This ties in with everything I wrote above: When actors are exposed and raw, it’s always surprising. And if it doesn’t seem real, there’s no point in it. In fact, this sort of emotional nakedness is very hard to fake. If you ever get a sense that an actor is showing you a secret part of himself, he probably is. Examples are Julianne Moore, Bryan Cranston, and Michael Redgrave in The Browning Version. He turns himself inside out and wrings out all his pain.
