In today’s world the term ‘actor’ is convoluted.
This post is mostly in the Indian context. I see there are mainly two types.
Firstly an entertainer and secondly the performer.
In my opinion the entertainer isn’t truly an actor in pure sense as he only does what sells and oftentimes told what sells than understand by himself. Whereas the performer goes deep into the character he is playing and does everything in his power or ability to bring the character out of him, without being tormented by naysayers or market influenced peers.
And usually the entertainer walks out with a lot of money for obvious reasons and the performer struggles to make ends meet. The entertainer usually is never a visionary or even lacks any leadership skills to add value to the industry that may push the zeitgeist forward. Whereas the performer is a visionary, sometimes is equipped with leadership qualities, strives too hard to push the envelop forward and usually is hardly noticed or is a failure.
For example Rajinikanth and Amitabh bacchan are great entertainers. They have thousands of crores of rupees (or even dollars) and in spite of that they are never satisfied for the dime and due to this reason they never take risks or reinvent their own selves, there may be few instances but surely they don’t go out of their way. Actually someone like Rajinikanth has so much power and means that he can even create his own new film industry (i mean sensible one) however he may not have the imagination nor reason or resolve.
There’s so much gap between ends and means that nothing ever significant happens in the industry, yes there have been countable instances of reinvention and new ideas that isn’t surely enough though it may seem like a good starting point, the scale of reinvention that is potentially possible in an industry like India where there are 1.3 billion people and usually filmmakers are too insecure to venture into anything that has signs of slight risks.
What needs to change?
Of course there are newcomers with fire in the belly to change for the better (hopefully) but they do not take off. Somewhere the people with power and means may have to collaborate with unconventional thinkers but does that happen? Should it happen? Whats the best way forward? Is there a way forward? Let me know