Except it is not? They are not praising his acting skills. They are praising words and values of fictional character he played.

That is like praising chef for restaurant decor.

“Honorable, wise, but humble, diplomatic, reasonable, with high morals, and fortitude under pressure.”

Acting has a lot to do with those attributes. Imagine Gilbert Gottfried playing the role and tell me you’d still describe the character that way.

	▲	wahnfrieden 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Those things are in the script and it’s his job to express them. I think most people don’t have the media literacy to express what the appreciate about a performance beyond what was already on the page and what what came from direction. Gottfried doesn't have the range to express those, of course. You undersell Stewart's work if you express it in terms of what some others can't do - that makes him sound interchangeable with those who can express the scripted character.
	▲	whoanoway 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
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