MovieChat Forums > Pretty Little Liars (2010) Discussion > Shay Mitchell is not a very good actress...

Shay Mitchell is not a very good actress, is she?

posted 8 years ago by BLightyear
1 reply | jump to latest

So, I just started watching Pretty Little Liars, and I'm on episode 15 or something (I currently am not watching it), and it occured to me that among all four, Shay, in my opinion, is the weakest, while Troian is the strongest (Ashley and Lucy is #2 and #3 respectively), but I thought maybe it's because of the materials, maybe she's going to be better somewhere else.

Then, some days ago I got a hold of Immediately Afterlife starring her and Troian. I was looking at the Discover page of my Instagram and saw the clip of the movie, the part where Troian is trying to shove a drink to Shay, and they both get into a little schuffle. I immediately knew that it was some kind of a thriller about a cult or something, what I didn't know was whether it was a parody or not because of Shay's acting. I thought her acting was intentionally campy, but I looked at Troian and thought, she was serious as hell, she had a totally different acting style than Shay, so I decided to watch the whole thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iVyxKKlKbo

Turns out, it was not a parody at all. It was actually pretty creepy. The music and the cinematography were great. Troian was amazing! Now, Shay... not so much. She was very cringe-worthy. Granted, the script was, again in my opinion, tried too hard to "say" something that it became too full of itself and failed to resemble the interactions between two people, but Troian, despite all of that, sold it! Shay did not. There were sooo many awkward and cringe-inducing dialogues because of her delivery and bad timing. "Where? Cincinnati?" "A life full of hard drugs and meaningless sex," "BECAUSE I WAS A BETTER FVCK!" from this, I came to the conclusion that in this layman's opinion, Shay is not very good, whereas Troian is really underrated, and she needs to star in more things.

P.S. Why did Shay look so glamorous? Look at that perfect waves and make-up, then look at Troian's bare face.

[–] bobcat667 8 years ago

soft disagree. i mean shay is bad, and troian is good, but in that film Troian isn't really shining very much. better than shay of course but it still feels clumsy even on her end. it is a very flawed script and it takes a certain kind of actor to get into this. it doesn't feel like the actors got into this though it sort of feels like they just jumped into the scene instead of building up the characters.

people don't realize that its often actually harder to act in a short film than in a feature length one or an episode of television.

you have such little time to 'practice' as the character and really find out who they are. there is very little detail or back story to them and its hard to construct a personality as opposed to just being yourself and saying what needs to be said. it takes a special kind of actor to do good in a short film.

most anyone even a bad actor can do pretty okay in something longer because after enough time you simply buy them being that character. much harder in a short film and it shows here with troian imo.

*when life gives you lemons*
Sara: are you a sour lemon?