personality

Study looked at aggression, likeability, social withdrawal

Just a quick follow-up to my Joss Whedon post, below: one commenter understandably finds it weird for me to say that Alexis Denisof projects a “limited personality” when he played a character who changes drastically over the course of the series, and portrayed that change convincingly (like I said, he can act). It’s hard to explain why I think someone can simultaneously have range as an actor and be limited as a personality, but it comes down to the idea that most performers have a personality that is separate from, or at least complementary to, their ability to become the character they’re playing. A star actor like, say, Christopher Plummer plays many different types of characters, and adjusts his acting approach for each of them, but he also has a persona of his own — one that’s associated with his voice, manner, appearance — otherwise he wouldn’t be a star. An actor who completely disappears into every character he plays, so that he has no personality of his own, is not an actor that anyone will come to see. And this applies even more to TV, where we keep coming back week after week to see particular actors because we like them.

Students moving away for university often cite more freedom as a motivator – but what does this really mean?