The Mandalorian actor Bill Burr recently revealed just what actors really do.
In an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Fallon praises Burr’s recent appearance on The Mandalorian.
He tells him, “You’ve been firing on all cylinders. You appeared in a couple episodes in the first two seasons of Mandalorian. I was backtracking in my mind. I go, ‘I think Favreau loves you, obviously.’ I love that Bill Burr’s crushing this thing.”
Burr then interjects, “Dude, you know the deal. You’ve done acting. They got to write it. If it’s not there on the page. Then they edit and they put the music. I just sat there and said what they wrote.”
He added, “It’s really Rick and Jon and all of those guys over there, not to mention the other actors.”
Burr points out exactly what actors do. They sit there and read what someone else wrote and take instructions from the directors based off what someone else wrote.
Burr would also address complaints about his character, Miggs Mayfeld, having a Boston accent.
Burr stated, “Oh, I know. That’s hilarious. ‘I’ve never heard a Boston accent in outer space,’ is what they say. And I always just go like, ‘Oh yea? What about English? Isn’t that a little weird? If you went to a galaxy far, far away and you get off and somebody’s like, ‘Hey how’s it’s going?’ and you totally understand him.”
He continued, “What about the fact that Han Solo is talking to a Bigfoot? He’s speaking Bigfoot, Han Solo’s speaking English, they never break character, but one keeps going…[Burr imitates Wookie noises]. And he’s like, ‘I said hit the — the button, Chewie!’ And that was all fine.”
Burr then brought up C-3PO, “How about C-3PO with an English accent. That was okay? The guy’s been knighted, huh? He just played Royal Albert Hall and now he’s hanging out with – with – I almost said Lynyrd Skynyrd – Luke Skywalker?”
“Yeah, dude. F those nerdy nitpicking nerds,” he concluded.
Now, while Burr does reveal that actors read lines that other people wrote and take direction from directors based on what the writers have written, he did have high praise for his King of Staten Island co-star Marisa Tomei.
He stated, “Oh man, Marisa was unbelievable. She’s the best I ever worked with. She was unf’ing believable.”
https://youtu.be/WInYmCiOHaU
What do you make of Burr’s comments? What do you make of the value our society puts on actors?