actor would not be able to imitate. I would think most "movie stars" would have the skill to at least pull that off.

But with no movie/TV experience, that's just a guess.