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Why do some actors stay in the same role forever
Swanandduck2
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I usually assume someone becomes an actor because they enjoy playing different roles, trying on new characters etc. But some actors seem to take on one role and treat it like a job for life eg the now infamous William Roache; Sally Dynevor; Adam Woodyat; Helen Worth; Ann Kirkbride and so on
They all joined Corrie or EE as young actors just starting out and are still there decades later having played no other roles whatsoever. They might as well have got a job in the Civil Service or the Bank or somesuch as all they seem to want is a secure job for life. Nothing wrong with that, but surely actors are meant to have more of a sense of adventure, experimentation etc?
They all joined Corrie or EE as young actors just starting out and are still there decades later having played no other roles whatsoever. They might as well have got a job in the Civil Service or the Bank or somesuch as all they seem to want is a secure job for life. Nothing wrong with that, but surely actors are meant to have more of a sense of adventure, experimentation etc?
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Another is Simon Gregson, Steve has always been terrific character and Eileen Derbyshire who doesn't do interviews.
Sally Whittaker/Dynevor was in "Juliet Bravo"
Adam Woodyatt was in "The Baker Street Boys".
I don't see anything odd about it. It's a great gig. Maybe they know their limitations as actors, how precarious the profession is, and realise that nothing else will give them (a) the audience they have (b) the 3/4 days a week tv profile and (c) the great paycheck. They're all character actors doing something they love, where else would they get the exposure they have and the character growth/development and key storylines over the years? Good sense rather than lack of ambition imo.
I'm not talking about soap stars who have left their soap, found that they can't get any other work and so reprise their roles - but the ones who haven't even tested the water and end up getting typecast and almost unusable in other roles.
I do agree with what you're saying, but maybe some get used to the job security? Or maybe if they realise that even if they left, they'd always be associated with that particular role, perhaps they think its just easier to stay?
Because some people prefer a settled lifestyle.
But when actors do leave and go to another soap people then call that other soap a graveyard for characters from another soap, or they continue to call the character by their old characters name as thoughy they have no right to move on, so really they cannot win whatever they do.
And why might an actor just as well work for the civil service or a bank? neither are similar to acting and whats wrong with enjoying acting but also wanting to stay in the same role ?
Edit: Actually, I may have been a bit hasty typing the above out. They may feel that by sticking with the same role that they're missing out on offers that other TV stations would want them for.
I think that this is probably the correct answer.
Let's say Adam Woodyatt (Ian Beale) left Eastenders, how likely is it he would get another TV role?
You often find that actors taht have become so established in a role or a type of role they are either stuck doing it forever or they stop and just become famous and a celeb.
I think a good case in point is Barbara Windsor. She said in a few interviews years ago she was close to quitting acting and becoming an agent. She was still playing the busty blonde kind of roles she had been doing in the Carry On films for the last 10 years on stage. She was fed up with it and she was too old for it. She was starting look a bit sad and desperate. She had set a date to call it a day and she got two phone calls. One was to do a single episode of One Foot in the Grave where she got to play a woman her own age that dressed properly and wasn't all clevage and the other was Eastenders. That role totally changed the country's perception of her to the point people would start calling out to her "Peggy" rather than "Barbara."
Unlike film and theatre where you can escape a character because you are either seen once (theatre) or a person has to make a point of getting the DVD to see the film and thus that character. When it comes to TV, that character can become so associated with you that even when you stop doing it people see you as that character because of the repeats.
The last episode of Only Fools and Horses was 10 years ago this year(Christmas Day 2003) and Roger Lloyd Pack is still always thought of as Trigger despite being in The Vicar of Dibley as well as Doctor Who, Survivors, The Old Guys, The Borgias and other things on TV. The neverending OFAH means he will never escape Trigger.
If you are in a soap where you are seen weekly month after month and year after year it's even worse, so it's understandable they stay as long as they can once they get past a certain point or number of years
Angela Griffin, Eva Pope, David French, Georgia Taylor, Bradley Walsh and Anna Friel did get out at the right time...
My friend knows someone who worked on Hollyoaks, she was a regular, but was given fairly short notice that they were writing her out, for no other reason than they had no more storylines for her - yet Roache, Kirkbride and Woodyatt are largey part of the furniture in their soaps, yet you can't see them going anywhere.
There's a hierarchy when it comes to soap characters. The main characters don't run the risk of getting written out that easily, the regulars are more at risk. And those with a little line here and there are easily replaced.
People like Anne Kirkbride, Helen Worth, Sally Dynevor, etc. are from a different era to the likes of the Hollyoaks cast, who see it as a stepping stone to bigger fame, reality TV and being a WAG, probably. Anne Kirkbride apparently does the dusting in between filming scenes!
Wow, I couldn't write this better myself.
They know they are on to a good thing.
However poor actors end up in soaps playing themselves until death (or scandal, it seems these days). They know they are well paid for doing the same types of lines, the same types of situations and any talent they may have for other roles diminish.
Anthony Cotton could never play any other role but the one he has in Corrie. It's a fact. He played the same role in Queer As Folk. He knows he onto a good thing and he'll stay until he is fired. Just the way it is.
A soap actor has become a genre over the last two or three decades. I'm sure there are youngsters now who want to be a soap actor - as opposed to a regular actor, doing different parts in theatre and TV - as a lifelong career.
Forgot about that gimp!
Yes he is a one dimensional in more ways than one, him and dev probably share the same agent.:eek: