VITAL DIFFERENCE NO. 4: Centrifugal acting.

...she projects desires outwards into external relationships...

Besides her physical acting style, the most crucial difference between all other actors and Maura Tierney is the selflessly centrifugal nature of her acting (she projects desires outwards into external relationships). Tierney is absolutely the best ever at strengthening her character's relationships with other characters. She enhances what other actors do by responding to them and leading them in subtle ways. Moreover, her own acting seems to lead to meaning (or more correctly, signification) in other actors' performances. Sometimes it is just the way she moves toward or backs away from another actor. Sometimes it is a body gesture or facial expression that foreshadows what the other actor will do. By contrast, almost all other actors have centripetal styles (pulling in emotions so that they can be read across their faces). In other words, conventional actors only react to situations and communicate the resulting feelings to the viewer. Thus, most actors function only as signified objects within the mise en scène; Maura Tierney is both signified object and signifier - she is, in other words, a mise en scène actor. In this fashion she is the Bill Russell of acting - she strengthens the relationships between characters and makes everyone else better.¹ While actors who are expressive in their faces impress their own presence on the audience, only actors who are expressive with their bodies impress in their expression of relationships between characters.

For example, it is no accident that the most gripping scenes in Oxygen are those that feature Tierney and Adrien Brody alone in the interrogation room. Here we see two great actors giving truly great performances, but only those who understand the deepest levels of mise en scène will appreciate that Tierney's is far greater. Tierney's acting feeds the relationship between the two, letting Brody feed off the emotional, psychological and moral dynamic of their relationship. After all, whose desires are expressed in Oxygen - those of Brody's malevolent villain or Tierney's self-flagellating anti-hero? The relationship between the two characters is a dance of conflict and sexual attraction between the darkness within and their moral positions without.

For another example, we can use Tierney's Bridget Cahill from Forces of Nature. Bridget and her fiancè Ben (Ben Affleck) share barely any screen time. Moreover, Sandra Bullock's character has the advantage of sharing two-shots with Ben throughout the whole movie. (Two-shots place both actors within the same frame, the effect of which is to visually establish a relationship between two characters; cross-cutting between two actors provides visual separation of two characters.) And yet, by the end of the movie, we know that Bridget 'owns' Ben and that he is hers and hers only. No one in the audience begrudges the marriage of Ben and Bridget, because they know there is a very palpable bond between them that just feels right. Despite their physical separation, Tierney succeeds in creating and strengthening a relationship with Ben that far surpasses that of Bullock's. That Tierney is able to accomplish all this merely through the judicious and subtle use of yearning glances and morally expressive acting is a mark of her greatness.

Tierney's power to signify relationships is so great that she sometimes 'acts for two people.'

Tierney's power to signify relationships is so great that she sometimes 'acts for two people.' A case in point is Dead Women in Lingerie, a badly directed (although well edited) film that should be fatally flawed by the complete lack of romantic charisma of its male lead. There is one glorious sequence where John Romo's Nick Marnes invites Tierney's Molly Field to dance with him. Tierney foreshadows the sequence by leaning backwards with folded arms while observing Nick, creating a very subtle physical distance suggestive of wariness, and counterpoints it with a smile that indicates that she is not at all threatened and is in fact very comfortable in his presence. As Romo, whose character has been portrayed as quite a womanizer, rushes to embrace her with slightly forward familiarity, Tierney gracefully disentangles herself from him. What Tierney does next is crucial. She holds her hands up in the intermediate position of a gentle clasp (doing nothing) for two beats while still maintaining that gentle backward lean. The smile has transformed into a wise but accommodating smile indicating that she knows exactly where this is headed. During these two beats Tierney observes Romo, her character contemplating whether she should play his romantic game and exactly how she should do it. She then moves her body ever so slightly towards Romo, extinguishing in part the physical distance she formerly created between them with her backward lean. She raises her hands up as they go into the embrace with which they slow dance (a brief maneuver that expresses Molly's control over the situation). Romo amorously slides his hands down her body. Tierney lifts his stray hand up to her waist - twice. The second time Tierney also gives another knowing smile. The terms of their courtship have been set, expressed in purely physical terms. As they dance and turn in close embrace a smile and laugh of complete enjoyment breaks out on Tierney's face that seems completely real. It is a sequence that combines give and take, synchrony and physical play. After Nick's invitation to dance, not a word is said in the entire sequence, yet Tierney has succeeded in signifying (or expressing) everything about their relationship and transforming it into a romantic one into the bargain. More incredibly, by this single sequence of physical acting alone, Tierney transforms Romo into a credible romantic lead, and the romantic relationship between the two characters carries the rest of the film. No matter how many times I see this scene I never cease to be amazed.

Tierney is incredibly adept at creating chemistry, both positive and negative, between her character and others. Her skill with negative chemistry also needs special mention for its subtlety. The comedy scenes between Tierney's Lisa Miller and Joe Rogan's Joe Garelli on NewsRadio generally functioned on the negative sexual chemistry between the two. It is part of the comedy that Lisa demonstrates no physical attraction to the handsome and masculine Joe. An example is the scene from "Assistant" where Joe asks if Lisa is willing to help him recover his manly pride and Lisa decisively declines. Similarly, in "Chocks" a tense moment occurs between Lisa and Joe:

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