Well, not everybody can be a Jim Varney: here was a man who was also a Shakespearan actor, had a genius IQ, and ended up being pigeon-holed as Ernest... but he really didn't mind, because he knew people, especially kids, really loved Ernest, so that's what made the role worth-while.
It's nice that some actors (though sadly not all) don't mind being identified by that one role that defines their career... like Barbara Eden saying that if she has to be remembered for one character, she's glad that character is Jeannie, though conversely, Elizabeth Montgomery did all she could to get people to stop identifying her as Samantha Stephens.
And this is the whole reason why I insist on seeing every fictional universe as a real universe just like ours except for those characters' existence (and whatever stems from them - to take the Hogan's Heroes analogy, in that universe several people lived who didn't in OTL and ran an espionage unit inside Germany, with incompetent people stuck there and with at least 1 of the Germans probably complicit in the whole thing. To stay on that tangent for a second, on the fanfiction.net HH forum there are a number of people who believe General Burkhalter was a spy mentioned in one episode name Nimrod, for reasons such as his funnelling scientists and others to Stalag 13 and putting up with klink. And, someone wrote a very good story about Gestapo Major Hochsetter being an American agent and Jewish acting teacher in New York City!
I forget the name, but you can look it up easily at fanfiction.net - something like "misunderstood Major" is int he title or summary)
Phew, sorry for that long rabbit trail. Anyway, as someone else said, the smoke and mirrors are needed sometimes, with something like ALF. It's fun to fantasize and have fun. That's what's great about Sesame Street. Even though - as I noted in another thread once - it's gone from looking like a place the puppets actually live to a "Muppet Show" style show that the puppets put on, it's still great to see humans and Muppets interact and to just sit back and have fun for a while.
If fans want to dig deeper,t hat's fine - they can dig so deep they come up with stuff like the "Full House" Chronology, which was an excellent and fun project and i think helped at least one group of fans really fget into the spirit of the idea that there's a real fictional world created here, where stuff happens in the 99.75% of the time we don't see and which is totally separate from the performers.
that's what I think I'd recommend to any actor or actress who didn't like their part. Just say to fans, "Look, that is a fictional world, it's a fun world." If someone like Barbar Eden wants to enjoy having played the part, that's great. But, fans need to realize that they're not watching their favorite stars. They're actually watching fictional characters who happen to be performed by their favorite stars. And it's a world where things can usually be explained, given enough time - like the complicity of the Nazis on Hogan's Heroes (granted the russian pilot might still have been too hard to explain) or "FUll Hosue"'s Uncle Jesse's faked graduation as a way to explain the sudden change. (Only he ever mentions his graduation before it's revealed he was a dropout.)
Also, Heralde said, "Well I get that the guy [who played the dad on ALF] was a "Shakespearan actor" (I saw him in Twelth Night at Lincoln Center years ago) and probably felt embarrassed doing a sitcom with a puppet. But seriously, did he actually think the stiff human father was supposed to get more attention than the funny alien puppet? Sometimes the writers do actually know what they're doing, heh. Plus I always found the whole cast to be very funny, so the upstaging wasn't that bad, IMO. But yes I understand how demanding and frustrating it can probably be to work with a perfectionist like the puppeteer seemed to be."
Yes, what was that? Did the fellow's agent call and say, "I've got a role for you to audition for as a dad in a sitcom" and nelgect to mention a puppet or that puppet's role? If so, he should be fired. As I understand it, agents are supposed to fully inform clients about their options.
Not all clients listen, of course, so it's not certaint hat this agent's fault, but the agent - if good - must have said at some point, "Now, I really doubt you'll get top billing, and you might wind up playing the straight man sometimes, so it might not be for you, but I'm putting it out there for you to consider," at least in a conversational tone so if he or she thought the actor knew that they would still make sure of it. That's just professional responsibility.
Some people prefer different types of acting, like theater. Others can pull off both (Patrick Stewart comes to mind right away) I think with theater, you're more used to being inthe limelight. I'm guessing that's more of the problem than any connection to a character there.
But, again, I agree that it all comes down to the decision. If he made it for the money, then as someone else noted, he should have been happy to be working and enjoyed it. If not, he should have fired his agent and turned downt he role after it was offered to him. He would not have been the first actor to do so.
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