I really like this piece, Colin. I'm struck by the possibilities that television's long form storytelling afford for considering the subtleties of screen performance. In what other medium can a performer work for years (and dozens of screen hours) to evolve a character through ever-changing scenes, dialogue, etc.? In her exaggerated form of labor (i.e. playing many, many roles in the same show), I think Maslany also provides a really interesting opportunity for thinking about the identity politics of prestige television. The dimensionality of her labor (articulated through so many different characters) and the skills foregrounded by the show's focus on her chameleon-like acting (in which she disappears into one of many characters) reminds me of how relatively rare this is for prestige television, a body of texts that have largely provided forums for the display of white male performative labor. Do you get a sense of how context affects the performance text? I'm curious as to how the discourse surrounding Maslany and the show work to corroborate/complicate the value/meaning of her acting.

The notion of range seems like an important one, because long-running shows tend to lock actors into one characterization, and subsequent roles are often inflected by audience familiarity with the previous one, whether it's similar or different. If the actor shows a new side, like Bryan Cranston in Breaking Bad following Malcolm in the Middle, we have a comparative range to reference in offering appreciation. But if, say, Matthew Perry keeps playing roles that strike us as very Chandler Bing-like, we're presumably less inclined to appreciate his acting skills, which get subsumed under a notion of "TV personality" more than acting. That also seems tied to quality appreciation; Keri Russell in The Americans comes to mind.

This is a great conversation and one that I wish were more wide-spread in film/media studies. But it also raises some of the difficulties that come with trying to find ways to discuss, analyze, and theorize acting. In terms of longevity, it's great when an actor can inhabit a role over a long narrative stretch and so inform, shade, add subtlety to the characterization - as such contributing to the work's authorship. On the flip side, though, I wonder how often longevity leads to an actor's boredom with a role, to the dreaded "phoning it in." Or what happens when an actor disagrees with other members of production as to the character's "direction" - sometimes this can be very fruitful (Sarah Michelle Gellar reportedly did not like the direction her character took in Buffy S6, but turns in some of her best performances of the entire series), but sometimes it can lead to a noticeable drop off in performance. But how are such things measured or analyzed objectively? I guess this is one of the issues your piece is raising, Colin, but some of the responses here also point to its difficulty. Discussing an actor's labor, or her authorial contribution to such elements as script, costume design, etc, are valuable practices. But they still seem to avoid actually talking about acting directly. I think Gellar's performance in S6 of Buffy is outstanding, but how do I quantify that beyond saying, well, she plays depression really well? Or, it's so realistic? Especially when audiences' appreciation of different acting styles changes over time and even from one medium or genre to the next?

I agree wholeheartedly that taking such steps is important, as I certainly believe that performance is a key part of authorship. And I think you're right that Orphan Black is a great starting point. I remember watching it and realizing about half-way through the series that I was actually relating to the different characters as if they were played by different actresses. I think it was during an episode that featured no Alison and I caught myself thinking, maybe she was off that week! It also works because of the way Maslany plays the characters playing each other. When Alison or Helena were "playing" Sarah, for example, and it hadn't been revealed yet - you could tell by the character's walk or gesture. So you have Maslany playing a character pretending to be another character (who's also played by Maslany), and you can notice her different choices when doing so. Fascinating. However, if we're going to read a particular performance as a text (and I agree it's a very good idea, at least as one approach), then there might be some other complications that arise. For example (and related to audience reception), where does the "text" of the character end and the "text" of the actor begin (or vice versa). I don't think that's a question that can really be escaped anyway - and it comes up even amongst casual viewers who say things like, "I just couldn't stop seeing Tom Cruise." In the case of OB, I really wonder how my experience of watching S2 is going to differ from watching S1 because I now have certain expectations of Maslany as a performer; and I think she must be aware of those expectations as well (I mean, not mine personally!), as all the publicity around the show focuses on the "wow" of her acting. Does that affect her performance and does it affect my reception of her performance, and so, does it affect my perception of the show as a whole? In a sense it's so much easier to look at a film and recognize, for example, good or bad lighting or uninspired framing or murky sound design. Does that make sense? I guess it's like, with De Niro, the dawning realization over the past fifteen years that our expectations as audiences were no longer being met (at least not so frequently) by his performances. Does this create a judgment of the film (De Niro's not so good in X film, so the film itself must be bad) - could that be read as a negative kind of authorship? (Sorry if this is a bit all over the place . . . riffing a bit on some ideas I've been kicking around for a long time.)