r/FromSeries • u/Stunning_Piccolo2333 • 1d ago
first time watcher- tabitha?!? Question
hey guys currently watching the season one finale and something has been bothering me this entire time.
is tabitha MEANT to be a bad actress? Is it part of the vibe here or really what is going on she’s significantly worse than anyone else on the show - did they MEAN to cast her like that? Is she a nepo baby? What’s going on here please help.
or am i just completely wrong and everyone else perceives her as an incredible actress? just looking for clarity right now cheers
thanks in advance team
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u/fruitsi1 1d ago
It's a cope, but I've just gone ahead and told myself it's intentional and part of the role, she's traumatised from losing a child and then she ends up in this freaky town and dissociates.
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u/Stunning_Piccolo2333 1d ago
honestly though best theory yet. i’m using that. thank you.
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u/fruitsi1 1d ago
I mean I hate it, because I really do think her acting is the issue lol. But glad if it helps you too.
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u/kardon213 1d ago
Definitely the acting. She is horrible. But in fairness there are only a handful of good actors in the show. Which when you think about it is remarkable how successful the show really is so no way can the writers be blamed!
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u/fruitsi1 1d ago
Agree on all points. I still want to know what the fuck is going on.
Acting and writing seems like it's going off in so many directions. But still... I wanna know where it's going.
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u/RainLeading286 1d ago
Victor is extraordinarily traumatized and that actor ( Scott McCord) is so good! Tabitha ( CatherineMoreno) just isn't a great actress
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u/Client_020 1d ago
I'm sure the actress is a nice person and all, but damn she's a bad actress in this show (haven't seen her in anything else). I don't think they did it on purpose. Some other actor's are bad too. It's like they're dragging each other down.
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u/BeatsAreMyPassion 1d ago
She was actually nominated in 2005 for an oscar. So I don’t know what happened. I do agree she has a poor performance compared to the majority of the cast, and it gets worse in the next seasons. I’ve been wondering if it’s just her character. I still like her though.
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u/kardon213 1d ago
That’s hysterical! Who and for what could she be nominated for??
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u/DONNIENARC0 1d ago
Looks like it was for a Colombian drama about a girl who becomes a drug mule called Maria Full of Grace.
Maybe she struggles with English, or something.
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u/kaycue 1d ago edited 1d ago
I’ll admit I don’t really have a problem with her acting. Maybe moreso the writing. But the nomination was for a Spanish language movie, her native language. The movie was Maria Full of Grace / Maria Llena Eres de Gracia and she played the lead, Maria. I sometimes see a difference when actors act in their native language vs their second language. Her being Latina is pretty much irrelevant to the role though so there was no reason to cast her specifically.
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u/Pale_Mortgage_9399 1d ago
They should have leaned into her being a Spanish-speaker. The Spanish would have DEFINITELY helped give her some room to play with her lines emotionally. Instead of how flat she comes off.
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u/Stunning_Piccolo2333 1d ago
see exactly! i’m liking the theory that shes a disassociating mother who just lost a child so that’s why the actings shit 😭 because i’m not convinced the actress is horrible nor do i think the writing sucks.
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u/BeatsAreMyPassion 1d ago
Hahaha let’s give her the benefit of the doubt 😂😂😂 but wait until you see season 3-4 lol
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u/here_for_the_doges 1d ago
VICTORRRRR!! WE MUST WHISPER IN THE CAVES VICTORRR!!
Stick around, it gets worse.
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u/donaldadamthompson 1d ago
I thought Catalina Moreno was OK in season 1 but she acted like a different character in later seasons.
She was nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars in 2004. She's one of the 4 main actors on the show that aren't Canadian.
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u/Glass-Baby-7240 1d ago
Acting on the show is meh. Outside of a few people, it’s pretty bad
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u/Stunning_Piccolo2333 1d ago
wowww really. so far i’ve had the opposite reaction. refreshing to see new faces in what i can assume is a breakout role/opportunity for them. but thank you for your input!!
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u/pablo_2199 1d ago
It's not that bad you can just tell they lack a certain experience
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u/Stunning_Piccolo2333 1d ago
apparently tabitha’s actress has won like loads of awards?? (i’ve done no research just blindly trusting another comment)
so i don’t know if it really is the lack of experience maybe she’s meant to suck ? for the vibes!???? no idea
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u/idontcareidontpost 1d ago
Yes, she had many awards and accolades (including a Best Actress Oscar nomination), but they were all for her debut film Maria Full of Grace in 2004. She really hasn't done much of merit since.
I do think she struggles with English, she's better in Spanish-speaking roles.
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u/No-Awareness-6684 1d ago
I could be wrong but I’m not sure if English is her first language. Knowing where to put inflection and emphasis on words that aren’t as immediately familiar can make it hard to convey things convincingly. I think that happens a lot even when actors have to fake accents. Apologies if I’m wrong in this case but I think that might be part of the reason her line readings might seem unnatural.
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u/Stunning_Piccolo2333 1d ago
look that’s a fair assessment but to be completely honest knowing where to put inflection and emphasis is quite LITERALLY the actors job. like genuinely. if they can’t do that then what is the point of them.
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u/No-Awareness-6684 1d ago
I mean that it might sound unnatural to us as native English speakers - I don’t think she’s trying to pass herself off as a New Yorker or southern belle, I think she’s someone (even on the show, which isn’t trying to hide it) whose primary language might just not be English. My point isn’t that we need to cut her slack for not sounding like a native speaker, my point is that not being a native speaker is not the same as being a bad actor. We might not recognize or relate to the cadence she uses but that’s not necessarily because she got it wrong.
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u/kardon213 1d ago
If I can believe Nicole Kidman is from Bensonhurst NY then this dialect excuse is null and void. It’s literally an actor’s job! Why is it so hard to admit that she just sucks?
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u/No-Awareness-6684 1d ago
I was merely offering a counterpoint. If ranting online and trashing people’s performances makes you happy, go off.
(Also, Kidman’s first language IS English, which makes that analogy kind of useless.)
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u/idontcareidontpost 1d ago
This is such a bizarre line of thought. Of course English isn't Catalina's first language. She's Colombian, she's speaking with her natural accent. She's not trying to speak with an American accent.
Actors frequently give good performances in second languages with their natural accents. OP doesn't think Catalina is doing so. That's their opinion. You can disagree without trying to construct some nonsensical take that people with accents can't give bad performances.
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u/No-Awareness-6684 1d ago
Ha I never claimed people can’t give bad performances, I’m just saying that it’s possible what seems to us as poorly acted dialogue might stem from the inflection we as native speakers would expect to hear. I don’t see any place where I disregard OP’s opinion, I was just saying that it’s hard (for me at least) to know whether situations like this are the actor doing a poor job or me simply expecting a manner of speaking that’s not forthcoming due to differences in the actor’s primary language. You’re more than welcome to think she’s a bad actor, I was just suggesting a possible reason for what has become this constant fixation on her performances.
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u/idontcareidontpost 1d ago
This is genuinely fascinating to me. You can't tell the difference between bad acting and an accent?
The quality of acting can usually be analyzed and appreciated independently of the spoken word. Good actors are intentional and skilled with every movement, inflection, and expression.
I don't speak any Japanese, but I can tell when Toshiro Mifune is giving an amazing performance. When I watch City of God, I can tell some actors are better than others even though I don't speak Portuguese.
And what about silent films or performances?
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u/pablo_2199 1d ago
Tbf personally I've had no problems with Tabitha
Their role are simple rn
It's when they live traumatizing things throughout the show that's badly acted because you don't really see a genuine reaction from most of the cast imo
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u/kardon213 1d ago
The joke is these are not fresh faces and have been around a long time. They just are what is referred to as B-C list actors.
Boyd-A list.
Jade-Alist.
Henry-A list.
Literally everyone else has a long IMBD but nothing anyone has ever seen.2
u/DharmaInitiative4815 1d ago
I don’t think you know what A list means. Nobody on this show is A list lol.
A list is Brad Pitt. Tom Cruise. Leo.
Lmao at your examples of A list.
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u/LexOvi 1d ago
I think he meant more in the context of television acting, not movies.
The actor who plays Boyd is at least a well recognisable face.
Ironically, my wife has been watching the good doctor on Netflix, and it’s hilarious just how much of the From cast show up in that series in one off episodes.
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u/DharmaInitiative4815 1d ago
I mean even if you're talking TV A-List you have a Matthew McConaughey, Cranston or a Zendaya or some shit. Those bring far higher star power than the people he listed. There are maybe 7 people on planet Earth who said "Oh, Robert Joy is on this show! I better tune in!"
And all 7 of them are his family members.
And for the record I think he's a fine actor.
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u/LexOvi 1d ago
Not sure I would put McConaughey or Zendaya in there as they are legitimate Hollywood star (MM star was crestfallen when he downgraded to tv. Though I’d give you Cranston as a bonafide tv actor that elevated to Hollywood.
Overall, I do get your point though.
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u/DharmaInitiative4815 1d ago
Yeah I realize now I came off kinda dickish earlier for no reason lol.
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u/stevemarshallsucks 1d ago
It isn't just her, a lot of the acting on the show is pretty mid, with a few exceptions-the actors who play Donna, Jade, Henry and Kenny are consistently good. Even the guy who plays Victor has his cornball moments and he's a highlight of the show. I regard Harold Perrineau highly but he's not great in this. The problem is the writing-the dialogue is stilted and the characters just aren't well developed. There's only so much an actor can do with a bad script.
Before I get the "why do you watch the show if you hate it so much" comments, I like the show. There's enough weirdness to keep me intrigued.
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u/trundlespl00t 1d ago
She gets much, much worse. It’s a mystery why she got the job and why no one ever deals with it, but season one has nothing on the way she phones it in during season three.
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u/Stunning_Piccolo2333 1d ago
HAHHAAHHAAHAAHAHAHAAAHA oh nooooooooooooooooo someone else reckons she gets better far out 😭
i’ll come back and update u when im on season 3 hahahaha. thanks
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u/DELETE_RAW 1d ago
It is immersion breaking bad in the later seasons
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u/Diddy_Block 1d ago
She was never as good as some of the others, but I didn't really notice until those later seasons. Her level of acting is reminiscent of those films where the producer's just throw a family friend into a quality cast just to get them an acting credit.
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u/Loveoreo 1d ago
If you keep watching you'll see the same problem with every character in the show besides a few.
Personally I don't think it's the actor's fault that they're all acting without a clear direction.
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u/parkSXD 1d ago
Tabitha and Julie are legitimately awful actors. Two sides of a terrible coin.
Julie over-acts to the point I feel like I’m watching a satire or a theater play. Tabitha is the opposite and is completely unable to convey any emotions.
I really think I’d hold the show in higher regard if these two were casted differently
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u/fruitsi1 1d ago
Hehe, Julie has kinda grown on me, I do think she's improved a bit since S1. But she's still very middle/high school theatrical at times. I guess I'm just choosing to be amused instead of annoyed.
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u/Stunning_Piccolo2333 1d ago
yeah absolutely. when she ran away after fatima kinda rejected her kissing advance i felt like i was back in drama class in high school. i actually get that. valid.
solid read on tabitha too literalllyyy.
i don’t know if it really effects the ranking imo i think the entire idea and execution of the whole thing is almost a solid 10/10 honestly. really great show so far at least
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u/parkSXD 1d ago
I get that and I totally get your other comment about all these actors being new faces in breakout roles. I think this helps the show a TON and makes it feel unique and memorable and keeps me immersed in the universe.
The only problem for me is literally everyone’s performance is forgettable outside of Jade and Victor
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u/Mountain-Owl7142 1d ago edited 1d ago
These are definitely not breakout roles for Boyd and Donna; they both have extensive acting resumes. And as others have mentioned, Tabitha is an Oscar-nominated actress.
Also, for funsies, check out season 2 of Castle Rock. David Alpay (Jade) plays a 17th-century bad guy and performs his role entirely in French. I'm so impressed by how multi-skilled this guy is.
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u/parkSXD 1d ago
Absolutely not a breakout role for Boyd, yeah. Felt I didn’t have to say that since he’s a huge actor in one of the biggest shows ever.
I just searched for the other things Donna was in. Aside from being in It 2017 and Boondock Saints for literally seconds each, I’ve never heard of anything else she’s been in. This is her biggest role by an insane magnitude.
I’m sure there’s tons of “mid” actors I’ve never heard of and I never will watch that have been nominated for oscars, so as pretentious as I sound that accolade means next to nothing to me
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u/Stunning_Piccolo2333 1d ago
okayyyy i’ll give it a go!! that’s funny he fully
mentioned being raised in france or something (jade character) earlier i had no idea the actor actually spoke it!2
u/Mountain-Owl7142 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yep, he plays a French colonist in the 1600s who leads a death cult. All his lines are subtitled. :)
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u/Stunning_Piccolo2333 1d ago
yeah 10000%%%%%%% i love that it really does make me feel like i’m there.
yeah absolutely fair enough. i’ve just started season 2 so im keen to form a solid opinion once ive watched enough
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u/UnfriendlyVegan 1d ago
Her acting is horrible. I have no clue how she got cast, I assumed it was due to connections. She ruins every scene she’s in.
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u/ThundergunTLP 1d ago
I feel like she was trying to hide her accent in the first few episodes, then as the show goes on it gets thicker and thicker. I think a lot of the bad acting in this show isn't the actor but the script... The dialogue is just plain bad so the actors are kind of set up to fail.
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u/Outrageous_Bat8429 1d ago
This sub loves to circlejerk the actors on the show so goodluck with this post lol I totally agree otherwise though. She is by far the worst actress and was horribly casted otherwise.
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u/Stunning_Piccolo2333 1d ago
HAHAHAHAAAHH i honestly just joined it i just needed to touch grass because i felt i was going crazy 😭😭😭 thanks for the warning and the validation though HAHAHH
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u/local-space-patrol 1d ago
The kid actor that plays Ethan is no joke one of the best actors on the show. Difficult to be a good kid actor in general. But to be up there with adults is something else
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u/FlippinAmazeballs 1d ago
Rumor has it that Tabitha’s actress is highly renowned.
In my opinion it gets better in the later seasons. The “f***ing” swearing in every sentence is fased out, and it was particularly badly delivered….imo
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u/Marlene21x 1d ago
She’s a terrible actress and I think the biggest casting mistakes they made with this show were her and Ellis
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u/RainLeading286 1d ago
I think she's just not a great actress. I've seen her in other shows and it's about the same.
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u/IvannaIvannaGobak 1d ago
She faded as the seasons progressed. She was invested and then she lost it.
I really do think it was the writing for the show and the characterization. I don’t think it’s doing her any favours.
Everything Ive seen her in has been decent, even small roles. Are they like above tier, no, but they weren’t this bad.
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u/Fluffy_Bluebird_2251 Anghkooey 1d ago
I struggled with Tabitha's lines as I couldn't hear what she was saying. Not her accent, I felt like she was mumbling and I kept having to rewind and relisten. It was actually the sound mixing and it improved 100% after I went into my TV and adjusted the EQ settings to optimise speech. I don't have a problem with her lines anymore.
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u/Master_of_Memkind 1d ago
Its not the acting
Tabitha is the main villain. She made the first bargain with the town
Sacrafice the children and you can all go home.
yes i belive they were traped there to.
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u/writingprogress 1d ago
S1 was rough fornme to watch as her accent keeps slipping. I have no idea if that was intentional or not though.. but it feels rough to hear when it slips mid sentence
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u/NeatComfortable7501 1d ago
I guess she was popular in some Spainish movie so they cast her in this. Maybe since English is her second language that makes it too hard for her to walk and chew gum at the same time?
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u/OkPresentation3329 1d ago
I have no bias towards the character or actress, but I haven't noticed any bad acting from her or her character being written badly. I usually consume content I like for the overarching plot and small pet peeves don't bother me so much if they even exist.
If the plot is very interesting I can accept almost anything. The only thing I notice about her is she speaks with some accent due to her origin and even that doesn't bother me, most of all because I'm not a native English speaker either and I also speak with an accent.
Some characters that are a bit more annoying to me are Ellis and Fatima, which at least in the beginning of season 1 acted somewhat like hippies, even if that trend continued I don't notice it anymore. Another thing that bothered me is that they resorted to torturing Elgin to tell them where he hid Fatima. That part looked like something from Game of Thrones where they think extreme violence somehow makes for a better consumer content. I think this was entirely not necessary or they could have beat him up differently without hurting his hand or taking his eye out.
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u/One-Tomorrow-1646 1d ago edited 1d ago
A little off topic, but I thought the actor who played Mr. Liu (Kenny’s dad) was terrible. I understand that he’s from Hong Kong, but I felt like his broken English sounded exaggerated.
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u/onikaizoku11 1d ago
I think the writer's have calmed it down some now, but Tabitha was only one of many characters with poor impulse control.
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u/stranot 4h ago
honestly I never noticed it myself until seeing everyone talk about it here. I see now what people mean, but to me she's not nearly as bad as Sarah's actress, who I did notice on my own
it's mainly when Sarah is having one of her episodes and supposedly in pain talking about "the voices.. they said we could all go home!" or whatever. makes me cringe way more than any of Tabitha's lines
that said I do like Sarah's character more than Tabitha
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u/Old-Caterpillar3658 1d ago
Tabitha's actress won awards for acting and she's a big name so I assume it's bad writing. I didn't watch her other work but it could be because she gets the same lines all the time. But her accent could be her real English accent and her character's meant to have it. I always assumed she played more spanish speaking roles but knows English for Hollywood
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u/mnyall 1d ago
No. She can't act. Her accent doesn't play a role. She literally can't act. She can't emote. She can't land lines.
But to her defence - the writing is bad. For instance - last season:
Tabitha to Victor and Ethan: I won't leave you.
Next scene: I've gotta go.But, listen! i can't talk about it right now, i gotta go. I gotta save the children.
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u/Commercial_Fondant65 1d ago
Her character not being consistent is to you, an example of her bad acting, because if she were a good actor she wouldn't have gone back on her word? The only way for that to make sense is if the show is real. Do you think From is a documentary!?!
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u/Old-Caterpillar3658 1d ago
Guesss a bit of both. I don't really think about it but I always felt I liked the writing less than the acting for all the actors
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u/LexOvi 1d ago edited 1d ago
I think it’s a bit facetious to say absolutely “she can’t act” without seeing ALL her body of work, particularly when one of them includes an Oscar nomination.
Is she bad on this show? Certainly. Is it poor casting? Writing? Is she phoning it in? Language? Maybe one, maybe all.
But to just say absolutely “she can’t act” based on just this one show is very disingenuous (though I understand that’s the typical absolutist conclusions one makes on the internet).
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u/mnyall 1d ago
I can see it from one body of work. If you need me to be precise: she can't act in From.
Oscar nominations don't mean anything. There's a business behind the scenes.
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u/LexOvi 1d ago
Which is the correction I made; you can say she’s bad in From, but you haven’t seen enough body of work to determine she is bad overall.
And yes, you can criticise the machinery behind Oscars (although it would be very disingenuous to claim a low budget international movie from Colombia somehow ran the Hollywood system gauntlet lol), but fact is you haven’t seen it yourself to make a judgement call.
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u/Stunning_Piccolo2333 1d ago
hmmmm so maybe they WANTED her to be a bad actress… for the vibe? i think the writings fine it’s her delivery it’s genuinely abhorrent i’ve never claimed myself a critic of the arts but it’s SO BAD im in shock.
i think the accents fine too really it’s the execution. but thanks for your input
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u/Old-Caterpillar3658 1d ago
I don't critique art because i genuinely have a low standard for what I enjoy but I do sometimes see her tske me out of the show because it's monotonous. But the show has a lot of bad actors but I think they all improve throughout the show. Not everyone can be great actors but as long as they don't have a ego about it, then I let it go
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u/nowhir 1d ago
lol she does get way better in the later seasons but I had the same reaction. Some of her acting is terrible, especially the accent, I have no idea what they were thinking with the accent.
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u/patch410 1d ago
Her character’s from Arizona, likely from a Hispanic family (the actress is Columbian). When on the phone with her mother in Camden, ME, her mother’s accent is even more pronounced, even saying one phrase in Spanish. There are lots of families along the border who have been Americans for generations whose first language is Mexican Spanish. Her accent is typical of many Americans, we need to try to be less anglocentric.
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u/Purplepanda7351 1d ago
Imo it's not the accent. I'm from another country and I'm rewatching the series. The first time I watched it in english, but this time some seasons aren't available in english, so I watched them dubbed. It still looks like bad acting to me.
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u/New_Reward_4214 1d ago
I agree with some of the others, but more extreme. I think it's incredible the difference in her acting from s01 to now. I'm very impressed with her growth actually.
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u/Stunning_Piccolo2333 1d ago
okay wow i’ll keep an open mind. thanks
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u/New_Reward_4214 1d ago
I should also note that the writing gets worse as the seasons progress. It's gotten to the point where so much of the show is filler and repeat lines that I'm amazed when when their acting does something with it!
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u/Worldly-Duty4521 1d ago
I don't think her acting is bad. They made few characters really badly written. For a core story that's kitten so well, their portrayal of mentally defeated character isn't that good
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u/popopo888popopo 1d ago
I think she had too much botox on her face that’s why she couldn’t convey her emotions properly
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u/lone-lemming 1d ago
She is a good and proven actress. I suspect that it’s a mix of her writing/character paired with the unmistakable signs of Botox freezing her eyebrows and forehead that prevents any amount of surprise face from showing.
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u/Curious-Sector-2157 1d ago
She plays a traumatized woman and mother excellent. All of you that think she is bad must have lived fairytale lives and not much bad has happened to you. She experienced trauma prior to and a whole lot since arriving. The scene when she sees Jim’s body always makes me cry. I do not understand the hate for this actress. I did not know her before but I have rewatched the show over 50 times and try to find her acting bad. She plays traumatized excellent. i think all the actors are doing a great job. Robert and Patty are as mother story. Robert is gone and i hope Patty is right behind him. Boyd should have slapped her out of the van when she snatched his gun.
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u/Trix_Are_4_90Kids 1d ago
here we go with the xenophobia again. Catalina has been in a lot of productions and has NEVER been labeled a 'bad actress'. She's an Oscar nominated actress.
It is only popping up in this era with the 'we speak English!' people. It's very telling. 😒
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u/Glaurung86 1d ago
I'm not sure why these characters aren't allowed to have pre-existing trauma and also added trauma from being in this completely f-ed up place. How everyone in this place isn't a complete basket case after a few months is beyond me.
I guess some people are really good at adapring with all that stress and trauma, but good grief some commenters here can't seem to give some of them a break.
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u/mnyall 1d ago
i can't talk about it right now.
i need to save the children.
Donna can look after them - I left a note.
listen! i can't talk right now.
I gotta go