This is ridiculous

[selenak]

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 and named this as a reason to shut down the government. 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.

Comments

[kalypso]

I remember Paul Goddard (Stark in Farscape) telling a story about how he once got a part playing Famous Actor's Back, because two Famous Actors (both male) refused to film together, so all their conversations had to be shot separately with stand-ins.

And a radio playwright once told me that they'd cast a couple of elderly actors (one male, one female) opposite each other in a comedy drama, not realising that they hadn't been on speaking terms since they'd had a disastrous fling decades earlier - but at least they were professional about it and played their scenes together, quite convincingly as I remember...

[selenak]

But where the two male Famous Actors part of an ongoing tv show, or did that happen in a solo movie? Still, either way: good for Paul Goddard, bad for Famous Actors' professional ethics.

[kalypso]

I think it was a film. But still very silly!

[andraste]

If Harrison Ford and Sean Young managed to film those love scenes in Blade Runner despite hating each other (not to mention the rest of the cast and crew miraculously making it through that shoot without shooting each other) then actors should really be able to deal with this stuff professionally. I can't imagine most ordinary workplaces letting people get away with that kind of thing.

[selenak]

Ha, yes, didn't Ridley Scott give at some point during the shooting an interview where he was nostalgic about England and being called 'guv'nor' by the crew and as a result the (American) crew went briefly on strike or something? Anyway. The film was done. Complete with Ford/Young, as you point out, and I've heard the "it was a hate scene" anecdote, too.

Over at lj, abigail_n also pointed out that Michael Vartan was able to continue to work on Alias till the end, despite the fact he and Jennifer Garner broke up, she got together with Ben Afflek and had their first child. Now I never cared much for Vaughn (ahem), but I never had the impression the writing for Vartan or his scenes with JG changed after their breakup. (And Jennifer Garner certainly was as much the star of Alias as Julianna Marguiles is of The Good Wife.) The story Alias told was unaffected by the actors' personal lives. As it should be. (Well, okay, other than the use of JG's pregnancy for Sydney, obviously, but that made sense for this show and Sydney's overall development at that point. For all my season 5 issues, I really loved what they did with Sydney as a mother.)

[andraste]

Even better: they all got t-shirts made that said 'Yes Guv'nor My Ass'. Then Ridley got one that said 'Xenophobia Sucks'. Everybody sulked.

And yet, despite almost everyone having a terrible time on set, the actors did their jobs and the film got made. (The 'almost' is Rutger Hauer, who has always expressed bewilderment at everyone else's complaints. Despite going through those gruelling night shoots half-naked and dripping wet. Maybe he really is a superhuman replicant.)

Yes, however much Vaughan might have bored me, Vartan is a great example of an actor soldiering on through what must have been difficult off-screen circumstances. I mean, even if the break-up wasn't acrimonious (I have no idea) it can't have been easy to keep kissing his ex on set all the time.

I am also reminded of Singin' In The Rain, another favourite film of mine that people had a horrible time making. (I think this is a pattern with me. Apparently filming Lawrence of Arabia wasn't a picnic, either.) You can't tell when watching the film that Gene Kelly made Debbie Reynolds cry and Donald O'Connor was terrified of him, or that Gene Kelly was sick as a dog and running a high fever the day he shot the famous title song. Because they are actors.

[selenak]

Someone - i.e. you - should do a post of films and tv shows where actors and production crew soldiered on despite trying circumstances, be they of the personal type or the weather or the budget running out or whatever. Just because.

[wee_warrior]

I heard that there was bad blood between the two actresses a while ago, and one thing in the producers' favour seemed to me that they didn't simply fire Panjabi, which probably happens a lot in these cases. Still, it all seems rather ridiculous. Put a picture of the other on a dartboard in your trailer, and be done with it...

[selenak]

Quite. I'm a bit less inclined to give the producers credit on the not firing Panjabi front, because she was the one who won them their first Emmy in their first season, her character was an instant hit with the audience and well commented on by all the critics. (Marguiles didn't get an Emmy until after the second season, which supposedly was one part of the problem.) After that, Panjabi was in a relatively non-firable position,is my guess.

[wee_warrior]

Oh, yes, I forgot about that. I have to agree with you there. Still, I have to wonder about the strange relationships between actors (specifically American) and their producers - on the one hand, it seems they basically have no rights, on the other, people are able to pull stunts like this based on something that seems to be a simple ego thing. Then again, you likely have to have the status of Margulies/Panjabi to be able to and still get hired afterwards.

[lizbee]

There is the famous example of Tom Baker refusing to even look at Lalla Ward if filming happened to interrupt one of their arguments, but I don't think anyone in the history of the world has ever pointed to Baker as an example of professionalism in action.

[selenak]

Oh good lord, yes, I had forgotten about that one. :(

[lilacsigil]

And since Alicia and Kalinda's relationship was my favourite part of the show, I quit early in fourth season and never went back. Judging by the ratings, I'm not the only one. How disappointing! The rest of us have to work with people we don't like, and we don't get paid much for it!

[selenak]

Indeed. Mind you, from my pov the fourth season had some lengths but still was okay, and the fifth season was so good and excellent that I'm glad I watched it. But then came season 6. :(

[intrigueing]

Seriously, this is some junior high school level crapola right here. What do they think "acting" means? Just looking cool on film?

[selenak]

I'd be surprised if this doesn't backfire badly for future projects. (Who wants to hire someone that unprofessional?) Mostly for Julianna Marguiles, because given she's the main character, a co-producer of the show and has spoken against the fictional characters' relationship in interviews, it's hard not to suspect the problem was with her rather than with Archie Panjabi. But be that as it may, I also blame the producers for not putting their foot or feet down.

[saturnofthemoon]

I haven't finished the first season of The Good Wife yet, but I'm amused, given the amount of Alicia/Kalinda fanfic out there.

[selenak]

Oh, it was the key relatonship of the show for the first two and a half seasons or so, which even a non-shipper like yours truly would readily confirm. There's plenty of basis for Alicia/Kalinda in these early seasons. And nobody asks actors to mirror their characters (and their relationship) in private life. But one can ask for professionalism, which apparantly was severely lacking in this case.

[beck_liz]

I had heard previously that there was bad blood between JM & AP, but I had thought it was the usual Hollywood gossip nonsense. Now I believe it 100%. Good grief. It's disappointing, especially since once upon a time their characters' relationship was one of my favorite things about the show. I am glad I gave up the show an episode or two after you did, because I think I would've been seriously annoyed had I actually watched that scene. Ugh. But then this whole season has been (mostly) a disappointment.

[selenak]

It has been, and for reasons completely aside from the handling of Kalinda and the Alicia/Kalinda relationship, too. I don't know whether it was simply writerly exhaustion, but it just wasn't up to the (high) standards the show used to set.