30DMC Day 13: Your favourite actor

Hi everyone!

And welcome back to another 30 Day Movie Challenge. Once again I’d like to remind all of you to check out Rhey of Sunshine’s blog for her choices in the challenge. Today’s challenge involves picking my “favourite actor”.

Now let me start by saying that for actors I realise that I have a “type” that I typically gravitate towards. And it is because of these actors that I usually end up watching certain “types of movies”. I’ve known this for a while now, and I don’t deny that this is a trend of mine. I guess I just never explicitly stated it till now.

So the group of actors I usually watch include the likes of (and you can see the pattern when I name them off) Nicholas Hoult (Skins and Warm Bodies), Jesse Eisenberg (Adventureland and Zombieland), Anton Yelchin (Charlie Bartlett and Star Trek), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick-Ass) and Logan Lerman (Percy Jackson series and The Perks of Being a Wallflower). And if you can see it, yeah they are a “type”. They’re the kinda geeky, broody, dark haired and relatable 20-something year old kind – well those are the roles they typically play.

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I prefer those kinds of actors over the more “assured of themselves” types like James Franco, Channing Tatum, Chris Evans, Ryan Gosling etcetra etcetra. And I definitely prefer those two groups over the older groups of action movie veterans like Nicholas Cage, Gerard Butler, Keanu Reeves, Liam Neeson etcetra etcetra (I don’t know why I’m doing a King of Siam of The King and I impression right now).

So my current favourite actor of the moment which is June 2014, as you may guess, falls into the slightly nerdy, dark-haired group of actors that I first mentioned and he is …

Dylan O’Brien

Photo credits: hoodiegirl924

I was first introduced to O’Brien as an actor when I decided to one day, out of the blue, and completely randomly watch MTV’s series Teen Wolf. 

Immediately I assumed that I would fall in love with the main character, Scott McCall, played by Tyler Posey – who also evidently falls into this geek category I’ve created. However, after two thirds of the first season was up, I realised that I didn’t really enjoy Posey as an actor. He was awkward at times, just plain awkward – not in a good way.

O’Brien, on the other hand, as Scott’s infectious sidekick, Stiles, was probably the best actor on the show. He was goofy and witty and did all kinds of ridiculous things. I suddenly found myself watching the television show for two reasons: I shipped Scott and Allison and I thought Stiles was awesome.

Oh! And I forgot, I have actually seen another role O’Brien played in before Teen Wolf but did not realise it till recently. He was also in The Internship, a hilarious movie with Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson where he played an image-conscious and defensive guy who just wants to get a job at Google but was stuck with the older guys, Billy and Nick.

Recently I also watched another movie he was in with his in-real-life girlfriend, Britt Robertson (they got together because of this movie), called The First Time, which was also pretty awesome (I have got to stop using this adjective as if it is an objective and critical way to assess a movie). It was all about the awkwardness of a first time, real relationship and you could definitely see the chemistry between the two lead actors. Robertson’s character, Aubrey, also reminds me a lot of myself when it comes to relationships so I could identify myself with her, i.e. the girl who does not want to be in a relationship that is too lovey-dovey and filled with cliche moments – yet still wants a relationship that means something. And realising that when she is in a relationship that her wants slowly change along with her affections.

But lets not get too off-topic, ’cause I feel myself going off-topic.

What I like about O’Brien as an actor is that one may assume that he can only be a funny guy, a.k.a. Stiles. And that is how he may come across as in the gifs of him that are perpetually seen on the internet (I’m looking at you, Tumblr!) But after watching him in The First Time, he also does a really good job at being the genuinely sweet and quiet guy. And after watching him in The Internship he also plays the serious, slightly pretentious teenager well too.

O’Brien has also piqued my interest as an actor recently because (and I think I’ve mentioned this in one of my weekly reviews), he’ll be playing Thomas in The Maze Runner, a book series that I’m currently inhaling at the moment. And I really can’t wait to see how he plays a character who is essentially pretty different from Stiles.

So, right now, because of these many reasons, he’s the actor I have in my spotlight.

Now, time for some Stiles appreciation gifs:

And, last but not least, I have to mention that Benedict Cumberbatch and David Tennant are close seconds for favourite actors. Actually, if it weren’t for my sudden obsession with Teen Wolf and The Maze Runner series, those two actors probably would have been my choice. But, nope, Dylan O’Brien is just too fascinating at the moment.

It just amazes me how my post for favourite male actor is so much longer than that of favourite female actress – and yet I wrote a lot more for the favourite female characters than male characters. I wonder what that says for my taste in actors and actresses versus characters in movies.

Oh well. Catch you tomorrow as I share my favourite movie from last year!

Till then!

cumuloq ❤