How Marlon Brando “destroyed a generation of actors”, according to Matt Damon
It’s unfortunate that some actors simply stop trying once they reach a certain level of success. Perhaps the fame goes to their head, or maybe they just genuinely stop caring, becoming disillusioned by an industry that runs on artificiality.
Marlon Brando is the ultimate example of an actor who went from being one of the biggest, most influential names in the industry, only to become a mumbling, unprofessional joke. How does one go from practically pioneering a new style of acting to having to have their lines fed to them through an earpiece? Time wasn’t exactly kind to Brando.
The actor had started out back in the 1950s, impressing with his role as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway, which he soon brought to the big screen to further acclaim. Everyone knew that Brando was an unavoidable new talent, boldly taking a raw approach which felt much less tethered to the ways of Old Hollywood. Using method acting, Brando played his characters in a way that felt so profoundly real, ushering in a new era for acting which really took hold in the New Hollywood period.
Brando was a monumental presence in cinema, with roles in On the Waterfront and The Wild One furthering his success. While he had moments of artistic decline, the 1970s proved why he was known as an all-out acting legend with unforgettable performances in The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, although this was inevitably contrasted by questionable choices in the ‘80s and ‘90s that reflected Brando’s lack of enthusiasm for a job he was once the master of.
Matt Damon, a Hollywood icon of the late ‘90s and beyond, thinks that Brando actually “destroyed a generation of actors”, but his comment isn’t as negative as you might think. You see, Damon thinks that many people misunderstand Brando’s career trajectory, forgetting that before Brando was the lazy, grumbling actor who seemed like he hated everything and everyone, he was a genuine star. You can’t deny the influence Brando had when he arrived on the scene.
He told Vanity Fair, “I think Marlon Brando has done more to destroy this generation of actors because, with the whole marble-mouth thing, the I-don’t-give-a-fuck mentality, what people overlook is that when the dude was my age, he was the hardest-working man in show business.”
The Good Will Hunting star added, “He was onstage, he was busting his ass with Stella Adler, he was obsessed with acting. When people say, ‘I just want to be fat and live in Fiji and have everyone tell me I’m a genius,’ they’re not looking at what it actually takes to get there.”
Damon thinks that too many people ignore how hard Brando once worked; after all, you don’t get as talented as he was without putting plenty of effort in. He might have let himself go as the years went by, resulting in terrible performances in movies like The Island of Dr Moreau, which earned him a ‘Worst Supporting Actor’ award from the Razzies, but he certainly put in the hours to earn him legendary status.
