by Nicole Hogsett

Created on: May 04, 2009   Last Updated: May 05, 2009

Ask any actor what they love about their craft and more often than not, the answer involves the ability to pour oneself into a character and become that person. The benefit of being an actor is that it gives one the chance to experiment with different genres and consistently challenge themselves. Asking if an actor should stick to one genre is somewhat contradictory to the craft of acting, yet most of the time the case with actors today. Acting, like any creative profession, is ideally about risk and self-expression. By being pigeon-holed into one genre, the actor forms a comfort-zone and, as a result, their work suffers.

A prime example of this is Matthew McConaughey. The actor's career began with the very funny, stoner-comedy Dazed and Confused, has since become the unofficial king of romantic comedies, starring in How To Lose A Guy in Ten Days, Failure to Launch, Fool's Gold and, most recently, Ghosts of Girlfriend's Past, just to name a few (to be fair his costars in those films: Kate Hudson, Sarah Jessica Parker and Jennifer Garner have stayed in the romantic comedy safety zone as well, at least for the latter two, on the big screen). While these movies have had mixed results at the box office, and were all lauded by critics, McConaughey continues to take these roles instead of attempting to get a part in a mainstream, buddy comedy (like I Love You Man or Role Models) instead, and his work suffers for it.

The same can be said for Hugh Grant, who has starred in Music & Lyrics, Bridget Jones's Diary (and its sequel), Two Weeks Notice and Notting Hill. While both McConaughey and Grant ventured outside the realm of romantic comedies, it has not been often and the two are more widely known for these types of films than any of their other work. Actor's become synonymous with one genre often and it can be every type of genre. Meg Ryan has learned that you can only be "America's Sweetheart" for so long, and Tobin Bell will most probably only be known as the Saw villain, Jigsaw, while Arnold Schwarzenegger, before his stint as governor, was known primarily for his action films (like Jean-Claude Van Damme, Sly Stallone, Steven Seagal, etc.).

It is in essence the actors who travel outside of their comfort zones that inspire and awe us with their ferocious talent. Actors of the utmost caliber, Meryl Streep and Daniel Day-Lewis have each made a career of switching up genres and picking the right roles. Just this past year, Streep played two roles, in films that were

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