Great actors and good actors

Right now, I am watching the 69th Annual Golden Globe Awards. After seeing Owen Wilson on stage calling out the nominees for an award I can't recall, I reminisced all of the movies I've seen that he's starred in. I began to realize that, although Wilson is in numerous movies (mostly comedies) that I've enjoyed and found hilarious, he really isn't that great of an actor at all. I started to segregate great actors from good actors. Take Owen Wilson and think of all the movies you've seen with him as a main role. I began to consider Wilson as a good actor because he seems to have the same personality in all of his movies, even though he has a different role.

An example for a great actor, on the other hand, would be Morgan Freeman. I just watched his acceptance speech for the Cecil B. Demille award and the short film composed of clips from all of his movies reminded me of how much of an influential, powerful, and great actor he is. If you review all of Freeman's films, it's not hard to determine that he's a professional at what he does. He changes his whole personality to fit the character he is assigned. Compare his role as Hoke Colburn in Driving Miss Daisy to his role as Sloan in Wanted or Nelson Mandela in Invictus. He has very different personalities in all of these movies and does an exquisite job in each.

Now compare Owen Wilson to movies he's starred in. His roles in Wedding Crashers, You Me and Dupree, and Starsky and Hutch. To me, it seems like Wilson acts very much the same in each of these. Perhaps it's because he's a movie star that usually involved in comedies and he isn't really acting, he's just a naturally funny fellow. Then again, you have his role in Marley and Me, which was partially a comedy but also a drama. His personality in this movie also seems to be similar to his roles in all of his other movies. Anyways, this was a thought I had today and I decided to spontaneously post it. I have sort of reached the un-researched conclusion that some actors truly grasp the art of their profession and that some merely have an appealing personality that are perfect for roles in some movies. If this hypothesis of mine is true, I wonder if some actors can even be considered actors.