Sometimes a movie adaptation of a novel I've read is popular, and when people refer to the actions of the characters they would say the name of the actors instead. Recently it was with Dangerous Liaisons, and the imagery was somewhat strange.
Sometimes a movie adaptation of a novel I've read is popular, and when people refer to the actions of the characters they would say the name of the actors instead. Recently it was with Dangerous Liaisons, and the imagery was somewhat strange.
22 Comments
9point6@lemmy.world · 43 pts · 12h
I'm crap with names as it is, let alone a temporary second one
XiELEd@piefed.social · 8 pts · 12h
A temporary second one? But I guess in my case, as I tend to watch movie adaptations, and often produced outside of my country (so I don't care about the celebrity culture) I find the actor temporary, in regards to the character. A character can be played by multiple actors, after all, and the character still exists without an actor.
9point6@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 12h
Fair, I think if I was watching an adaptation of something I'd read, I'd probably be more inclined to know the characters by their names. I'd generally say that's probably only 10-15% of what I watch overall
FWIW sometimes I don't even get the actors' names and they get called "the guy from that comedy we watched the other month"
makeshiftreaper@lemmy.world · 38 pts · 11h
My three usual reasons in order of most to least common:
MurrayL@lemmy.world · 35 pts · 13h
Probably because the actor’s name came more readily to mind, and if you’re already discussing the movie then you know who they’re referring to.
markz@suppo.fi · 23 pts · 12h
Sometimes it's just impossible to separate the actor from the role. Gandalf is Gandalf, but Nic Cage is never not Nic Cage.
pHr34kY@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 11h
But in Guns Akimbo, it's Harry Potter. It must suck when the role is bigger than your name.
Or just go with "Hector" across your entire filmography, because why the hell not? https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0346595/
Another fun bit of Trivia: When they were deciding on a name for Will Smith's character in the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, they went with "Will Smith" for this exact reason. Alfonso Ribeiro to this day is called "Carlton" by everyone.
Kalothar@lemmy.ca · 8 pts · 9h
After Swiss Army Man, he successfully broke my Harry Potter image of him and became a distinct Daniel Radcliffe.
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club · 10 pts · 6h
It is actually a convention for movie reviews to use the actor name while TV reviews will use the character name. Why? A lot of it is thought that movie goers aren't going to be as familiar with a character name as they would be with the actor in that role.
AngryRedHerring@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 3h
That's interesting, I've never heard that before. Makes sense. Where did you pick that up?
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club · 2 pts · 2h
I've seen some reviewers talk about it and I did a web search to confirm.
AngryRedHerring@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 46m
I am actually kind of embarrassed because I have worked in entertainment all my life and I have only now copped to this. But it makes perfect sense, because
Movie stars have always been "bigger" than TV stars (and TV is always been a bit of a step down from film in actors' eyes). Movie names have always been more recognizable, generally, than TV names.
Movie stars play a different character in almost every two-hour "episode", while TV stars play the same character every week, sometimes for years on end. We had much more time to become familiar with the characters, and knew (mostly) that we'd be seeing them again next week.
In the old TV guide, when describing movies they always had to say "Bruce Willis plays so and so in..."; they had to introduce you to the character with every movie listing. But with TV, say MASH, they would always say "This week, Hawkeye..." and everybody was in sync right away, from exposure and experience. Alan Alda was Alan Alda in California Suite, and in interviews, politics etc., but when it came to talking about TV, he was always Hawkeye. We never said "Alan Alda did X this week."
This is like the end of The Sixth Sense. I'm looking back now and seeing it everywhere.
JackbyDev@programming.dev · 10 pts · 12h
Unless a movie says a character's name A LOT I will forget it. I'm so so bad with names. But I hear actors' names all the time. It's that simple. If I remembered the characters' names, I'd use them. I suppose also for more obscure movies that I like, I'd probably use the actors' names if I think other people don't know the movie.
Makeshift@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 7h
Tbe responses here are interesting and may shine a light on a subconscious reason I prefer animation. Feels harder to see only the actor when the character's face isn't actor's face?
celeste@kbin.earth · 3 pts · 12h
I agree with the other comments that it's probably about memory more than anything, especially in faster paced communication like an in person conversation.
In like, a blog post intended for lots of people to read, it's contextually dependent. Probably? Like, if they're reviewing the movie, they're talking about how the actor filled the role. In a plot description, it's more natural to say the character name. If the actor is named then, it could be intended to imply the actor never disappeared into the role. "Then Chris Hemsworth snuck into Whosville dressed as santa and stole all the presents with his dog Max" implies that the person talking never entirely saw Chris as the Grinch.
But, yeah, in immediate one on one talk, I assume it's the name that comes to mind first. The famous person is memorable. Though, if you got a very strange mental image, you can also consider the possibility that the speaker was making a joke, like I was with "how chris stole christmas" up there. The quality of the joke is separate from whether it was intended as one.
Bougie_Birdie@piefed.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 10h
All of the reasons above, plus sometimes the character just doesn't have a name
When I'm talking about They Live, the protagonist is literally unnamed. Rowdy Roddy Piper is credited as "Nada" but even that is never used in the film (Great movie btw, go watch it if you haven't seen it)
Then sometimes the actor is far more famous than the movie was, or the character wasn't very memorable, or whatever the case is. Particularly true if the actor is appearing as a cameo
Leviathan@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 10h
Can't remember the character's name and fluidity of conversation supercedes pedantry in this case.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 8h
Makes perfect sense to me that if you forgot the character's name, which I often do, you would use a name that another person would understand without having to look up a name that they wouldn't know anyway.
susieq0044@sh.itjust.works · -1 pts · 11h
What is even weirder, is that in movies and series people are often addressed by their last name! So many characters will say “Jones, where are you ?” or “Kirk, where’s your gun?” By contrast in most cultures it is quite insulting to simply use the last name “Jones“ instead of Mr. or Mrs. Jones, if you want to leave Mrs. Or Mr. out, you just use the first name.
Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe · 8 pts · 11h
With something like Kirk, there's a reference to command structure where last names are always used normally.
Each person is Rank:Last Name. Captain Kirk, Leutenang Uhura. Using first names could be confusing, last names ensures specificity.
And then just using last names becomes less formal in such environments.
XiELEd@piefed.social · 1 pts · 11h
I see.
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · -2 pts · 12h
Because they conflate the actor and the character. Very popular in the USA I feel (could be wrong, but where I live we don't do that).