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We’re coming to love and recognize actors who work in full-body makeup/costumes, such as Andy Serkis, or actors whose entire performances, or large chunks thereof, are motion captured or digitized (lately sometimes also Andy Serkis!). But people like Leander Deeny play an enormous part in making characters such as Steve Rogers come to life, too. Body language is a huge part of a performance and of characterization. For characters/series with a lot of action, a stunt person can have a huge influence on how we read and interpret a character, such as the influence Heidi Moneymaker has had on the style and choreography of Black Widow’s signature fighting style. Talent doubles breathe believability and discipline-specific nuance into demanding storylines.

Actors are creative people themselves, and incredibly important in building the characters we see onscreen. But if we agree that they’re more than dancing monkeys who just do whatever the directors/writers say, then we have to agree that doubles are more than that, too. Doubles make creative decisions too, and often form strong, mutually supportive relationship with actors.

  Image 1: “I would like to thank Kathryn Alexandre, the most generous actor I’ve ever worked opposite.”

Image 2: “Kathryn who’s playing my double who’s incredible.”

[ Orphan Black’s Tatiana Maslany on her acting double, Kathryn Alexandre, two images from a set on themarysue, via lifeofkj ]

    I’ve got a relationship that goes back many, many years with Dave. And I would hate for people to just see that image of me and Dave and go, “oh, there’s Dan Radcliffe with a person in a wheelchair.” Because I would never even for a moment want them to assume that Dave was anything except for an incredibly important person in my life.

[ Daniel Radcliffe talking about David Holmes, his stunt double for 2001-2009, who was paralysed while working on the Harry Potter films. David Holmes relates his story here. Gifset via smeagoled ]

With modern tv- and film-making techniques, many characters are composite creations. The characters we see onscreen or onstage have always been team efforts, with writers, directors, makeup artists, costume designers, special effects artists, production designers, and many other people all contributing to how a character is ultimately realized in front of us. Many different techniques go into something like the creation of Skinny Steve — he’s no more all Leander Deeny than he is all Chris Evans.

But as fandom dissects the anatomy of scenes in ever-increasing detail to get at microexpressions and the minutiae of body language, let’s recognize the anatomy in the scenes, too. I don’t mean to take away from the work Chris Evans or any other actors do (he is an amazing Steve Rogers and I love him tons), but fandom needs to do better in recognizing the bodies, the other people, who make up the characters we love and some of our very favourite shots of them. Chris Evans has an amazing body, but so does Leander Deeny — that body is beautiful; that body mimicked Chris Evans’s motions with amazing, skilled precision; that body moved Steve Rogers with emotion and grace and character.

Fandom should do better than productions and creators who fail to be transparent about the doubles in their productions. On the screen, suspension of disbelief is key and the goal is to make all the effort that went into the production vanish and leave only the product itself behind. But when the film is over and the episode ends, let’s remember everyone who helped make that happen.

I’m going to explain why one scene that they chose to remove actually puts the whole movie in perspective and answers a lot of questions fans had about the final cut.

Obviously this is definitely going to spoil you and I can list about 100 different trigger warnings so unless you have seen the movie and are prepared to deal with the same themes, don’t read on.

Cancer World Tour

We see in what makes the final cut of the film that Vanessa is desperate to find a cure for Wade’s cancer and in the edited scene called “Cancer World Tour” she does just as he predicts, drags him around the world trying every cure.

As always Wade narrates the scene so he informs us that they have been all of the world and have already tried everything and now they were at rock bottom, in a very unlikely clinic in Guadalajara Mexico.

Wade has given up long ago but is keeping that to himself, spending the rest of his very short life indulging Vanessa in the fantasy that he can be cured.

He is in a waiting room bitterly observing the other hopeless patients indulging their own love ones, or perhaps even themselves, and he visibly has a hard time keeping his anger and sadness to himself.

Wade listens in as a mother tries to pay for her young son’s treatment and the nurse very coldly insists she won’t take any pesos, everything has to be in American cash. The little boy reaches for a sucker and the nurse says it will cost extra. Wade quickly puts his own cash on the desk, saying it’s on him.

Something is still bothering him. Wade watches the young boy sit as an older gentleman Wade himself was talking to earlier gets up to go in for his own appointment. Wade tells us in a voice over how he is at the end of his rope. He will indulge Vanessa, he will spend all the money that is needed to do so, but he can’t watch more of these innocent people being screwed over.

Wade sneaks into the operating room to observe that what is going on is that this miracle cure is not a miracle nor a cure. I don’t know exactly how much a layperson may understand this particular treatment by what they filmed so I’m going to explain in a bit more detail: this is an actual treatment that is offered for a great amount of money and the practitioner promises that they will remove your cancer without putting you under anesthesia or even cutting you open; they will somehow reach in and pull it out of you. The stomach is pressed upon by the practitioner and with sleight-of-hand they produced a bit of animal organ, presenting it as the removed cancer. There is a bit of blood but no incision, they claim to have healed that as well.

Wade waits secretly as the the older gentleman, relieved to have been cured, leaves the room and then he enters to confront the practitioner. Wade dryly remarks that the bucket of removed tumors smells like chicken, the practitioner reaches for a scalpel to defend himself, Wade has already taken it.

Wade loses it. He viciously beats and stabs the man. No fancy choreography, no clever banter. Wade gruesomely murders this man with his own two hands and blood is everywhere. The staff and waiting room rush in to see what is happened and Vanessa is among them.

Wade, in excruciating emotional pain, realizes what has happened. Vanessa is watching. This wasn’t a job and it wasn’t done efficiently. He isn’t being a mercenary, he’s being a murderer, is becoming what we will call Deadpool.

Fleeing, Wade runs away and leaves Vanessa to desperately scream in search for him to no avail. He is gone.

I don’t know why this scene wouldn’t of been included in the final cut. To me it solves a lot of issues that people have had with the characterization of both Wade and Vanessa.

Many reviewers asked why, despite the fact that Wade obviously was upset and beginning to show signs of mental illness, he couldn’t just go back to Vanessa and let her see his scars. She certainly didn’t come off as the type of character who would judge him for the way he looked but that wasn’t it. Wade is reluctant to show her what he looks like now, of course, but most of the reluctance comes from the fact that she has already seen a little bit of what he has become inside and that’s a completely different story. Vanessa fell in love with a different man, a man who killed people but wasn’t violent, wasn’t unhinged.

Maybe more importantly it gives the ending an entirely different tone. It’s not the happy ending it appears. Vanessa forgives Wade and despite his warning she is in Deadpool’s arms, not really understanding that Wade is gone. Deadpool very canonically gives into the bit of hope that it might be okay, someone might actually love him.

But what happens next? Vanessa is now going to meet Deadpool and realize that she has to again mourn the loss of Wade who she believes has come back from the dead. Will she love this new man? Should she? Is she safe to be with him?

Your feelings for Deadpool aside, try to imagine what Vanessa is walking into. Wade would never hurt her but Deadpool is not Wade and sometimes Deadpool is not even Deadpool. Sometimes this body is overtaken with pain and hallucinations. If Wade can viciously beat and stab a man to death when he disassociates, what does Deadpool do when he disassociates?