Stephen. Lack.
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fulcifan2004-1 — 16 years ago(June 28, 2009 07:46 PM)
I think that Stephen Lack's approach to this role was to equate himself a homeless person with no idea why he heard a constant barrage of voices in his head that wouldn't allow him to sleep or relate to anyone around him. In the film the food court sequence in which we first see him, a woman comments to her friend "look at the dirty bums". He hears this which gets him to "think" (scan) about her and he just sits there twitching around, unaware of how uncomfortable a person on the wrong end of a scan could be. He was playing a person who didn't recieve the attention(love) most of us with mothers and fathers recieved
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coex — 16 years ago(September 09, 2009 11:43 AM)
it's good to see others have addressed this. Lack handled this role exactly how the director wanted it; deadpan like some autistic adult that had no idea what he was. Simple as that. If you listen to the dialog, everything is spelled out pretty clearly.
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annabanana52000 — 16 years ago(September 27, 2009 11:45 AM)
I thought Stephen Lack played Cameron exactly like he was written. The part only works if Cameron is played by an actor who can handle the dialogue the way Lack did.
"You're incapable of exciting me, Steel, except as an anthropological curiosity."
Day of the Dead -
kkm_22 — 15 years ago(May 26, 2010 11:00 PM)
Also, after the bus crash/shootup, Kim says he's not even human. She was just lashing out, but I think even she as a scanner who has been able to assimilate and "pass" as a normal person recognizes that there is something very strange about Cameron. So maybe Stephen Lack's acting wasn't so off. At least I didn't think that after the first viewing.
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projectcyclops — 15 years ago(September 09, 2010 06:21 PM)
Cronenberg has cast unknown or amature actors before to capture slightly off-kilter, 'weird' performances (think: Robert A. Silverman). I always see Lack's casting in Scanners reminicent of Marilyn Chambers in "Rabid"; an adult film star playing a zombiefied, parasite vampire woman, and she does a good job but always gets flak for being kind of 'out of it' the entire time. I agree that Stephen Lack saw the need for an outsider approach and does a basically okay job of playing the bewildered but well intentioned everyman.
He certainly isn't a particularly good leading man, but the role doesn't really call for that - he's out of his depth until the very last confrontation. Check out his role in Dead Ringers as a sculptor who makes weird surgical tools for Jeremry Irons, it's a small role but he's very good in it.
After watching this film for the first time in a few years, I'm a bit miffed at the hate it's recieving, maybe you had to be a child of the 70/80's to really get where this is coming from? I mean Scanners is pretty damn boss.
He left a note. He left a simple little note that said "I've gone out the window." -
activista — 11 years ago(February 05, 2015 02:45 AM)
@projectcyclops
Cronenberg has cast unknown or amature actors before to capture slightly off-kilter, 'weird' performances (think: Robert A. Silverman).
That's exactly itI've always thought that the leading men in Cronenberg's films were very intriguing, because it seemed to me that they weren't cut from the typical Hollywood macho mode at all. And then, Cronenberg's films in general have always been slightly off-kilter, and weird as hell in a unique and distinctive way, anyway, so that explains the weird performance. -
Legendary_Badass — 11 years ago(March 09, 2015 10:17 PM)
I'm with the OP all the way. I just saw The Brood and have it a 7, and I wouldh have had Scanners higher had the lead actor shown any interest in his own movie. Sadly, Scanners is otherwise superior but Lack is so terrible it's impossible to look around it.
THE ONLY CRITIC WHO CAN REVIEW WHILE JOGGING:
http://bit.ly/1pPzoBc -
StaunchWoman — 9 years ago(October 17, 2016 07:23 AM)
If Cronenberg had a problem with it, it would have been corrected early on, after having filmed a few scenes with him. So, this is obviously what the director wanted out of the actor.
Like others have commented, just look at the character's background and experiences.
We've met before, haven't we? -
MooseNugget — 9 years ago(January 31, 2017 12:52 AM)
People defending this saying "well that's how the book had him"
There were plenty of moments Cameron should have been railed up or at least excited.
And if that's how the book had Cameron then things should have been changed for the movie.