TV Actress Fail

Dear Mary McCormack and Piper Perabo,

Please stop a) overacting, and b) talking so fast.

First, the overacting. Both of you are vastly talented. Both of you have the one thing 99.99% of professional actors in the world would trade their souls for and will never get: you have the lead role in a popular weekly TV series. And furthermore, you have well-written, interesting lead characters to play. No, really. Most of the "good girl" characters in television are excruciatingly hard to play because they are such goody-two-shoes, middle-of-the-road, prettyfaced, exposition-blathering mannequins (realize I'm talking about the characters, not the actors*) whose most interesting character trait is their cleavage. Frankly, I marvel at the professionalism it takes people like Mariska Hargitay, Marg Helgenberger, Jorja Fox, Sasha Alexander, and Michaela Conlin to pull it off. No really, these are amazing women who deserve the big paychecks just for finding ways to bring dignity to the "polysyllabic hottie" role. But also they know what most male actors figure out a lot quicker than female performers: projecting power means rootedness, calm, and stillness, not leaning into the camera or your fellow actor's face with crazy eyes and tightened vocal cords (think Mark Harmon and Chris Noth). Helgenberger especially has an understated swagger and solid stance, both of which convince viewers that she not only believes women have power, but she just plain knows it.

So, please realize that jutting your chin, bulging your eyes, and hissing in peoples' faces are not powerful -- in fact these things are just the opposite, and if the director doesn't know it and correct you, then you need to correct yourself. Powerful women don't strain their necks, sputter, and blink at people. Piper, Kari Matchett would probably be a good influence if she weren't so concerned with how the light and camera angles affect her profile; and unfortunately, your bad habits in front of the camera seem to be actually  rubbing off on Anne Dudek. That's not good. And Mary, all the good stuff that worked with you and Josh Malina during your time on The West Wing seems to have disappeared in a cloud of "Who the hell is this Mary Shannon Character, I don't know, but it's a lead role, so I'll just take it and act manic, use bad timing, completely forget to move, speak, or try to think like an actual government agent, and maybe that will get me through today's shoot."

So stop the overacting, both of you. You are better than that. When the director says "More," don't tense up and do stupid amateur things... just dig deeper and really care about who and what your character is, dammit. Gabrielle Anwar gets away with it because her character is actually kind of crazy and also because she has bothered to learn how to handle weaponry and make us non-experts believe she is Fiona. And also, her elocution is better than yours, even when she's using a heavy accent. Which brings us to the next piece of Valuable Free Advice.

Second, the fast-talking. Yes, I know you have reams of exposition to babble through. Yes, I know the pace must be kept up. Yes, I know you have to actually memorize, understand (more or less), and utter multiple pages of dialogue within an ever-shrinking time-format (oh... the endless strings of commercials--which is not your fault), but that's your job. All this whispering-hissing-sputtering-muttering is making me crazy. I have to turn on my closed captioning to just understand what the heck you're trying to push out of your mouths. Often these days, I have to use the dvr and back things up because I can't make out all the hissmuttering. And believe me, I want to take the blame, to say I'm a distracted viewer, I'm just not paying close attention, or I'm reaching the (cough) age where hearing becomes an issue.

But I got my hearing tested earlier this year, and it turns out my hearing is (and I quote) "perfect." So it's you. Do at least that part of your job better, OK? Heck, at your pay grade, I don't care if you have to spend all morning doing tongue-twisters, vocal warm-ups, working with a coach, reciting with marbles or bites of apple in your mouth, or whatever, just to get better at . . .

Actually
Speaking
Words

It's the most important part of your performance and you are blowing it.

And I don't care if Kyra Sedgwick does it. Her character is supposed to be annoying because of her speech patterns. Annie Walker and Mary Shannon are supposed to be interesting and unusual people. Their character quirks and traits are written into the script, so get with the thought process, and stop scotch-taping it to the exterior.

Mary, please pull back the manic eyeball hissy-fit thing. Your character is supposed to be tough and smart, with a few very interesting emotional blind spots that lead to stupid behavior in her personal life--behaviors I can't really believe you have understood/internalized. And Piper, please realize your voice is wonderful, you don't have to jut your jaw, pucker your mouth, and moon your eyes constantly. Stop trying so hard. Please.

And here's a final thought: do more research on the things your characters actually, you know, DO for a living, and maybe you'll care more, believe it more, and in turn, make the rest of us believe.

 ----------------
*For those who mentally confuse actors with the characters they play, I have no advice, other than Read A Book (or five), and then Read A Play (or ten) and then quiz yourself. Better yet, just use Google or Wikipedia if you haven't figured out yet that Hargitay's not a real cop, and Alexander's not a real pathologist.