This is ridiculous
Or, to paraphrase Tallyrand about the execution of the Duke of Enghien ("worse than a crime: a stupidity"), it's worse than ridiculous: it's unprofessional.
So, one of the shows I stopped watching during the season that has just finished was The Good Wife. Mostly because a truly excellent season (the fifth one) was followed by a very mediocre one which took back most of what had made the fifth season good and didn't offer anything interesting in its place, instead increasingly going for Greatest Hits Retreats (with characters who had long outstayed their welcome, looking at you, Colin Sweeney), while also losing the ensembleness and character interactions that used to make the show. Now, had all of this not been the case, the fact that this was also the last season for one of the main characters, Kalinda, something which the audience was very aware of since the actress leaving the show had been announced, would not have been that big of a deal to me; while I've always liked Kalinda, she never had been my favourite character, or the key selling point of the show to me.
However, even if Kalinda hadn't been what made the show for me, it HAD been unavoidable to notice that despite the characters of Alicia and Kalinda reconciling in season 3, the actresses hadn't shared a scene together for more than 50 episodes after that. While Kalinda and Alicia talked, it was always on the phone. This year, there was incrreasing speculation about the reasons for this in the press. When it turned out that even in the last episodes, after I had stopped watching, the shared scene(s), when they finally came, were the result of cinematic trickery and green screen, I experienced the most massive eyeroll since that time when Newt Gingrich complained about Bill Clinton not invinting him to the front of the plane en route to Rabin's funeral. Seriously?
Look, I don't care if politicians behave that way, but I want my members of the acting profession and of tv producing to have certain standards. To wit: no matter how you feel about each other, you do what you're paid for, which is, if you're an actress: acting your character with other actors to the best of your abilities. If another actor is abusing their kids or beating up their spouse or guilty of something similar, THEN, and only then, I could understand someone declaring "I don't want to work with this person, I don't even want to be in the same room with them". In all other cases, it's just stupid and, see above.
I'm a Star Trek fan. Which means I'm very aware of a very famous case of a leading actor managing to piss off the entire supporting cast with his ego. Did said supporting cast ever let that influence how they played their characters' emotions towards his character? Nope. And say what you want about William Shatner, but he never pulled a stunt like this, either. (If he had, we'd know by now.) And he actually worked in Sci Fi, where the use of what used to be blue and is now green screen is justified.
Mind you, I'm blaming the producers, too. If they didn't have the strength of character to put their foot down and declare "no matter what differences you have privately, your characters are supposed to be on screen together, so get in the studio already, ladies", they're failing their profession just as much.
I mean. This is show biz. Theatre, film and tv are full of feuding actors who worked together regardless because that was their job. (And it provided us with lots of entertaining stories, too.) I refuse to call this "diva like behavior", because divas, female and male, actually know better. They're professionals.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1080926.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
So, one of the shows I stopped watching during the season that has just finished was The Good Wife. Mostly because a truly excellent season (the fifth one) was followed by a very mediocre one which took back most of what had made the fifth season good and didn't offer anything interesting in its place, instead increasingly going for Greatest Hits Retreats (with characters who had long outstayed their welcome, looking at you, Colin Sweeney), while also losing the ensembleness and character interactions that used to make the show. Now, had all of this not been the case, the fact that this was also the last season for one of the main characters, Kalinda, something which the audience was very aware of since the actress leaving the show had been announced, would not have been that big of a deal to me; while I've always liked Kalinda, she never had been my favourite character, or the key selling point of the show to me.
However, even if Kalinda hadn't been what made the show for me, it HAD been unavoidable to notice that despite the characters of Alicia and Kalinda reconciling in season 3, the actresses hadn't shared a scene together for more than 50 episodes after that. While Kalinda and Alicia talked, it was always on the phone. This year, there was incrreasing speculation about the reasons for this in the press. When it turned out that even in the last episodes, after I had stopped watching, the shared scene(s), when they finally came, were the result of cinematic trickery and green screen, I experienced the most massive eyeroll since that time when Newt Gingrich complained about Bill Clinton not invinting him to the front of the plane en route to Rabin's funeral. Seriously?
Look, I don't care if politicians behave that way, but I want my members of the acting profession and of tv producing to have certain standards. To wit: no matter how you feel about each other, you do what you're paid for, which is, if you're an actress: acting your character with other actors to the best of your abilities. If another actor is abusing their kids or beating up their spouse or guilty of something similar, THEN, and only then, I could understand someone declaring "I don't want to work with this person, I don't even want to be in the same room with them". In all other cases, it's just stupid and, see above.
I'm a Star Trek fan. Which means I'm very aware of a very famous case of a leading actor managing to piss off the entire supporting cast with his ego. Did said supporting cast ever let that influence how they played their characters' emotions towards his character? Nope. And say what you want about William Shatner, but he never pulled a stunt like this, either. (If he had, we'd know by now.) And he actually worked in Sci Fi, where the use of what used to be blue and is now green screen is justified.
Mind you, I'm blaming the producers, too. If they didn't have the strength of character to put their foot down and declare "no matter what differences you have privately, your characters are supposed to be on screen together, so get in the studio already, ladies", they're failing their profession just as much.
I mean. This is show biz. Theatre, film and tv are full of feuding actors who worked together regardless because that was their job. (And it provided us with lots of entertaining stories, too.) I refuse to call this "diva like behavior", because divas, female and male, actually know better. They're professionals.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1080926.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.