The lack of distinction made by viewers between an actor and the character they play onscreen is one of the limited (as far as I can see) drawbacks of being the star of a thriving television show. As an actor, it would seem you should be prepared to experience members of the public hurling abuse at you, recoiling in fear or professing their undying love for you as a result of your fictional behaviour.
Personally, I would struggle to control the urge to trip up Ben Mitchell of Eastenders if he happened to walk past me, yet he may be nothing like his maddeningly irritating and fairly creepy onscreen counterpart. Due to the long-lasting and probably over the top emotional investments we make in the characters of our favourite shows, actors seem to experience a variable rate of success at shrugging off their old roles when taking on new parts. Jon Hamm, star of award winning show Mad Men, says people seem to expect him to be ‘This brooding, sad, angry guy’, much like Don Draper, yet according to him this is definitely not the case.
Our all-consuming world of technology makes things worse for actors today; while we hide the evidence of our more embarrassing past from our Facebook timelines, celebrities have to put up with the evidence of the pre super-human existence they’d rather forget being readily available online. In just a few clicks for instance, you can be treated to a young Brad Pitt, apparently suffering from a ‘fever for Pringles!’- though his washboard abs would suggest otherwise – sporting a fetching pair of Baywatch style swimming trunks.
There are some celebrities who have managed to break away from their less glamorous past: these days you are likely to find Drake rapping that he’s ‘had sex four times this week’, it wasn’t all that long ago that he was known as Aubrey Drake Graham (Seriously- Aubrey), a regular in Canadian teen drama Degrassi as high school basketball player Jimmy Brooks.
Yet Drake has succeeded where countless other TV stars have failed. The cast of Friends are a prime example of the success of one programme becoming an actor’s defining role. Considering the fact that Jennifer Aniston’s character became such a pop culture phenomenon that it spawned the most famous hairstyle of the 90s, ‘The Rachel’, it’s unsurprising that Aniston has struggled to break away from ‘girl next door’ style typecasting.
Since the end of Friends, she has made a career out of playing romantically doomed girly-girls; a shame given the versatility she showed in her role as the deadpan store clerk in The Good Girl. Her on and off screen BFF Courtney Cox has also arguably been held back by the infamy of her role in the highly popular show. Whilst she has had some success playing an older woman with a penchant for toy boys in Cougar Town, it was hard not to think, ‘Why is Monica wearing a lab coat?’ when she appeared in several episodes of Scrubs. Matt Le Blanc may also harbour some resentment for the unshakeable memory of his role as the loveable Joey Tribbiani, although perhaps the reported million dollar pay cheque the cast received per episode may have eased this pain somewhat.
Child stars often fall victim to their own rise to fame. While the likes of Macaulay Culkin and Lindsay Lohan are poster children for the bad effects of early stardom, others such as Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, as well as Shia LaBeouf, Miley Cyrus and Scarlett Johansson have managed to shake off earlier TV roles and find fame through fashion, music and film.
But while phrases such as ‘How YOU doin’ and ‘I don’t beliiieve it’ are destined to haunt some actors for years to come, I can’t help but think this is a small price to pay for the place a defining role has earned them in millions of viewers’ hearts, not to mention of course the millions of pounds in royalties…
Good article. I think out of all the Friends stars Matthew Perry had the most promising future – his turn in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was fresh and funny, and not at all Chandler Bing-y. I think viewers really just wanted to see an extension of his Friends role, though, so it was scrapped after a season. I think when actors are known for one role they can either play it safe and carry that on outside or risk it all by trying something new. I’d prefer to see more of the latter.