31.   It makes you wonder what this gifted actor could do with this material if it were placed in more subtle hands.

32.   Like Midler and Davis, a few other movie actors are doing the tube thing this season, including Ellen Burstyn, Paul Sorvino, and Byrne.

33.   Location reinforces and expands what the actor is doing.

34.   Movie directors get typed just as much as actors do.

35.   No one puts quite as much into their movies as Leigh and his actors do.

36.   Not so different, it seems, from what a stage actor does each night.

37.   Not all actors can do it.

38.   Of course, creating illusions and alternate realities is what filmmakers do, and living in them is what actors do.

39.   One was recording us watching, and one was recording what the other actors were doing.

40.   Playing emblematic characters in a contemporary political fable, the actors do their best to give the carefully constructed dialogue some spontaneity.