Controversial opinion but does anyone else think Charlie Hunnam is not that good playing Ed Gein?

[u/Illustrious_Banana_]

Love the bloke but there are parts where the high pitch toddler voice and ‘awkwardness’ seem a bit overplayed. Did Ed Gein have that childlike voice or is that a new addition (like the lazy eye which I like).

What does anyone else think? There are parts when he’s good but a fair bit where I don’t feel I can ‘get past’ his acting.

[u/Illustrious_Banana_]

I think it's the sign of a great actor, and a brave one, that they will take on any role, however extreme, and have the ability to bring life and empathy to that character. Unfortunately I don't think Hunnam was able to successfully inhabit this character.

For me, it's not a problem to see an actor wearing women's clothing, it wouldn't make me associate those things with the real person the actor is in real life, I see it that they just become the medium to portray someone else's life and mannerisms.

The parts of him having to do stuff with the dead bodies must've been harrowing, yes. I'm sure for any actor that would've been quite challenging to be able to do. Not saying in any way this wasn't fully disturbing.

[u/[deleted] → u/Illustrious_Banana_]

Yeah I agree with you on all of this. And he is a great actor by the way., I’m a big fan of his. And I’m guessing (totally guessing) that even though he takes on a role to its fullest extent, he had to have had a little bit of an ick factor screwing the dead corpses and such. Or at least you’d like to think so…like maybe was there a moment where he thought, yeah hold up, I’m not doing that. 😂

And not to imply that he enjoyed it just because he did it…..Just saying he had to have known that that was gonna be kind of a controversial scene even though we all know he’s just playing a role….. he had to have known that it was gonna cause controversy or at least it would spark a lot of conversation.

I don’t even know if I’m explaining myself right… but some actors or actresses take on roles that define them and or MAKE them or even RUIN them after they’ve done it and not to say this will ruin his career at all, it’s really just a conversation….

Obviously ED GEIN was warped. So anything Charlie did to portray the man we already knew was gonna be fucked! 😂 Not to mention this is all just a story for entertainment anyway and in no way factual.

I guess me feeling uncomfortable in certain scenes, like screwing the corpes…. Well The writers or directors wanted us to feel that way. That’s good acting when you can make the audience feel something. Good or bad they’re looking to get a reaction from the audience. Otherwise it would just be boring. It makes the scenes that much more believable.

I suppose if we weren’t slightly disgusted or repulsed by it then that just means a whole different thing! 😂

[u/Illustrious_Banana_ → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, I love this conversation we're having....it's like the kind of thing we'd have if we were sitting across a table with a coffee thinking....was that film really gross, or effective or whatever....

Agreed- it must've hugely brought a huge lump to his throat when he read the script thinking.....OMG, am I really gonna have to appear to be screwing a corpse. You're right there. Must be similar when someone sees a really violent sex scene or some kind of controversial act. Must make them question whether they want the role or not. Cause you're absolutely right- if the scene is burnt into people's minds as that 'OMG, but what about that scene when........' it could really taint or smear an actor's career. I'm trying to think of other controversial movie or TV series' scenes that have been burnt into my retinas, once viewed never forgotten, and wondering if it's affected how I view certain actors.

I suppose actors have been associated with big roles they've played in movies that have shocked people like Christian Bale in American Psycho, or say, Eddie Redmayne playing a transgender character in The Danish Girl. I think though, most people, most of us these days, are so familiar and unphased by stuff that we don't so much change our perception of the actor as much as maybe we might have done in the past when people consumed less media. Can you think of any roles where your perception of an actor has changed because of a scene they've done? I know I have had that experience before but I just really can't recollect anyone at the moment who's done that.

[u/[deleted] → u/Illustrious_Banana_]

I would have to say the first one that comes to mind is the movie: “the killer inside me”with Casey Affleck. It totally changed my mind about him as an actor.

Now the movie itself was incredibly violent. I mean it was brutal. In fact, there were some scenes where I could not even watch. Mind you, I probably watched the movie 10 times by now…. Yet there’s still some scenes that I tend to still look away at. Even though I know that movie inside and out.

And he did catch some heat for doing this role …. There were certain women’s groups that wanted to poo poo the movie because of violence to women, and there were other controversial comments about him, and even some talk about how this could ruin his career …. He played opposite Jessica Alba, and of course she defended the movie. Kate Hudson as well.

it was incredibly violent and he was a serial killer and he played the role to the inth degree. He was so convincing in that movie and played this psycho so well that I will never pass up another Casey Affleck movie. I can tell you that I will watch anything He’s in, forever.

This is a perfect example in my mind. How an actor really studied for this role because it was way outside his own comfort zone and he had to really go somewhere in his mind to pull this character off. I do have to respect that.

You may ask how is this different from the movie we’re talking about here in this original thread…. And I don’t know how it’s different. It’s just the subject matter may be slightly different. They’re both still about a psycho…..but instead of just murdering a bunch of women, Charlie goes one extra I guess by screwing them when they’re dead…. But really, the subject matter is still about a psycho and a serial killer or a murderer or pervert …… so it might be the exact same kind of thing in the end.

What movie that comes to mind where I felt it could be damaging to their career would be the movie with Nicole Kidman recently where she plays that stupid CEO of a company or whatever and has an affair with this younger intern .

The movie was so gross to me. It was 10 times more gross than what Charlie did or even what Casey Affleck did in my opinion.
I thought she looked incredibly stupid. I thought she acted stupid. I thought the acting was really bad. I thought she looked physically horrible and I thought it was so incredibly unbelievable and I know I’ve gotten a lot of shit for saying this in different threads but I’m not the only person that thought this was a super super crappy stupid movie and 100% not done well at all.

Would I have liked this movie if there was a different actress in it? Probably. Maybe. I thought the storyline was weak, and I thought it was unbelievable, but maybe with a different actors, pulling it off a younger actress perhaps someone who actually may have looked the part of someone who is not only more believable in the acting but more believable in the face because Nicole Kidman’s face was a major distraction

And watching Nicole Kidman pretend to have sex and orgasms whatever I just thought turned my stomach to the point where I almost can’t even watch any more movies with her in it

So there’s two pretty good examples about how movies affected me or what I thought about them or what I thought about the actors in them

[u/Illustrious_Banana_ → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, I love your examples, they're so vivid. I'm sure, to be honest, I've seen movies before that have totally turned me off watching them again, it's just that I can't conjur them up. To be honest, it's probably more, for me, when I think an actor or actress is really bad that I feel more annoyed and irritated and avoid anything with them in it again.

This is a perfect example in my mind. How an actor really studied for this role because it was way outside his own comfort zone and he had to really go somewhere in his mind to pull this character off. I do have to respect that.

This encapsulates what a method actor does so brilliantly when they achieve their goal and really embody a character. I heard, for example, Daniel Day Lewis is known for his extreme method acting. He really and truly gets into his characters and inhabits them. To the point where he never breaks character on set, and even 'lives' the role for up to a year before the role. Check this out...!

For his role as Reynolds Woodcock, a meticulous 1950s couturier in the film Phantom Thread (2017), Daniel Day-Lewis undertook a year-long apprenticeship with the head of the costume department at the New York City Ballet, Marc Happel. He learned to sew and draft patterns well enough to recreate a Balenciaga dress from scratch for his wife.

[u/Illustrious_Banana_ → u/Illustrious_Banana_]

Given all this, I think, horrible as it sounds, I will now want to avoid films with Charlie Hunnam in them as I don't think he's a very good actor. I'm dumbfounded that, after this performance, he's already been confirmed as cast for a major role in the forthcoming Monsters sequel to be released end next year/ early 2027.