Big roles, small roles....

This is the year of Alicia Vinkander and I couldn't be more happy for her. She is an inspiration to me. She managed to establish herself in such a competitive industry as a foreign actress. Alicia had a small role in the film "Burnt" with Bradley  Cooper. I watched it recently for the second  time and, now that I  know  Alicia  and her other movies, now I can see how far she can go as an actress.

 There's  a saying: "there's  no small parts, only small actors" or "don't  count  the words but make  every  scene  counts". 

Small parts are extremely  important and we should  be greatful  for them. In a good script  every page, every  character, every breath moves the story  forward. It's our job to study the best  options  and deliver the best performance  we can. In the film  "Burnt", Alicia plays Adam Jones ex girfriend who releases  him from the debt. She provides him a new beginning, free of stress and fear and helps  him getting closure with his past. We could  make a whole movie  about this but, in fact, her screen presence  only lasted 2 to three  minutes. 

Alicia 's face was new to me. I couldn't remember  her from "Anna Karenina" and I never watched her film "Ex Machine" either. I could  never imagine  how far she could  go as an actress, especially before watching "The Danish Girl". 

For sure small parts prepares us for leading ones but sometimes  there's a certain feeling of despair for not  having enough material to study, for not  having a fully  developed  character with a journey to explore. Sometimes  small parts do not  let anyone  know how far you can go emotionally, how far you can stretch yourself as an actor, how capable of handling a leading role you are. You wait  someone notices  your  commitment and professionalism on set, you wish someone sees something  in you and trusts you for a bigger role. But it's frustrating sometimes. 

I normally watch Cheers and Seinfeld and series from the nineties and there's a lot of famous  actors who  played small parts in those TV shows. We look at them differently now. We see them playing a small part and a purple  journalism would underline their promising beginning. Actors do need scripts  and lines and a story to tell to practice their  voice, their camera and stage  presence,  to discuss  options  with other actors and directors, to grow, to fail, to grow even more, to learn  responsibility and to manage their public  presence too. We need to fight more for those roles. We learn  by being  on set observing established actors and ocasionaly interacting with them with a line  or two. But there's  a moment where we need to stop observing and aim to be the ones who play the main and the secondary roles. The strong and layered ones. Sometimes  I wonder if we are  afraid of success. But that's a topic for another post. It's  true, if a script is good  there's no small parts but sometimes those parts can't inform  you how big an actor can be. It's our job  to fight for those big roles. And if you're afraid of exposure and success maybe... if we think twice... it's more difficult and exhausting  to stay  where you  are now...