Sad Clowns
Why Comedians Going Serious Works So Well
Few things can illicit early buzz for a project like when a comedic actor decides to play a serious role. Reverse the genres and you may find something amusing, but a dramatic actor doing a comedy never carries the weight of a comedian going dramatic. There is a vulnerability in doing comedy that carries over greatly to more dramatic works. When dramatic scenes don’t work, they tend to simply be dull or uninteresting. When comedy doesn’t work, it’s much more painful, much harsher for those watching, because comedy is such a visceral act. To make people laugh, many times, means exposing yourself to that more harsh reaction. Because comedians are so open to being so vulnerable, carrying this over to dramatic roles not only is somewhat natural for the actors, but the contrast for the audience heightens the performances further.
The two genres that are most closely related are comedy and horror. Both rely on surprise, anticipation, tension, and timing to sell their performances. Both illicit sudden and unexpected reactions from the audience. Tweak each just a little and you can easily slip from one form into the other, whether that be a horror that is too schlocky to be taken seriously, or a comedy that twists into the absurd in daring and frightening ways. It’s in the visceral, dynamic reactions created in the audience that comedy performers are able to manipulate when taking dramatic turns.
The contrast between the performances is a major contribution to our perception of these performances. When looking at most of the dramatic performances of comedians one constant theme is modulation. These actors specifically are known for their loud, brash characters, their intensity on screen, and by taking these performances and turning them down to a lower register the audience is already placed on edge. We’re waiting for the moment of explosion, waiting for the energy we know these performers to have to be unleashed. This meta-context is often wielded by the filmmakers, allowing them to tease out unique and unseen performances from their subjects.
Another important factor is many comedians inability to play truly small. For his 2009 film The Informant!, director Steven Soderberg cast almost exclusively comedians for all the minor roles. In an interview around it’s release, Soderberg noted that comedians will always provide an extra layer to any line-reading, as they are constantly trying to convey as much as possible. When applying this to the dramatic performances, this quality underpins the performances, causing the smallest of gestures or looks to have an added weight to them. Jim Carrey’s longing in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind goes from that of a man to a forlorned creature of hurt. Charlie Chaplin’s defeat in Limelight is not just a disappointment experienced with age, but a complete failure, a destruction of everything he was. By playing small, comedians are able to draw melodrama out of reality.
Additionally, most directors are smart enough to not completely take these comedians out of their wheelhouse. The mixture of drama and comedy in the majority of the dramatic roles allows for the contrast between these aspects of performance to be textual as well as meta-textual. In Bernie, for instance, Jack Black is completely committed to the role of Bernie, the murderer and con artist beloved by his small Texas community. While the circumstances of the case of the filming techniques are often times comedic, Black’s performance is played completely straight, and never winking at the audience, which both heightens the comedic elements of the film but allows Black the room to play. Had a more dramatic actor taken the role, it may have lacked the natural charisma needed to make it believable as a true story.
Possibly the best films in terms of shifting the perspective on a comedians established persona are the dramatic films of Adam Sandler. In Punch-Drunk Love, the rage typically associated with Sandler’s comedic works in Happy Gilmore and The Waterboy is still present and a major factor in the film. Playing Barry Egan, a timid, shy man who struggles with severe social anxiety, it’s only in momentary and vicious bursts of rage that he has an outlet. As various family and financial pressures begin to overwhelm him, he meets Lena Leonard, and it’s through this new, intense love that he’s able to focus that rage in a productive manner. While originally we see him act out in frustration, smashing the windows of his sister’s house because of their overbearing nagging of him, by the end of the film he’s tracking down people who threatened Lena’s safety and demanding they leave him and Lena alone. The rage is still palpable, but by making it exacting director Paul Thomas Anderson shifts the rage from comedic to dramatic. While there are minor differences in his performance, the distance between Punch-Drunk Love and Billy Madison are minor for Sandler. It’s a change of tone more than a change of performance that makes this dramatic turn work.
In his later (and, in my opinion, better) dramatic turn in Uncut Gems, directing pair Josh and Ben Safdie are able to perform a similar trick and shifting the tone of the film around the performance of the actor. The film takes Sandler’s manic persona and fits the dramatic film around him. Following gambling addict Howard Ratner (Sandler) as he delves further and further into the depths of his addiction, it’s a frantic, unrelenting film that never gives one room to breathe. These same elements cans often describe Sandler’s pure comedy films, but it’s through tone and editing that the Safdie’s are able to turn these aspects of the performance into a tragedy. The manic motor-mouth is transformed from a lovable idiot to a desperate fool, and Sandler shifts his performance just enough to make his charisma that of a too slick car salesman. It’s a greasy, sweltering character that we’re already familiar with, and which leads to his increasingly poor decisions to be even more stressful. The audience wants desperately to like Ratner, to cheer for Ratner because of Sandler, and in that tension of what we want and what we get that this performance flourishes.
Some comedic performers may already carry the melancholy commonly found in these comedy-to-drama performances. Robin Williams and Charlie Chaplin often injected heart and catharsis into their comedy films. In these instances it’s less about shaping the film around the performance and simply adjusting the pensiveness that already existed. In Good Will Hunting, Robin Williams doesn’t transfer into a wholly unique character. His performance as Dr. Sean Maguire is still very much in the frame that a “Robin Williams” performance exists, it’s simply placing the melancholy found in Mrs. Doubtfire in the text instead of the subtext. This is evident by the fact he was still able to improvise on set, and two of the more memorable moments of comedy still come from these improvisations (the “my wife farted” scene and his final line - “son of a bitch stole my line”.) While Black and Sandler had the movies shaped to their performances, Williams was able to conform to the needs of the film.
This melancholy and pensiveness is a common theme throughout the works of Charlie Chaplin. His early shorts and silent films featuring his character of The Tramp frequently used the downtrodden and out-of-luck character for more than comedic slapstick. While he was a genius when it came to comedy set pieces (both in front of and behind the camera) Chaplin’s comedy was always heightened because of the pathos his characters go through. So, when looking at his performance as the aged and out-of-fashion stage comedian Calvero, the audience may be expecting this mixture of slapstick and pathos that made Chaplin’s career. But the film is almost pure tragedy, as the disgraced Calvero must rely on pity instead of talent to get through the remainder of his days. It’s a prophetic film, a shocking portrait of the future for those unable to let go of the past, and Chaplin’s performance is morose and unforgiving. His only moments of hope lie either in his dreams, a place where he will always be a star, or in his hopes for the youthful woman who’s life he has saved. This is a film that robs Chaplin of all his comedic ability, and what’s left is what makes the film so powerful and heartbreaking. This again is not the film shaping around Chaplin, but Chaplin himself wringing away all of his schtick and leaving behind the raw underbelly of his characters.
It should be noted that these attempts at taking a comedian and drawing a dramatic performance out of them doesn’t always lead to success. I Used To Be Funny features both Rachel Sennot, the current indie comedy darling, and Jason Jones, who is best known for his work on the Daily Show, in failed dramatic roles. Here we can see exactly how a director is needed to properly reign in and control the charisma of comedians, and how a script still needs to properly set-up catharsis in order for the actors to take control of the characters. Following stand-up comedian Sam (Sennot) as she attempts to reintegrate herself back into society after being assaulted, the film never captures the comedic charm of Sennot, and the script never gives her moments to she that charm. Jason Jones plays a the father of a young girl who Sam babysits, and he is given even less to grasp onto, making him basically a non-character until he becomes a very important character.
This is an example of a director and a script being unable to meet the comedians on their own field, and the comedians not having that built-in melancholy that they could vary. Writer-director Ally Pankiw both wants the character of Sam to be sharp and acid-tongued while being sheltered and closed off, and this is something she is completely incapable of drawing out of Sennot. Her script wants Jones’s character to be unassuming, and is unable to make the distinction between boring on film and actually boring. The stars are both giving the director what she intended, but unfortunately she wasn’t prepared enough to utilize what made them stars to begin with.
There will always be a crossover between these two opposing fields as long as the art of film exists. The number of comedians-turned-dramatists I didn’t even touch on could fill an entire book (next project?). I think it’s an important transformation for a comedian to go through, not for the accolades or to impress an industry that constantly underappreciates comedy, but because it allows them to find new depths in future works. Comedy is an art that almost always has an expiration date, whether that’s because of changing social and political understandings or simply because a funny joke can sometimes only be funny 500 times. By allowing themselves to play more straight, to grasp beyond their perceived means, these performers are able to see beyond the jokes they’ve repeated themselves, the bits which may be getting tired ten or fifteen years into a career. Drama reminds them where the comedy can lie, and that the boundaries of comedy are just like the boundaries of performance; unlimited.
Yes to the next project. Need more, please!