Good Acting, Complete Unknowns and the Politics of the Stage
By Maria Clara Santana | Culture | January 18, 2026
Cover Illustration: On set, January 11 2018. Avel Chuklanov / Unsplash” for stock photos.
When receiving his 2025 SAG award for best actor in recognition of his work in “A Complete Unknown”, Timothee Chalamet declared himself “in pursuit of greatness”. With his latest feature, “Marty Supreme,” Chalamet seems to think he might just have reached it.
Unlike the young Bob Dylan whom Chalamet played, he is far from a complete unknown. The budding star has been on the rise since his standout performances in “Call Me by Your Name” and “Little Women”. But his speech, interpreted by many as self-indulgent rather than humble, has divided critics.
That Chalamet is talented seems, if awards are any indication, uncontested. That “Marty Supreme” is his greatest performance yet seems similarly clear. So why the sudden shift?
Personally, I disagree with the critics’ assessment. Even without having seen “Marty Supreme” – though I will look out for it in cinemas across the Netherlands in early February – I can say with certainty that I do not deem it the best performance of his career.
To me, most actors’ greatest performance never even graces the big screen – it’s everything outside of it. It is during press tours, interviews, photo ops. It is in the moments where we see them break character – or rather, in how they never do so at all.
Likability itself is the highest form of good acting. Because unlikeable actors, who audiences simply cannot digest, seldom become actors – at least not famous ones. Acting is a job that demands more off the clock than on it.
Natural charisma, real magnetism and genuine likability are all traits that exist. But they can also be learned and molded, like acting itself. It’s just more acting.
But the presence or non-presence of brilliance in Chalamet’s portrayal is of little interest to me. I am more concerned with the politics that dictate whose brilliance we get to look at – and, more importantly, whose we don’t.
Chalamet claimed his latest Critics Choice Award on Jan. 4. Among the night’s other winners was Brazilian director Kleber Mendonca Filho for “O Agente Secreto (The Secret Agent)”. You might never know this from watching the broadcast – Mendonca Filho’s award was given to him on the red carpet, any attempts at a speech interrupted by a reporter.
Behind good acting is good directing. While “The Secret Agent”’s own best actor contender, Wagner Moura, was beat by Chalamet on Jan. 4, he made history at the Golden Globes. On the evening of Jan. 11, Moura became the first Brazilian man ever awarded – preceded only by actress Fernanda Torres’s victory last year.
Why, then, was the good directing that facilitated Moura’s good acting so disrespected, reduced to a red carpet handout? Thankfully, Mendonca Filho won again at the Golden Globes and was finally able to deliver his speech. “Make films,” he implores young creatives.
Chalamet is doing just that. But how many Chalamets hide in the corners of Wagner Moura’s native land of Bahia, Brazil? How many complete unknowns slip past the cracks?
Good acting necessitates setting foot on a stage that is not accessible to all. And beyond that stage, where the real acting of perfect press tours and PR-trained interview answers really begins, the odds are far less equal.
With cinema, we tread the fine line of accepting cultural difference as a necessary precursor to good acting, good directing and good art while inhibiting its expression. Faced with audiences who increasingly just can’t be bothered to read subtitles, we let so much good get lost.
I do not think Timothee Chalamet is responsible for fixing the evils of an industry that systematically excludes so many stories. And who can blame the industry, anyway? Americans acting in movies about America are the biggest Oscar winners overall. Brits acting in movies about Britain are twenty times more likely to win BAFTAs than their British peers acting in movies not about Britain.
I do not think it’s so wrong to want to see stories about your own reality on screen. But that is exactly why representation can be so important – because for so many people, their stories are the ones that aren’t seen on screen.
These are the risks of cultural hegemony, of media superpowers that leech and exploit.
Had Wagner Moura taken the stage and proclaimed himself “in pursuit of greatness,” the response would likely have been even worse. A presumptuous foreigner, unable to keep his head down. That is if he would even have been able to speak, if he wouldn’t have had his award squashed between commercial breaks.
Good acting is good acting. But how many bad American actors were in attendance at these ceremonies? How many cruise by in mediocrity? Where there are good actors, there are ok actors and there are bad actors. Why, then, does the immigrant have to be exceptional to be seen?
Ahead of the biggest night in the entertainment industry, I focus my gaze not towards top contenders who fight for their place at the top, but at all those not in the Oscars race. Not for an absence of good acting – onscreen or offscreen – but for the absence of a screen at all.
Maria Clara Santana is a university student in Amsterdam. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of The Amsterdammer.
