MovieChat Forums > Taken (2002) Discussion > Heather Donahue: Terrible acting.

Heather Donahue: Terrible acting.

posted 14 years ago by tdcp
13 replies | jump to latest

In my opinion she really did a very bad job acting in this series. To me the acting in the first three episodes was so much better than in the rest and later on in the series there also are a lot more cheesy FAKE moments of care (made even worse - double fake - by bad acting). Heather Donahue to me was the worst actor of them all. The kid living in the woods in the fourth episode (which was the worst episode of all to me) was really bad too, but he only had a small part. It was very disappointing to me that the quality of the acting really dropped so much after the first three episodes. To say something positive though: The character of the Dr. was really nice and played very well. It was just kind of frustrating to see Heather Donahue act in this series. Because apart from some weird incoherent choices and half-baked explanations for these choices towards the end of the series (mainly the last episode), some more bad acting and poorly done display of care there wasn't really much wrong with it and it would've probably been a lot more bearable were it not for the really bad portrayal of Heather's character. Curious if anyone else found it quite annoying....

Too lazy to check my spelling of what I just wrote, so if it contains any terrible English, then so be it.

[–] steven_titchenell2006 14 years ago

How could you tell she was actually acting? Mary Crawford was so much like her character in Blair Witch Project & they weren't really acting in that. They had sort of a skeleton script to follow, but there was a lot of real emotion. They had to make Josh disappear instead of Mike because he really was about to kill Heather. The fear at night was also real because the crew made the scary noises at night without their knowledge. I thought all the acting was great & the fourth chapter(the one with Lester) was one of my favorites

[–] tdcp 14 years ago

Because she plays the part of Mary Crawford I figured she was acting, because her real name is Heather Donahue and all that. ;) I didn't mind her at all in The Blair Witch Project, but I don't see what her part in that film has to do with her bad acting job in this series. Furthermore I just like to think that what she did in The Blair Witch Project was also acting. That the film crew used certain methods to bring in surprise and play on their emotions does not remove the fact that they knew they were in those woods playing a part in a film (unless of course they didn't know). I am not too familiar with how The Blair Witch Project was actually made. And the fact she used her own name in that I thought was because they tried to make it all come across as real, not because it was real. Well who knows, perhaps it was to them. ;) I always figured they knew they were making that film and knew the methods they were using in order to make it and to promote (for a lack of a better word) it. It's another film. I just really disliked her acting in Taken. All in all, I'm glad to hear you did enjoy it, so you could enjoy the show better than me in that aspect. Though her acting did entertain me in other ways somewhat as well.

[–] steven_titchenell2006 14 years ago

I seem to remember a comment in the bonus section of the Blair Witch Project dvd from the director or somebody that the actors weren't entirely sure the blair witch wasn't a real legend. I know the town of Burkittsville got overrun with people who saw the movie that wanted to do their own investigations

[–] alveolate 13 years ago

way to throw the whole thread off topic...

in what way was HD acting poorly? the OP completely neglected to point out where specifically her acting was bad. i get it if you didn't like her acting... but i would respond then that it was her character which was unlikeable. imo, poor acting is when the actress is unable to convince the audience of her character's emotion or reaction. while i absolutely detested Mary Crawford, i believe that was precisely the way her character was meant to appear.

she was insecure, borderline psychotic, over-competitive, and even her relationship with the professor was meant to portray her ambition, that unnatural attraction towards power. she was basically a female Owen Crawford, with some benefit of hindsight, but not enough.

i think she did okay. may have overacted in some scenes, but who could blame her, with the character she's doing? the amount of intense negative thoughts within that character's mind... i only pray HD is not too affected after playing her!

[–] steven_titchenell2006 13 years ago

I think I previously posted that I didn't know if she was a good actress or not, because Mary Crawford & her BWP character were basically the same in personality. Well, Heather is now one of my Facebook friends & she is a very nice person. I sent her a message to see if she could point me towards somewhere I could get an alien artifact replica & she gave me some advice on it. So I would say she was a good actress

[–] lampic 13 years ago

To me Heather Donahue was one of the most interesting things about this whole TV serial. I actually completely forgot about "Blair Witch Project" and found connection much later. Noticed her intensity on the screen immediately in the first scene with her mother and couldn't stop watching her later. You might dislike the role she is playing but I was perfectly aware of her anger,frustration and determination to prove herself.
I do agree with you about this serial going slightly downhill after a while, I seemed to really care about characters in the first half and than something happened and I stopped to care about people in present time. The only thing that still kept me watching were Donahue and her partner.

[–] johnnymike91 13 years ago

I'm so shocked that you said this! I absolutely LOVED her character in this piece! I found Mary Crawford so interesting and complex! Well, i guess that's why people are so diverse with their personal opinions. Sorry you didn't enjoy it.

[–] jonsnow7412 13 years ago

I found her overly moist and off-putting.

[–] legotrooper 13 years ago

I picked this up on DVD at a car boot last week and ploughed through the 10 episodes and found it to be a very enjoyable show with just that one slight flaw. Heather Donahue was just awful and I felt unbelievable in her role.

Her grandfather, Owen Crawford, was a much better and far more sinister character and was extremely well played by Joel Gretsch who I think deserves most of the praise for the show. I like him as an actor but I really hated him in his role so to me he played it very well. Heather Donahue on the other hand was completely annoying and unbelievable in her role and after she kissed Max Headroom, Matt Frewer, I just laughed cos I felt that was more creepy than the possible threat of invason by aliens.

This aside I think the imdb score reflects the outcome nicely.

[–] Movie_Joe 13 years ago

tdcp is BANG ON here. In fact, I came to this board just to see if anyone else was baffled by how badly this woman acted. I wasn't shocked to find tdcp's post, but I was amazed to find some people liked her acting??? LOL holy sh&t!

Not only is she one of the worst actors I have ever seen, she is also one of the most annoying. Her facial expressions turned me off from the instant I saw her. She looks like a psycho, and not in a good way.

For those who think she's a great actor, I suggest you get out more, maybe at least try watching some classic movies, The Godfather or The Deer Hunter, for instance. If you liked her acting, I would have to wonder how many movies and plays you've watched at all!

She displays high school variety show level performance in Taken, and I'm not talking about the best actors at the high school variety show, I'm talking about the ones they added at the last second for filler.

I'd go so far as to say she _almost_ completely ruined Taken. The first few episodes were of a much higher quality than those that followed, partly because of her poor acting.

For those who think tdcp (and the rest of us giving her the thumbs-down) don't know what we're talking about, take a look at Heather Donahue's acting resume since Taken.

In the past 10 years since she made a mockery of Taken she's been involved in nothing but made-for-TV tripe, the last two projects being a TV movie called "Manticore" in 2005 which garnered a whopping IMDB rating of 3.9/10, followed by a horror movie in 2008 entitled "The Morgue" which rated a pitiful 3.2/10.

I haven't gone so far as to check on the fate of the Casting Agent working on Taken, but I'd guess their career wasn't exactly boosted after it.

Taken succeeds in spite of this... wonders never cease.

[–] steven_titchenell2006 13 years ago

@Movie_Joe: Good acting means you CAN'T tell when someone is acting. Of course she looked like a psycho sometimes. Mary was a psycho! She had her own dad killed & killed her boyfriend herself

[–] TheRavenOfAll 11 years ago

I watched the series this week and totally agree with you she almost completely ruined the series. The worse combination in acting should be a repulsive character and a bad actor/actress.
Very interesting series though. Family and life issues wrapped in an alien angle.
I believe most people would still be talking about "Taken" and would have found its place in many "greatest ever series/series you want back on" type of subjective lists if the acting didn't have taken such a nose dive to render it cheap beginning with her appearance
I remember another cheap acting killing "4400" off by Megalyn Echikunwoke's. The more frequent she began to appear the more ratings declined...until the inevitable. At least Megalyn was(is) a relative of a very powerful man. I'm quite positive that Heather has a kind of mild Down Syndrome by her facial features. Maybe that effects her non-existing acting, too. I don't know

I really have hard time understanding casting managers and producers. Very promising productions are wasted

[–] DaveBowman2001 (520) 7 years ago

I didn't think she was bad as an actor, but her character annoyed me when her actions went off the deep end one minute and then compassionate the next. They had her overstep her bounds too and nobody questioned it, even her boss father. He just let her walk all over him and take over the operation. Could chalk that up to bad writing/directing. The killing after the shower was ridiculous. Not even a confrontation to her long time companion...tisk tisk. She was pretty hot, but evil AF.

The series was great. I just re-watched it after not seeing it since the original release and it held up well. The last few hrs were a bit of a let down.

I'll also add the casting was very good overall. The primary characters seemed believably related, the women were attractive without being over the top sexy. The extras were pretty poor, especially the final scene.