It’s always tough to decide what to watch, especially when you’re trying to please a crowd. Perhaps you’ve had a discussion with your streaming pals about what to watch, and after a suggestion arises have devolved into a conversation around the lead actor – is the actor actually good, or is the actor just good at picking roles?
A few actors might come to your mind, like Liam Neeson, with his exciting but often generic films that occupy their own genre we call “Liam Neeson With A Gun” (the Taken series, for example). Maybe it’s Keanu Reeves, who has had a renaissance the past few years with the John Wick films, but previously was best known for playing the same stiff character (like Neo in The Matrix) in every film.
Perhaps one of the greatest examples of this phenomenon, though, is Tom Cruise, an actor who has spent the past two decades or so almost exclusively playing high-octane action roles in films like Mission: Impossible and Jack Reacher.
The Two Toms: A Comparison
While it may be true that Tom Cruise played more varied and acting-heavy roles in his early years, we haven’t seen that side of him in a while, and it doesn’t seem to be coming back any time soon. And why should it? Despite his detractors, taking a quick scroll through the Tom Cruise filmography on IMDb will show you that he has had very few – perhaps no – misses in the entirety of his career.
One of our favorite actors working today, Tom Hardy, has had a much more turbulent career. With lows like the ill-fated Capone and little-known musical London Road, and highs like Warrior and Inception, we see that the reception of works including Tom Hardy are all over the map. So what separates an actor like Tom Cruise, who puts out consistent hits, and an incredibly talented actor like Tom Hardy, who frequently appears in films that miss the mark?
A Good Actor Needs to Improve at Role Selection
It’s not talent – it’s role selection. We don’t think anyone would deny that Tom Hardy was an incredible highlight and truly the only reason to watch the films mentioned above. (For further proof of that, watch the film Legend, in which he plays twin brothers and manages to brilliantly distinguish their personalities [despite this, the film itself is average at best outside of Hardy’s performance].) He hasn’t, however, seemed to have mastered the art of choosing roles in what will ultimately be good and successful films like other good actors, namely Tom Cruise.
While Tom Cruise is a talented actor, the clear difference between him and other actors is that he doesn’t take many risks when it comes to role selection (just when it comes to death-defying stunts). He knows his lane and he stays in it. Luckily for him and us, Tom Hardy’s film reception has been more consistent since his introduction to Christopher Nolan, and the trend seems to be continuing with the highly-anticipated film The Bikeriders, which will be released in theaters on November 30th.
The debate of whether someone is a good actor or simply good at picking roles will wage on, but in the meantime, we’d like to see more risks taken by Tom Cruise and better role selection from Tom Hardy.
