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USA Today
May 15, 2003
Small screen, big talents
by Robert Bianco
Television actors are an underappreciated lot. Not financially, of
course. When it comes to cash, starring in a TV series is one of
America's most well-rewarded professions.
Yet despite the riches — and despite some progress — TV stars still
lack status in the acting world. Movies are more glamorous, the stage
more prestigious, which may be why so many TV stars migrate to both.
(Related item: Gallery of top TV performers.)
In part, this denigration of TV actors is a long-standing hangover
from the industry's early days, when TV was seen as the last, sad
stop before career oblivion. Movie stars might be willing to appear
on TV as a lark, but no one took their work in the medium seriously.
Times have changed, but one major factor hasn't: the inherent
limitations of the medium itself. Where movies and theater are larger
than life, TV is smaller. Series television is built upon empathy and
familiarity, upon characters who come into our homes every week. We
identify with them, or at least we recognize them as identifiable
types.
That familiarity often fools people into thinking TV actors are
just "being themselves." Even other actors have confessed their
surprise at discovering that NYPD Blue star Dennis Franz is nothing
at all like Andy Sipowicz, the character he has so indelibly created.
And I'm convinced one of the reasons Matt LeBlanc and Matthew Perry
have failed to win Emmys is that people think they're
behaving "naturally" and don't see the skill behind the artifice.
So as the season winds down to its end next week, it seems like a
good time to honor the 10 actors who gave the year's most valuable
performances. I concede that the number is arbitrary and unfair, and
there are many more actors who could have made the list, starting
with Franz, LeBlanc and Perry.
With that caveat, here are the USA TODAY Top 10, with a sample
episode to watch for in reruns.
Jennifer Garner, Sydney Bristow in Alias
Sydney is the kind of role that can make a young actress's career,
and Garner has made the most of it.
Before ABC's Alias began, it was hard to imagine Garner in the part,
based on the little we knew of her from Felicity and Significant
Others. Now it's hard to imagine anyone else as Sydney, which is one
of the tests of a TV star. Her all-American, athletic "good-girl"
aura is not only a perfect fit for Sydney. It also makes her
undercover array of trashy bad-girl disguises amusing rather than
disturbing.
Luckily, Garner is a star who can act. (The two don't necessarily go
together.) As they work their way through some of TV's most
nonsensical plots, Garner and a first-rate supporting cast make sure
we believe in the characters and their personal upheavals, even when
we don't believe the story.
Episode to watch:
"Phase One" (Jan. 26): Just because the stories don't make sense
doesn't mean they're not fun, and never more so than in this
ingenious post-Super Bowl special. The episode allowed Garner to move
from high point to high point, from her jaw-dropping midair fight at
the start, to an emotional breakdown in the middle, to a long-awaited
kiss at the end. How can you not love this show and its star?
© USA TODAY 2003
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