Overacting (or hamming) is the exaggeration of gestures and speech when acting. It may be unintentional, particularly in the case of a bad actor, or be part of the role. For the latter, it is commonly used in comical situations. Since the perception of acting quality differs between people the extent of overacting can be subjective. Military signalmen use hand and body gestures to direct flight operations aboard aircraft carriers. ... Acting is the work of an actor, a person in theatre, film, or any other storytelling medium who tells the story by portraying a character and, usually, speaking or singing the written text or play. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

Overacting can be excessively dramatic to the point where the performance becomes awkward or unintentionally amusing to the audience.

Overacting is sometimes known as "chewing the scenery". ([1])

Unintentional

William Shatner has been called an overactor for his role in Star Trek.

Unintentional overacting is caused by poor acting, either a good actor performing badly in one scene or a generally poor actor. However, it is not always the fault of the actor as the director has the ultimate role of assessing and influencing the acting. Generally a director is a person or one of a body of persons appointed to manage the affairs of a government agency, company, corporation, group or project. ...

The portrayal of an emotion is a common time for overacting, as is a death scene. Theater actors often have to project their voices more than film actors and enunciation can lead to exaggeration. It has been suggested that Feeling be merged into this article or section. ... Enunciation is the act of speaking clearly and concisely. ...

Some unintentional overacting can find itself the subject of parody. William Shatner's performance in the original Star Trek series has been frequently parodied across numerous comedy television shows ^[1]. In contemporary usage, a parody is a work that imitates another work in order to ridicule, ironically comment on, or poke affectionate fun at the work itself, the subject of the work, the author or fictional voice of the parody, or another subject. ... William Shatner (born March 22, 1931 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada) is a Canadian actor, who gained fame for his starring role as Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise in the television show Star Trek from 1966 to 1969 and in seven of the subsequent movies. ... The starship Enterprise as it appeared on Star Trek Star Trek is a culturally significant science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry in the 1960s. ...

Intentional

Some roles require overly-exaggerated character acting, particularly those in comedy films. For example, the breakthrough roles for Jim Carrey (in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and The Mask) saw him portray the lead characters in a very flamboyant fashion, as the script demanded. This has led to him being classed as an "overactor"^[2], even though he has played several "straight" roles since. ^[3] Airplane! is considered by some critics to be one of the funniest movies of all time. ... James Eugene Carrey (born January 17, 1962), better known as Jim Carrey, is a Canadian-American comedian and film actor. ... Ace Ventura, Pet Detective is a 1994 wacky comedy movie, directed by Tom Shadyac. ... The Mask movie poster. ...

Overacting may be used to stress the evil characteristics of a villain. In religion and ethics, evil refers to the bad aspects of the behaviour and reasoning of human beings —those which are deliberately void of conscience, and show a wanton desire for destruction. ... One popular concept of the villain, meant to mimic the purposely distinctive visage of villains from silent films of the early 20th century. ...

See also

• B-movie
• Melodrama

The term B-movie originally referred to a film designed to be distributed as the lower half of a double feature, often a genre film featuring cowboys, gangsters or vampires. ... Poster for The Perils of Pauline (1914). ...

References

1. ^ NNDB "William Shatner". Accessed 29 July 2006.
2. ^ See, for example, the closing credits of 'Liar Liar: Internet Movie Database. "Memorable Quotes from Liar Liar" Accessed 29 July 2006.
3. ^ Gilliver, David. 1998. "Film Review: The Truman Show". Accessed 29 July 2006.