Muhammad Ali's acting ability

Is being great at being yourself really great acting? Genuine question I'm not a professional actor.

 

This is some of Ali’s best work imo. Note from 1:10 Ali’s let’s out a genuine giggle after Arnold’s line - funny stuff.

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You cannot be great at everything, and acting was not one of his strong suits.

 

Can hear the decline in his speech quite clearly here.

 

From what bits I’ve seen of Freedom Road he was actually a pretty good actor.

 

Freedom Road showed the potential was there. He had a compelling presence on screen plus it was a four-hour miniseries, he carried it pretty well and didn't come across like an amateur reading off cue cards. The problem is at the time of Freedom Road the decline was evident.

 

To be a great champion you must believe you are the best. If you’re not, pretend you are. - Muhammad Ali.

Ali surely was acting a lot of the time anyway.

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I’ve heard it said (by people in the industry) that most actors can act like some version of themselves and maybe stretch that 10% (not sure how you quantify that, but you see it all the time — I mean Dwayne Johnson isn’t much different from role to role, for example).

Good actors can stretch that maybe 25% — maybe get out of their normal character (which is generally based on themselves) enough to actually portray someone fairly different.

Great actors can pretty much play anyone or anything and make you forget who they are and see the character (even famous ones, where you may see DiNiro when the movie starts but a few scenes later you are really only seeing the character).

I’m sure Ali showed enough to have above-normal acting chops (like he could play someone who wasn’t just more or less himself) but part of his problem (and perhaps a limit of his acting chops) was you were always going to see Muhammad Ali no matter what. Just like when Elvis Presley was making movies, you always saw Elvis … and that wasn’t going to change.

 

Best line was the beginning.

"It's me, the champ."
"Joe Louis?"

 

I think that he was probably right to pursue a career in boxing.

 

Did you ever hear Ali sing?? He had a good voice

 

Hi Buddy.
I beg to differ, most of his career was one long act.
stay safe hombre.