All the World's a Stage: Global Players and Transnational Film Performance

Editorial: Acting and performance continue to grow as significant areas of film scholarship although studies have predominantly focused on Hollywood and the West, or largely exploring actors and performers in their national contexts. The topic of transnational stardom has received an increasing amount of critical attention, with such studies foregrounding key issues surrounding the transnational processes of stardom, the cross-cultural construction and reception of stars and the relationship between transnational authorship and stardom. The part played by acting and performance in such global processes has received relatively little consideration. What is the function of actors and performers in transnational cinema? As the boundaries between nations, cinemas and screens become increasingly blurred, how do we make sense of the actors who populate them?