I happen to think it is easier for comedic actors to transition to drama than the other way around. Comedy timing and delivery I think is hard to learn, whereas we have have had some level of dramatic experience in our lives.
I came across Bollywood Hero while flipping tv channels. There was a scruffy looking guy sitting with an Indian girl in a cart and they were talking about how she should direct movies. Then I though, hmm, that guy's voice sounds familiar so I really looked at him and it was Chris Kattan, of Saturday Night Live fame. It was on the IFC Channel, and independent films are right up my alley, so I thought I'd take a look at what this was all about.
Kattan plays a character of the same name, a comic actor who is getting cheesy comedy roles in the U.S., so I guess this is sort of fake biographical. He asks his agent for something more substantive, and is offered the lead in a Bollywood production. He travels to India and with meets Priya, the aforementioned woman who is trying to break into directing movies. They work together to convince a retired famous Indian actress, who now lives in a religous commune, to take the lead role in the film. Julian Sands plays the producer who is getting some financial backing for the film.
Kattan takes a serio-comic role in this three part mini-series. There is nothing of that manic, craziness (Monkey Boy or Mango) that you are used to from him on SNL. If I had read this synopsis on its own I would make assumptions about it that it probably doesn't deserve. I liked how the Kattan and Priya characters both had similar paths in that they were trying to convince others that they were more than what people expected them to be. Kattan is not bad as a serious actor. After catching bits of this on cable I ended up renting it via Netflix and enjoyed the more dramatic side of Chris Kattan.
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In another experiment of comedy-actor-turns-dramatic is Observe and Report. Ronnie (Seth Rogen) is a self-important mall security cop with aspirations of becoming a real police officer, and his team borders on the edge of being considered retarded. He's bipolar and his condition both helps and hinders his work. When a flasher threatens shoppers, the guards are obviously inept so a real cop, Harrison (Ray Liotta), is called in on the case.
Ronnie has a loving relationship with his lush of a mother (Celia Weston) and they both accept each other's faults. And like a lot of comedies he pines for the pretty shallow girl at the makeup counter (Anna Faris) instead of the respectable and cute one right under his nose (Collette Wolfe).
Ronnie clashes with Harrison and wants really badly to catch the flasher to prove his worth to everyone, but realizes that being a mall cop wasn't such a hot thing. This really motivates him to find the flasher as well as a late night thief that has been plaguing the mall.
Although at the time I watched this I didn't think Rogen was "ready for prime time" yet, i.e. a lead role not based solely on comedy, I could see something trying to form itself. The mother/son relationship is one of the more believable ones in the movie and I can see Weston as Rogen's mother. Faris in her role I thought was physically unattractive.
At times the way Ray Liotta delivered a line sounded like he genuinely wanted to help Ronnie although Harrison of course wasn't supposed to--he needed to be more of a cocky SOB and looks-wise he was pushing dirty old man instead of middle aged Lothario.
This needed a tighter script and some better relationship development. Perhaps if they played Ronnie's desire to be a real cop as a childhood dream, or if he knew the makeup girl from childhood and she really rejected him, it would create more character conflict.
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Another example of Rogen's toe in the dramatic water is Funny People, a Judd Apatow comedy. George (Adam Sandler) is a successful comedy star, now making silly movies and holed away in his mansion. He finds he has cancer, spurring him to return to his first love, stand-up, where he hires comedy newcomer Ira (Seth Rogen) to be his personal assistant/joke writer. At first it is a sweet deal for Ira. He gets to live a grander life away from his roommates (Jason Schwartzman, Jonah Hill), and convinces George to tell his secret to someone who matters, leading George to reconnect with past love Laura (Leslie Mann). She's now married but she gives in to her old feelings, especially when her husband (Eric Bana) also has been guilty of infidelity.
As George's symptoms come and go, he takes his frustration out on Ira. They visit Laura's family where all the secrets on every side come out, and Laura needs to make a decision of which man she wants. At the end, George realizes that Ira is a friend and not just someone who works for him.
Overall I didn't feel that the romantic angle was strong enough. There were no scenes of George and Laura in the past, and the "end of the affair" was blah (Laura doesn't appear until half the movie has passed). Eric Bana's character was kind of one dimensional, and some of the behaviors of the two roommates got a little tiresome.
Rogen did a good job and it was his character that was the most real for me. Ira throughout was genuinely trying to help George and Rogen was low key and had to often play the straight man to the more flamboyantly comical Sandler (at least for the film). Sandler was just okay, his acting often leans on the comedy crutch in this one and the film could have done more with the serious side of George's story. Singer James Taylor and the scenes with the foreign doctor were also some of the funnier moments. Lots of cameos by comics. I did laugh out loud at several parts of this movie.
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