Top Five Reevaluated Actors

There are occasions when I see an actor for the first time and come away thinking they’re just mediocre, or even bad.  But then, I’ll see them in something else and be struck by their talent.  By and large, I’d say, it’s not that the actors used to be mediocre and got better, although most people do tend to improve in their craft over time.  But the real factor here is far more often the projects themselves.  A thinly-written character can leave an actor with nearly nothing to work with, and getting a good performance out of it can be like getting blood from a stone.  And although I’d say this is an issue that can happen across the board, the five names that came to mind pretty quickly when I thought of doing this Top Five were all women, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence; in order for actresses to truly display their talents, they need to have characters worth sinking their teeth into.  My apologies to the following excellent actors for ever doubting what they could do.

Melissa Benoist

My introduction to Melissa Benoist came during Glee’s post-graduation downturn (not that it was ever revelatory TV, but season 4 was particularly bleak.)  With most of the original characters either in new locations or reduced to guest-star status, Benoist’s Marley was one of the new characters brought in as replacements for the old ones, and suffice to say, she had less than stellar material to work with.  As such, a few years later, I was a little startled to see her in the Supergirl promos.  But her performance as Kara is absolutely beautiful.  The last daughter of Krypton can be an endearing nerd, an admirable mess, a compassionate hero, a powerful woman of steel, and a ray of alien optimism, often all at once.  It’s been a pleasure to see her grow as a person and a superhero over the last couple of seasons, and Benoist handles the role with charm, nuance, and strength.

Kerry Bishé

Like Benoist, I first met Kerry Bishé as a replacement for another television character – as Lucy, the new lead for a soft reboot of Scrubs.  Like with Marley on Glee, it didn’t particularly work for a number of reasons, and while those reasons weren’t Bishé’s fault, it meant she didn’t leave much of an impression on me as an actress.  Fast forward to Halt and Catch Fire, and goodness gracious.  I love Bishé as Donna so much – she drew my eye from the first, when she sits down at the kitchen table to rewire her daughter’s Speak ‘n’ Spell, and I loved her as she grew and changed and fell, through her successes and her low points.  In every episode, Bishé knocks it out of the park as a woman fighting tiny battles for her worth, often getting it wrong but always leaving you with just enough hope that she can find her way back.

Oona Chaplin

My first Oona Chaplin role was Talisa on Game of Thrones, and she’s not bad – I really like the speech she gives about her brother and why she became a nurse.  Ultimately, though, she’s there entirely to be someone for Robb to fall in love with, and that means there isn’t much to her.  In contrast, as Marnie on The Hour, she bowled me away instantly (to be fair, I started with series 2 for Peter Capaldi-related reasons, and her storyline is a lot more substantial in series 2, though she still has some great scenes in series 1!)  We have this privileged, slightly-ridiculous woman who’s done everything “right” to obtain a perfect husband/social standing, and it turns out to mean nothing.  In portraying Marnie slowly opening her eyes to her life of quiet desperation, Chaplin is by turns heartbreaking and utterly cheer-worthy.

Evangeline Lilly

Seeing Evangeline Lilly as Kate on Lost (her first onscreen role) was tricky.  At times, as I’ve said before, Kate could be terrific.  But so much of her story on the show was swallowed by the neverending love triangle, and the more time that was spent on that plot, the more Kate’s character was dragged down.  I started to see more of Lilly’s potential when she played Tauriel in The Hobbit films (well, in The Desolation of Smaug – the less said about how The Battle of the Five Armies treated her, the better,) but I really woke up to what she could do when Ant-Man came along.  As Hope, she’s both awesomely badass and quietly affecting, a highly-capable young woman fighting hard to prove herself; Ant-Man and the Wasp can’t get here soon enough!

Jennifer Morrison

For my money, Jennifer Morrison was poorly served, first as Cameron on House, and then as Zoe on How I Met Your Mother.  Neither character gave her much of anything worth working with, and so, while I saw her face in the Once Upon a Time promos, her involvement in the show didn’t give me any incentive to watch.  When I got into the series, though, Emma became far and away my favorite thing about it, and there were many points in the later seasons when she was all that kept me watching.  Morrison’s Emma is just a phenomenal heroine – tough, vulnerable, smart, a skeptic with a steep learning curve in a fantastical environment.  I just love watching her learning to believe in fairytales, in the possibility of love and family, and in her own power.