Trek. Good Actors?

[Navaros]

Disagree with the OP. In my view Patrick Stewart is not a good actor, nor is anyone else on TNG other than perhaps Spiner.

TOS has amazingly great actors across the board.

DS9 has amazingly great actors across the board, with the one exception of Terry Farrell, who is terrible. Including the very large secondary cast who's talent dwarfs that of most the main cast, and most of the main cast of all other Trek shows.

The Neelix and Doctor and Seven actors/actress on Voyager were quite good.

Enterprise's only great actors are the Dr. Phlox actor and Jeffrey Combs when he guest starred.

Overall though DS9 has pound for pound the best ensemble of legendary acting master talent ever put into a TV or movie production. No way anything else can field as large a variety of legendary actors than that all in the same production (by 'legendary" I'm talking about pure acting talent here, not necessarily popularity).

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I couldn't remember Vaughn Armstrong's name! I was gonna say that guy who played Admiral Forrest - also Gary Graham!

 

[JiNX-01]

Babaganoosh said:
^ At least *somebody* had the good sense to mention Vaughn Armstrong.

Yer welcome.

 

[warriorsfan]

Good actors who have appeared in Trek? I'd say Christopher Plummer.

 

[A beaker full of death]

Borg451 said:
lookign outside Trek Stewart owns Shatner in acting ability...

Hardly.

 

[Ben Sisko3]

warriorsfan said:
Good actors who have appeared in Trek? I'd say Christopher Plummer.

A few others not mentioned:
James Cromwell
F. Murray Abraham
Malcolm McDowell
Brock Peters
Rick Worthy
Titus Welliver
Kurtwood Smith
Tony Todd

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I heard that Tony Todd was in the running to play Ben Sisko. I would have liked to see him in the role.

 

[Kegek]

I think Patrick Stewart is an excellent actor. Okay, he's no Colm Meaney, but who is? Star Trek has had an impressive array of strong regular and recurring actors. Generally, the franchise has had some of the most consistent performances in sci-fi. Oh, sure, there's been terrible duds; but the acting on any Star Trek show is, on the whole, superior to say, Babylon 5. Or the Star Wars prequels. Damning with faint praise, maybe, but in a genre where so many successful products get by with passable acting, Star Trek frequently gave us solid performances.

 

[Michael]

I just watched TNG's "Galaxy's Child" and figured that LeVar Burton might be one of Trek's (or at least TNG's) best actors. I never really thought about it, but the fact that he can't use his eyes really constrains the ways in which he's able to transport emotions. So in effect, much more than the other actors, he has to rely on gestures and facial expressions to portray his character. And I must say that he's great at it. Just look at the scene in the holodeck where Leah Brahms confronts him with what she found out ...

I really liked the shot of the lonesome Geordi in Ten Forward at the end of the episode. It somehow made me feel so sad.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I always liked Scott Bakula's work as well.

And apparently so did everyone else who ever worked with him. They all basically say the same thing, that Scott is one of the nicest, easiest to work with, most professional and generally all around swell guys in the business. Gary Graham (Soval) practically raves about the man in his book (Flying Lessons).

 

[JD]

FYI Louise (Kai Winn) Fletcher won a Best Actress Oscar for her role as Nurse Ratched. I just found that out a couple months ago, and I'm still in shock that that was her. Guess she's good at playing b****y women in powerfull positions.

 

[misskim86]

wow I didn't know she was nurse Ratchet! Pretty cool, gives me an excuse to re-watch DS9

 

[A beaker full of death]

Babaganoosh said:
I always liked Scott Bakula's work as well.

And apparently so did everyone else who ever worked with him. They all basically say the same thing, that Scott is one of the nicest, easiest to work with, most professional and generally all around swell guys in the business.

So he's a nice guy. Lousy actor.

 

[Nathan_Heller]

Ricardo Montalban was a fine actor too.

 

[Malleus]

Navaros said:
Disagree with the OP. In my view Patrick Stewart is not a good actor, nor is anyone else on TNG other than perhaps Spiner.

I beg to differ.

TOS has amazingly great actors across the board.

I'm not sure about Takei or Koenig, though.

DS9 has amazingly great actors across the board, with the one exception of Terry Farrell, who is terrible.

By that definition, I would include Cirroc Lofton and Nicole deBoer as terrible actors, too.

Enterprise's only great actors are the Dr. Phlox actor and Jeffrey Combs when he guest starred.

I would include Connor Trinneer amongst them, though.

A beaker full of death said:

Borg451 said:
lookign outside Trek Stewart owns Shatner in acting ability...

Hardly.

I'd consider the two of them equals now, but that's ONLY because Shatner caught up with "The Practice." Before that, Stewart was by far the better actor.

 

[A beaker full of death]

Malleus said:

A beaker full of death said:

Borg451 said:
lookign outside Trek Stewart owns Shatner in acting ability...

Hardly.

I'd consider the two of them equals now, but that's ONLY because Shatner caught up with "The Practice." Before that, Stewart was by far the better actor.

Stewart has no range. He can do St. Crispin's Day style speeches, and that's it. He can't do humor and he's embarassing when he tries to emote.
Shatner doesn't act on The Practice. Watch TOS season 1, there's some acting.

 

[misskim86]

Lol, Stewart is an amazing actor, he can do comedy just fine, just watch the first Lxwana episode

 

[MikeH92467]

The depth of acting talent available in Hollywood and New York is quite astounding. When you look at the amount of talent it takes to fill out a good sized ensemble cast and you look at how many good people aren't chosen for those roles for one reason or another, it does give one pause.

Bakula is to me the weakest of the Captains, but if he had consistently better material to work with I would think he would have done much better. Being the lead actor really is a mixed blessing: a captain has to have a certain sense of command and charisma and if the writing isn't strong, well, there's really no where for the actor to take the role. Compare that to a character role such as Dr. Phlox where the actor had more of a blank canvas to work with. Sure there were expectations built into the series bible, but a supporting character doesn't carry the same weight of expectation as the lead.

For my money all of the casts were overall quite good and all of them at times did very good work.

I do think it's interesting that Colm Meany built what amounted to a parallel career working in serious independent films during his DS9 career. I remember thinking it odd that seemingly none of the glowing reviews for his "serious" work included reference to his Star Trek work. I suspect that wasn't an accident. He was one of the few actors I can think of who managed to use Trek as a stepping stone without being overwhelmed by it.

 

[donners22]

A beaker full of death said:

Babaganoosh said:
I always liked Scott Bakula's work as well.

And apparently so did everyone else who ever worked with him. They all basically say the same thing, that Scott is one of the nicest, easiest to work with, most professional and generally all around swell guys in the business.

So he's a nice guy. Lousy actor.

Nominated for four successive Emmy awards as Best Actor, IIRC.

I'm surprised to see people suggesting Shatner was a good actor on Trek. Pure ham once he got to the films, IMO, and justly recognised by multiple Razzie awards, including Worst Actor of the Decade. His TV work as was a little generic, but he had a presence.

My favourites are actors who manage to seem "real", so DeForest Kelly and Colm Meaney are among the best as far as I am concerned. Those who manage to get through subtle emotions with a character who doesn't allow them the freedom to express them freely have a very difficult task. Jeri Ryan did a tremendous job in that regard, as did Spiner, Nimoy and Picardo.

As for guests, I don't think any have matched Joel Grey, though J Paul Boehmer was excellent.

MikeH92467 said:

For my money all of the casts were overall quite good and all of them at times did very good work.

I'd agree with that. The TOS cast didn't really have a lot of range to play, but the latter series generally saw each character have a few episodes to themselves. Roxann Dawson was awful as a full Klingon but good otherwise, Sirtis never impressed me, but otherwise the casts were generally impressive.

 

[Cyclopean]

I think the casts are generally good to excellent. There are a few real stinkers among the regulars but I don't know that they're worth noting (or arguing about.) I also suspect that acting in sci-fi is more demanding than in more familiar genres.

I'd also add that there's a distinction between acting ability and charisma. I think Patrick Stewart has a great deal of the latter--- he has tremendous screen presence. He's also a pretty good actor. Shatner? Ton of charisma, but less acting ability than Stewart IMO. I think he tends to be underrated, however, by people who only remember Kirk's convulsions from agonizers, etc. But even the overacting is at least fun.

One more thing about acting chops vs. charisma. I think the later shows had fewer interesting/charismatic actors among their supporting casts, in particular VOY and ENT. They had technically competent actors, but hardly the sort of performers who make you say, "Wow, I really want to learn more about Reed/Torres/etc."