The reviews for the Ray Charles movie are now in and everyone seems to agree that Jamie Foxx is very good indeed. The New York Times called his performance “inventive, intuitive, and supremely intelligent.”
This raises one of the compelling little puzzles of our time. Why and how it is that so many people who begin their careers as stand up or improv comedians end up flourishing in more dramatic assignments on stage and screen. Dan Aykroyd, Mike Myers, and Jim Carrey all have demonstrated unsuspected dramatic abilities.
Surely, comedy is the last place we might expect to find someone capable of plumbing the depths of the human heart. Comedians are supposed to be interested in the cheap laugh, the easy out, the throw away line. This is why we contrast tragedy and comedy.
Technically, things are less mysterious. You can’t be a good comedians unless you have a suberb control of body and voice. Training for the stage is about learning how to make everything count. Training for improv is about seizing the opportunity. Both of these work well on film.
It is also true, in Mr. Foxx’s case, that he is actually very good at playing football and the piano. Not usually at the same time. And this gave him a useful preparation for Any Given Sunday and the Ray Charles project.
lI wondered if this might be a small part of the answer here: that actors tend not to be very good at much of anything except of course acting like people who are good at something. Comedians start later and they sometimes have real life experience on which to draw.
But there must be more to it than this.
Beyond a superb control of body and voice comedy also requires an understanding of social meaning, insight into personality and emotion, and a keen ability to balance the absurd against the tragic. Comedy requires insight, skill and knowledge which seem apt for quality dramatic performance.
“Comedians are supposed to be interested in the cheap laugh, the easy out, the throw away line. This is why we contrast tragedy and comedy.”
I think this is a modern and rather, well, shallow understanding of comedy–the slapstick end of things, cartoons, the buffoon. In more nuanced comedy (which I would argue has a hard time getting on stage these days) wouldn’t you be laughing so you wouldn’t cry?
“actors tend not to be very good at much of anything except of course acting like people who are good at something”
Is this true?…It is perhaps true in the culture of celebrity and the movie culture, but is it reallly true of trained actors? I don’t know.
This isn’t to diminish Foxx’s performance. I never much cared for him on “In Living Color” , but he’s grown on me since.
I don’t think it’s so surprising that comedians are excellent in dramatic roles, because comedy, in my mind, is much harder to do than drama. Really good comedians are funny because they are able to transform how we see the world.
I’ve performed some standup myself (about 80 ventures on stage on open-mike nights), so I think I know a bit more about this field than most people do. I like to quote Mark Twain: “The secret source of humor itself is not joy, but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.”
Twain had it right- in order to be really truly funny, you need a deep core of pain- either your own, or that of people you can empathize with. This is why you can see “comedians” being so compelling in dramatic roles. For an obscure but powerful example, see Robin Williams’ portrayal of a bereaved father in “What Dreams may Come.”
Comics turned actors are like enlisted men turned officers- they have a lot more practical experience than their peers who took the short cuts. Small wonder that those who can make the transition have much more depth to draw upon.
Doug, Brillant. _that_ is really useful. and solves the whole thing. Thanks, Grant