VITAL DIFFERENCE NO. 1: Physically expressive acting: graceful and elegant (in construction).
...what other great actors can only do with their faces, Tierney can also do with her entire body.
Astute
film observers are well aware of the fact that the best actors are naturally
facially expressive. The face is the most expressive part of the human
body, and it is expressiveness here, and not in the voice, that usually
has the greatest power to convey emotions. Maura Tierney is as facially
expressive as the greatest actors are, but she has a unique talent -
what other great actors can only do with their faces, Tierney can also
do with her entire body. The quintessence of a Tierney performance is
the invention of expressive body and hand gestures that are often so
surprising that I find myself making heavy use of rewind and replay
functions just to dissect how she does it. Some people are just naturally
gifted with physical grace, and Tierney is one of those people. When
this physical ability is coupled to an instinct for acting, the result
is phenomenal. She is the only actor working today who is capable of
being powerfully expressive in close-up, medium shot, and long shot.
Moreover, Tierney's gracefulness allows her acting to be both forceful
and very subtle at the same time.
Most
of all, Tierney's acting style is a physical acting style, and
it is through her physical acting that she strengthens or heightens
the relationships between characters. In the "Rose Bowl" episode of
NewsRadio, when Lisa is amused by the fact that Beth is going
to do her evaluation and Beth starts writing on her notepad, Tierney
rushes towards the desk but falters half-heartedly. Here, a simple body
gesture that probably evokes no conscious response in most people subtly
expresses a moment of comedic desperation and helplessness. With this
gesture alone, Tierney reverses the positions of the morally powerful
Lisa Miller character with the more morally impoverished Beth, setting
up the smooth, uninterrupted flow of comedy of the evaluation. (An explanation
of moral expressiveness will be given later in this article, vide
infra.)
Virtually any NewsRadio episode could be used to demonstrate Tierney's physical acting. In "Inappropriate" look at the way she moves when Bill intrudes on Dave and Lisa's conversation in Dave's office. Tierney steps back in response to the threat of Bill's intrusion with an amazingly efficient set of body movements. Earlier in the same episode, one can marvel at the way she embraces Dave Foley, kisses him, and in realizing that the affection is not returned, changes her facial expression and uses arm movements to subtly enhance her consternation. Through the physical grace of the entire sequence she allows us to experience Lisa's embarrassment without letting Lisa ever losing poise, thus keeping the comedic momentum going. Soon after this, as she walks out of the office she flashes a quick turn back towards Dave before walking out. This single gesture may not seem like much, but it is of vital importance to the Dave-Lisa relationship. To walk out of the room without this glance backwards would have implied that the relationship was severed. By instinctively using this gesture, Tierney maintains the attraction between Dave and Lisa, setting the tone for the arguments soon afterwards.
