I can jog, but I can't run. That's hard for me. I like the fact that I can jog for fitness, but to me there's a huge difference between jogging and running.
When a performance isn't working, it's usually because the actor is trying to do something and they're not able to express their idea very well. It's a muddled expression.
It is of course the nature of historical contraction that the shortest distance to a historical destination is never a straight line.