ALL: Most Developed Actors

[ian]

Every new actor has a shaky first day or so and then is expected to get right into the action. We try to reserve judgment for the first while as they get adjusted... and hopefully take some acting courses/learn things along the way.

Who, in your opinion, are some of the actors who have most benefitted from professional development? The ones that have shown real progress, or maybe did they just grow on you?

It's an interesting question, because some start out just dreadful and then end up doing an OK job (Charity Rahmer excepted)

What do you think? (It's nice to discuss positive progression for once)

[Faulkner]

I know the writing for Molly on ATWT was just dreadful, but who knew that, all of these years later, we'd think Lesli Kay to be one of daytime's most accomplished actresses (even though she is ill-used on her show)?

Lauralee Bell was terrible as Cricket on Y&R as a teenager and wound up being quite credible in the mid-to-late '90s. I'm sure many will disagree.

[Cat]

KKL on B&B. I liked her from the beginning, but it was obvious in the early days that she was green when compared with her peer Joanna Johnson and of course Susan Flannery. But she took hold of the role of Brooke and ran with it! One stand-out moment for me was years later, Brooke confronts Eric about his role in breaking her and Thorne up in Venice. She's had too few opportunities to shine but on that day, she totally overpowered her more seasoned co-star.

Tuning into OLTL yesterday, I was shocked by how far Brandon Buddy had progressed as an actor. He was, dare I say it, subtle. Unlike his drama queen, jaw-jutting co-star. Kristen Alderson was ok yesterday but on the whole her theatrics wear me out.

When Tamara Braun first arrived on GH, she was pretty stilted and stammer-y, but the moment she got scenes with Chad Bannon and, later, Rick Hearst... woah. She improved a lot and by the end of her run, I loved her. Her scene at the police-station, grabbing the photo of dead Michael still gives me chills to this day.

[DeeeDee]

Yep!

[EastMA2]

I thought Sherry Stringfield was terrible when she first joined GL. I maybe shouldn't confess this, but what the heck. Robert Calhoun was GL's EP at the time and his phone number was in the book so I called his home a few times and left messages that he really needs to replace her. They weren't bad or mean messages, I just stated that she is awful and he needs to cut his losses and fire her.

Sherry developed nicely on GL and by the time she left, I was very impressed with her work.

[ian]

Tammin Sursok has improved but she went from DEPLORABLE to just dreadful, and she wont have time to go up to half-decent

[Gray Bunny]

Nadja Bjorlin. Oh, wait, I thought this was a discussion about boobs.

[ian]

Bahahahahah

[MichaelGL]

Rachel Melvin (ex-Chelsea DAYS) I was so unsure about her as an actress and her character at first, but the stuff surrounding Zach's death really proved to me that she could hit it out of the ballpark.

Ron Raines has surprised me a couple of times as Alan Spaulding on Guiding Light. I've never seen him as an actor who would make me forget about Chris Berneau, but Ron does a incredible job portraying Alan as a man who has a hardened exterior, but a softened interior.

A few other actors include Matthew Bomer, Aubrey Dollar, Nicole Forrester, Marcy Rylan, and Jeff Branson. All of them started off a little unpolished for me, but eventually wowed me later on. Most notably Forrester and Rylan.

[ian]

Rylan especially!

Forester never did much for me.

[sheilaforever]

ITA on both accounts.

Another one is Lauralee Bell as already mentioned. She was extremely bland and could barely hold herself in some - admittedly tough - stories in the 80s but got more and more solid during the 90s.

Can't think of any male to have actually tremendously have improved his acting chops? Am I wrong with such an assessment? Are model (turned) actors more lazy than model actresses?