The Plight of Supporting Actors

A supporting actor or actress is someone who performs a role in a play, film, or drama that is below a lead actor or actress’ role. Supporting characters can vary from minor roles, like bit players or extras, to major roles, like a protagonist’s best friend, love interest, or nemesis. Actors or actress who used to play lead roles can have limited roles available to them because of their increasing age. Often times, they are offered to play supporting roles as they get older. In other cases, actors can switch from leading roles to secondary roles from time to time.

Sometimes, a supporting character plays an unusual, interesting, or eccentric character. In this case, such an actor is called a character actor. Character actors show distinct qualities that show contrast to the qualities of a lead actor. For example, if a lead character is tall, popular, and beautiful, a character actor may be short, unpopular, and unattractive. Also, in a story, a character actor usually goes by first name only while a lead character’s complete name is established. This is because character actors are not expected to draw audiences as much as lead characters are. 

Extras or bit players can also be considered supporting actors. They are also called background actors. Background actors are also essential in movies and dramas. They do not have to interact with the lead roles. Movies that require a large number of background performers are war films, epic films, musicals, and even zombie films. As such, they do not necessarily need to have acting backgrounds. However, many famous actors started out as background actors before they became huge stars. A perfect example is Brad Pitt.

A movie is like a picture. The subject of a photo communicates more substance with the help of the different elements in its background. It is the same for movies, plays, and TV series. They wouldn’t be complete without supporting characters just as much as they wouldn’t be complete without lead roles. A good filmmaker knows that it is important to pick the best supporting actors for his or her film because supporting roles are complements to lead roles. They make stories more compelling.

Supporting actors and background actors are still often underappreciated and undervalued. However, they work just as hard to help bring together an entertaining movie or drama for everyone to enjoy. To recognize the importance supporting actors, theater and film industries around the world have a separate category for best supporting actors and actresses.