They get a bad rap. Make too much money. Don't work hard. Self-absorbed. On and on. Some true, most of it not, all depending on the actor, I guess.
My thing is it's more real than this "real" world we live in. I love movies. Spend all my free time watching them. Lately, when I see an actor argue so passionately about whatever subject, or watch them cry in pain or loss, it strikes a deep emotion in me, and I start crying too. These emotions that you just don't witness on a day to day basis. Otherwise I walk this land and am virtually without feeling.
I know it's all "acting," but it feels so much more genuine then every single daily encounter I've had in the past few years. I walk around, or I'm at work, on the bus, at the store, and it's people, "la de da," happy go lucky, or like zombies, expressionless and emotionless.
There's something actors do that "regular" people don't do. FEEL. Feel deeply, intensely and passionately. Then to find that place, go inside that place, and express and portray it to an audience is something magical, for me.
Would you ever debate/argue with a superior over something you felt was wrong, or at least didn't believe in? Would you ever break down in front of strangers over terrible loss and bad news?
When actors are connected, they live in that story. It's like the person they're portraying isn't them, but it's kinda a part of who they really are, which in turn the "real" them, kinda seems fake and too composed. It just seems a more truthful expression of a relationship and life than the "real" world.