wanderlust

fratboykate:

I’ve spent 13-14 years of my life working in the industry and basically the latter half of that studying how to work with actors acting in order to get the best performances out of them. Most people went to school to take practical classes, I took classes called things like “Directing Actors For The Screen”. Most people read fiction, I read directing books. I think I know more than the average person what “good acting” is and let me tell you there’s maybe 8 people across all four seasons of that show who can be considered good at their craft. I may be being generous with that number. Alycia is definitely one of them. Eliza, Paige, Henry, Lindsey, Adina, and Dichen are the only other ones I can think of. I don’t mean they’ve been flawless at all times either. They’ve also had some pretty cringey performance moments on the show, but I’m taking their entire careers into consideration because sometimes there’s only so much you can do as an actor when you have shitty writers, shitty directors, and an overwhelmingly shitty cast to work with. 

fratboykate:

Eliza is HANDS DOWN the best actress on that show. Across the board and by a lot. People love to praise Alycia but let me tell you something, last time I watched all the CL scenes a few months ago I realized something. (I can feel the backlash coming already but…) Once you remove the stan goggles and take a step back, you will realize that Alycia’s strength as Lexa came from Eliza as Clarke. 100%. Watch Alycia try to have an emotional scene in FTWD and compare it to an emotional scene she had with Eliza. Actors play and feed off each other. That’s why there’s certain iconic pairs of performers. Some people just go well together and usually the more talented one of the two elevates the other to places that person could never go by themselves. I’m certain CL worked as well as it did because Eliza and Alycia were great scene partners. 

Eliza has been strong since she found the footing in her character. Season 1 was so bad because everyone from Jasshole to the writers to the actors were trying to figure out what exactly they were doing with this show, but once they had a clear vision (however shitty it may be) everything became better. That is why Season 2 is so noticeably better than Season 1. Once Eliza figured out what she really wanted to do with Clarke, she began to shine and has been doing so ever since. We saw glimpses of it in Season 1, but it really isn’t until the Season 2 premiere that you see the light go on. I didn’t watch anything past 307 besides the Clip scenes that were in the CL montage I was linked to, but what I saw was still just as good as the first half and I hear from everyone that she did kill it overall. We have a very big body of work from her to deduce she’s good.

Now, Alycia. The moment you removed her from Lexa/CL/Eliza, she has pretty much fallen flat. She’s not a bad actress by any means, she’s actually pretty competent and I believe a lot of what she says when she’s delivering her lines but when you watch her in FTWD and Friend Request it is evident something is missing. At first I thought “well she isn’t as memorable in FTWD because she hasn’t gotten challenging material” but then in the second half of the season they did give her quite a few intense, meaty scenes that really should have brought her back to Lexa levels and she never came even close. I mean the emotional scenes she had with Kim were legitimately painful to watch. Her performance was stiff and there was a lack of truth to them that made it difficult to get immersed in the supposed turmoil her character was going through. It just wasn’t there. Same with most of FR. It was a decent performance. She definitely carried the movie, but honestly that wasn’t all that hard to do. Sure, she’s a good actress, we won’t argue there, but there’s thousands upon thousands of good actresses in Hollywood. She’s not this special, rare gem. I guarantee you that if it weren’t for the disaster of how she exited the show, Alycia would’ve never transcended to the level she is at now. 

I think the best way I can sum up how I see the CL dynamic working is that Alycia is a 6 (a fine actress that for the most part delivers at least the basic emotions that need to be present in each scene and she looks great on camera) but when you throw Eliza in the mix she becomes an 11 (an actress who gives memorable performances repeatedly). It’s impossible for anyone analyzing these girls as unbiasedly as possible to not see that Eliza made Alycia a better actress. Don’t read this as “Eliza has magical powers that made Alycia shine”, but see it more as “together they shine because of chemistry and comfort level and a perfect combination of many other elements”. 

You don’t have CL epicness without Eliza. It’s that simple. Alycia didn’t carry those performances, Eliza did. I’m sure of that.