Unit 11: Acting Flashcards
Taxi driver
Actor
An individual who embodies and performs a film character through gestures and
movements.
Performance:
An actor’s use of language, physical expression and gesture to bring a character to
life and to communicate important dimensions of that character to the audience.
Characters:
Individuals who motivate the events and perform the actions of the story.
Types of Actors:
Leading actors
Character actors
Supporting actors
Extras
Leading actors
The two or three actors, often stars, who represent the central characters in a narrative
Character actors:
Recognizable actors associated with particular character types, often humorous or
sinister, and often cast in minor parts.
•Often play the same supporting roles in many films, but they generally do not achieve
the widespread recognition enjoyed by lead actors.
Supporting actors
Actors who play secondary characters in a film, serving as foils or companions to the
central character.
Extra
An uncredited actor, usually hired for crowd scenes.
Character types
Conventional characters (e.g. hardboiled detective or femme fatale) typically portrayed
by actors cast because of their physical features, acting style, or the history of other roles
they have played.
Typecasting
the practice of repeatedly casting actors in similar roles across different films.
Stereotype
A character type that simplifies and standardizes perceptions that one group holds about
another, often less numerous, powerful, or privileged group.
Cameo
A brief role in a film performed by a well-known person, usually a famous actor, whose
name is often not included in the credits or publicity.
Acting Style
Francois Delsarte (1811-1871) believed that a character’s emotional state could be
projected to the audience through a formal set of gestures, postures, and physical
attitudes.
Naturalistic acting:
An actor’s effort to embody the character that he or she is playing in order to
communicate the essential self of the character.
Stylized acting:
An actor employs emphatic and highly self-conscious gestures or speaks in pronounced
tones with elevated diction: the actor seems fully aware that he or she is acting and
addressing an audience.