Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	81/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
The A.V. Club	A−
Blender
Entertainment Weekly	A
NME	6/10
Pitchfork Media	8.5/10
Q
Rolling Stone
Spin	8/10
Uncut

Actor is the second album by musician St. Vincent, released by 4AD on May 4, 2009, in the United Kingdom and a day later in the United States. The first single released was "Actor out of Work" that April. Annie Clark was influenced by scores to films by Disney and Woody Allen. To prevent writer's block, Clark watched films without the sound and composed music for her favorite scenes. After arranging the music using GarageBand, she then wrote lyrics and added gentle vocal melodies.

The music video for "Actor out of Work" was premiered April 10, 2009 on Spinner. In it, Clark auditions a series of actors who begin sobbing in front of her. The video for "Laughing with a Mouth of Blood" features Clark with comedy duo ThunderAnt as owners of a feminist bookstore.

"This was the first record I worked on with John Congleton. I started it with another producer, but things just went horribly wrong so I called John. I'd spent a long, long time on all of these tracks, all of these beautiful wind and string passages that I was trying to make into songs. I called John and said, 'You know what? I think I need to try again with these songs… I think that if I'm not careful, I'll be making the soundtrack to The Lion King, so can we just rethink this?' I went in and basically re-recorded everything but the wind and strings. It was definitely an thing, with John and I together in the studio saving the record. When I was writing it, I was watching a lot of films – Disney films from the '30s and '40s. I was going for Technicolor on that record, and luckily we saved it from being the last record I ever made. The way it had been going, I'm not sure if anyone would've given it a listen. John's sonic power is strong and contagious – and, because we were already friends, I felt very comfortable with him. We were able to go about making a record with no ego or strange human relationships. We could be clearheaded about the songs and the best way to present them with the arrangements." – Annie Clark

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