Thought we could use a fun post as we may be nearing the constitutional abyss….
I just read there’s a one-man show about Lester Bangs playing in New York and I wished that I could go! It got me thinking about “Almost Famous”. I thought the movie was fun but a bit of a snooze when Philip Seymour Hoffman wasn’t on screen killing it as Lester Bangs (F-Mac was good too, but that was really comic relief). Billy Crudup is a wonderful actor (“Jesus’ Son” is great), Kate Hudson is charming in her own way, and the kid was fine but…they’re all a bit boring. When PSH comes on screen, you suddenly wake up and pay attention. The content of his speech about being uncool was stupid — come on, if good-looking people’s art doesn’t last, then why do people still watch Audrey Hepburn and Paul Newman movies, why do they still listen to Marvin Gaye and early Sinatra, why do they still love early Hemingway and Welles? But the delivery…
I felt a bit the same way about PSH, and also Jude Law in Mr. Ripley. When they were both dead, I wanted to leave. Do I really want to spend an hour with Matt Damon and Gwyenth? No.
I was thinking, what are other examples where one particular actor blows everyone else off the screen? Could be more than one actor but has to be a supporting role, no Mommy Dearest or There Will Be Blood.
For me, the first time I was ever struck by this was Jack Nicholson in Easy Rider. Another more recent example was Holly Hunter in Big Sick. I liked the movie but the two kids aren’t engaging screen presences, the movie only took off when Holly Hunter came in. Though it’s a larger role, I also think of Denzel Washington in Philadelphia as opposed to Tom Hanks. The stuff with Denzel coming to grips with not being homophobic draws you in, then you have to watch Tom Hanks pretend to love opera and musical theater for ten minutes. I guess this one’s twofer: Denzel is infinitely more charismatic than Tom Hanks and he also has a more interesting role.
Another good one is Daniel Day Lewis in “Room With A View”. That character he plays is a prig, but he’s just got an intensity and presence the others don’t have.
What are some other good examples?
dlwchico
Robert Duvall in pretty much any movie.
Arclite
Mark Rylance in Bridge of Spies?
Gin & Tonic
@Arclite: I was thinking precisely the same thing. Tom Hanks is so busy playing Tom Hanks that Rylance steals the whole damn movie.
Arclite
Christoph Waltz in Inglorious Basterds.
Dr. Fungus
Ian McShane, in anything I’ve seen him in, i.e., Deadwood and American Gods.
Nell
Stanley Tucci in Julie & Julia. And in The Devil Wears Prada, come to think of it.
Arclite
Ben Mendelsohn in Animal Kingdom. The entire movie is great, but Ben’s scenes are next level terrifyingly electric.
Thoughtful David
Raul Julia in _Havana_. Makes Robert Redford look like a scrub.
Manyakitty
@Dr. Fungus: Yes to Ian McShane.
Remember Robert Downey Jr in Ally McNeal? He outclassed everyone there in every scene. Glad he got his act together.
JGabriel
Doug! @ Top:
Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton and Broken Flowers.
Setsuko Hara in Tokyo Story.
The Thin Black Duke
Steve Buscemi. When his character died in Desperado, I stopped caring.
JR
Michael Keaton in Beetlegeuse. I mean yeah, it’s by design but still.
frosty
@JR: How can it be a supporting role when the character’s name is the title of the movie? But yeah, Keaton in Beetlejuice.
Mary G
Brad Pitt in Thelma and Louise.
PSH when he was “the guy in the RV” in Twister
Claude Rains in any number of movies
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Dr. Fungus: McShane is a force of nature. I don’t remember if Milch has said so, but they really changed the character, maybe the whole series, to fit him. I would only argue with this as an example since I don’t think the show drags when he’s not on screen.
a counter-example, when one actor stands out as the weak link, is Christopher Reeve in The Remains of the Day. Sorry to speak ill of the dead and he was apparently a good guy, but he really doesn’t fit in that movie.
oatler.
Al Pacino as John Milton. He chewed the Hell out of the scenery. Also he would have made a great Mr Wednesday.
Mike J
@Mary G: Also Pitt in that Mulder road trip with a serial killer movie. It wasn’t that memorable, but Pitt was menacing even when he was being nice.
The Thin Black Duke
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: To go with your counter-example of miscast actors, think of Keanu Reaves in Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula.
JPL
Memorable performances
Lee Marvin Cat Ballou
Jane Fonda In they shoot horse don’t they.
Audrey Hepburn Wait until Dark
Jack Lemmon The Apartment
Thoughtful David
Mercedes Ruehl in The Fisher King. She won a best supporting actress Oscar for it. Usually, well maybe nearly always, when I come out of a movie I’m thinking about the movie–plot, theme, etc.–and not the acting. I remember walking out of that movie and thinking, “Gee that actress did a great job!,” and I’m not one who is usually a good judge of acting or even thinks about it much. Maybe that was because it wasn’t a great movie.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Kathleen Turner blew Michael Douglas off the screen in The War of the Roses. Not the movie’s only problem, but…
Steve in the ATL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Keanu Reeves in any movie not involving Bill and Ted
Barney
Cheating by looking at the Oscar ‘supporting’ lists, Louis Gossett Jr. in An Officer and a Gentleman, and Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost.
Miss Bianca
Which I mistakenly put this in the calendar thread, so, repeating here:
David Bowie as Andy Warhol in “Basquiat”. Not that the rest of the movie is bad, it’s just that he walks away with it whenever he’s on-screen.
Annie
Mark Rylance in Dunkirk. (Mark Rylance in anything, really.)
And I concur with “Claude Rains in anything.”
Asia Kate Dillon in Billions, though I’m not sure if the impact is from the performer or the role.
bruins01
If you are talking about amazing, relatively minor performances that elevate their otherwise forgettable films, then there are a few examples I can think of.
-Robin Williams in “Good Will Hunting”
-Christian Bale in “The Fighter”
-Javier Bardem in “No Country for Old Men” but that might be both too big a role and too good a movie for this list
-Albert Brooks in “Drive” — one of the more egregious modern Oscar nomination snubs
-Jack Nicholson has had so many it’s almost unfair to include him. Easy Rider, A Few Good Men, Reds, Terms of Endearment
phantomist
Frances McDormand in Fargo. She’s listed 20th in cast credits on imdb?
Will Geer in Jeremiah Johnson.
The Thin Black Duke
In every movie that he appears in, Don Cheadle should be arrested for Grand Larceny.
bruins01
-Amy Adams in “Catch Me if You Can” (Christopher Walken, too)
-Meryl Street in about a thousand films
-Julianne Moore also in a bunch of films
My list accidentally split itself by gender and now I’m feeling self-conscious about it.
patrick II
I am going to repeat a name, but a different movie. Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Mission Impossible 3. When he was bloodied and tied to a chair he just owned the scene — being so threatening when ostensibly helpless.
Also, Hoffman in Charlie Wilson’s War. The everyman but smartest man in the room character was terrific.
Actally Hoffman in about anything.
bruins01
@The Thin Black Duke: You seem to have forgotten about Cheadle’s… unfortunate accent in Ocean’s Eleven.
m0nty
Welles in The Third Man.
raven
@phantomist: you sure you can skin grizz? Skin this un, I’ll bring you another.
raven
Walter Huston in the Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
different-church-lady
Lilly Tomiln picks up “I (Heart) Huckabees” and simply walks off the set with it.
Just One More Canuck
@Steve in the ATL: You didn’t like Johnny Moronic?
patrick II
@raven:
That was a great scene. I laughed so hard.
JR
@Barney: lou gossett’s film credits are amazing to behold
Oscar followed by endless stream of B movie dreck, excepting Enemy Mine.
cope
I am going with Richard Boone in “Hombre”.
crshark
Disagree about DD-L in “Room with a View.” Maggie Smith is every bit his equal and Denholm Elliot tops them all.
I know nobody likes the Harry Potter movies for the acting, but Alan Rickman is the master if every scene he’s in.
Gene Hackman in Young Frankenstein: “I was going to make espresso!”
The Thin Black Duke
@bruins01: Really? I loved the scene when after the alarms go off in the bank vault, Cheadle says to his gang, “You had one job to do!”
Peter
@patrick II: You beat me to it. I’ve never seen a supporting actor own an entire movie the way he did in Charlie Wilson’s War. He didn’t just masticate scenery, he downright destroyed it.
Phil Hoffman optioned my friend’s book for a TV show. They were all set to shoot, and then he died. The ensuing scramble to replace him ended up sapping all the character (literally) out of the show, and it only ran for one season.
NotMax
Too many to list, so a brief and incomplete sampling.
Peter Dinklage in “Death at a Funeral”
Maximillian Schell in “Judgment at Nuremberg”
Gertrude Hoffman in “Before Dawn” and “Caged”
Frank Faylen in “The Lost Weekend”
Akim Tamiroff in “Touch of Evil”
May Robson in “Bringing Up Baby”
William Demarest in “The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek
Elsa Lanchester in “the Big Clock”
Oskar Homolka in “I Remember Mama”
Robert Morley in “Topkapi”
Nina Foch in “Executive Suite”
In, well, anything:
“Rags” Ragland
Edna May Oliver
Mads Mikkelsen
Eve Arden
Burgess Meredith
Billie Burke
Charles Coburn
S. Z. Sakall
Edward Everett Horton
JR
Robert Carlisle in trainspotting
Amaranthine RBG
Devin Ratray in Mosaic.
I watched it a second time and just fast forwarded through all the scenes that did not have him in it.
raven
@patrick II: It took years to get a decent version and they finally did a BluRay. All the other TV and DVD’s have really washed out colors and they just suck. The bonus on the Blu Ray is the commentary by Redford, Pollack and Milius. How they filmed it on a really low budget, the sparse dialogue written by Miius, how they had to go to Kubrick two figure out how to dub and subtitle and how they found Johnson’s grave in the Vets cemetery in Santa Monica and dug him up and reinterred him in Cody (Milius shot the drunken goodbye scene in Big Wednesday at the grave before they dug him up.
raven
@cope: How you gonna get back down the hill?
Just One More Canuck
@crshark: Alan Rickman in Dogma
Dan B
Trevante Rhodes in Moonlight. He had so few lines but had me gasping for air as a closeted black man finally touching a chance at love. Still brings me to tears.
Giulietta Massini in La Strada. I remember almost no one else in that movie.
Redshift
Another reverse example is the Leonardo DiCaprio “Man in the Iron Mask.” It was before he learned how to act, so much of it is four great actors desperately trying to act around him, and it’s much better any time he’s not onscreen.
Redshift
@crshark: Alan Rickman in lots of films, in fact. He’s in plenty that aren’t bad, but where he’s just on a higher level than the rest of the cast.
kd bart
Strother Martin in a bunch of films
Joeg
@Arclite: agree Christopher Walz is great in anything.
Sessuye Hawakowa in Bridge on River Kwai
Charles Durning in lots of pics — fab is as Pappy ODaniel in O Brother, Where Art Thou
Stephen Root in O Brother… and in Boardwalk Empire
Holly Hunter in everything
Hedy LaMarr in everything
Barbara Stanwyck in her early B/w movies. Memorizing.
schrodingers_cat
Agreed about Daniel Day Lewis, in The Room with a View. That’s one of my favorite movies.
You guys don’t know them, but Nilu Phule and Mohan Agashe in almost anything.
Jabbar Patel’s 1974 Samna (Confrontation) has both of them
Irrfan Khan in Life in a Metro, the movie was a mess but Irrfan Khan’s comic turn was awesome.
Mohan Agashe had a small role as the racist uncle in Meera Nair’s Mississippi Masala.
Not a movie, but Andrew Robinson as Garak in DS9. Alison Wright as Martha in The Americans.
George Spiggott
Bill Paxton in Aliens and True Lies
NotMax
And one more which I meant to include and spaced out on completely..
Pete Postlethwaite in “Romeo + Juliet” and “The Usual Suspects”
@Dan B
Some guy name of Quinn…
;)
Doug!
@Mary G:
So true.
Arclite
@Redshift: DiCaprio in Gilbert Grape. Scene stealing. That’s well before Iron Mask.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@NotMax:
The 1939 version of “Of Mice and Men” was awesome. Burgess Meredith was George, Lon Chaney Jr was Lenny. Both of those guys from the original Broadway cast.
There were so many great silent moments in that film, just actors looking, thinking, acting, reacting. I don’t think too many directors have the courage for that much silence.
@Just One More Canuck: Oh man, every Alan Rickman moment in “Galaxy Quest”. “By Grapthar’s Hammer, what a savings”. The self-hatred just dripping off that line cracks me up every time.
When I read the original post, two things came to mind that were more theatrical than movie, so I don’t know if they count.
One was Frank Langella as Molieri in “Amadeus”. He has a moment where he is all alone on the huge stage. And he fills it, end to end. Just riveting stuff.
Another was Orson Welles on an old episode of Johnny Carson (yeah, that’s how old I am). Carson asked him if he wanted to do some Shakespeare, and he just launches into a Shylock speech from “Merchant of Venice”. As the set gets very, very quiet, and the camera zooms in. When he was done, the silence just continued forever.
Amir Khalid
Anne Hathaway in Les Miserables. Part of it is the character; Fantine is after all the representative face of human suffering in Victor Hugo’s novel. But the four and a half minutes of I Dreamed A Dream, when all you see is her face in tears and all you feel is Fantines’s grief and suffering, elevates a movie musical to great drama.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
I just saw that for the first time on the big screen a couple of weeks ago! (Had seen it once, 40-some years ago, on TV, greatly disfigured by frequent commercial breaks.)
Terrific movie. Sorry it took me so long, glad I finally saw it.
Doug!
@NotMax:
Wow!
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: and some folks say he’s up there still. . .
Arclite
@George Spiggott: Paxton is the heart in Aliens, but the movie has so much momentum that it carries you to the end regardless.
George Spiggott
Steve Martin Little Shop of Horrors
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Pat Hingle doesn’t blow the other actors off the screen in The Grifters, because the whole cast is so damn good, but his few minutes as Bobo Justice is terrifyingly memorable. Not least because amiable character actor Pat Hingle is suddenly so fucking scary. Anjelica Huston was robbed at the Oscars that year.
George Spiggott
Jeff Goldblum Jurassic Park (and just about anything )
George Spiggott
Harvey Keitel Pulp Fiction
George Spiggott
Slim Pickens Dr Strangelove
MomSense
Viola Davis in Doubt. And that is quite an achievement considering the cast.
Mr Stagger Lee
Joe Pesci in Casino and Goodfellows. Samuel L. Jackson in Django Unchained. Rodney Dangerfield and Robert Downey Jr in Natural Born Killers.
George Spiggott
Rip Torn Dodgeball: A true Underdog Story
Mnemosyne
@NotMax:
Felix Bressart is that for me. He walks away with both The Shop Around the Corner and To Be or Not to Be.
Felanius Kootea
Viola Davis in Doubt, Audrey Tatou in Dirty Pretty Things, Kate Winslet in Sense and Sensibility, Thandie Newton in Beloved, Ademola Adedoyin in October 1. Okay now I’m going to change the rules a little: Idris Elba in Long Walk to Freedom, Don Cheadle in Hotel Rwanda, Venus Seye in Faat Kine.
George Spiggott
Alec Baldwin Glengarry Glen Ross
MomSense
Jack Lemmon in every film he was in.
Mnemosyne
@MomSense:
The first thing I remember seeing Viola Davis in was Out of Sight. She stole that movie from George Clooney, Jennifer Lopez, AND Don Cheadle.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
Also “Ninotchka.”
Mr Stagger Lee
The late Bill Paxton in Aliens
geg6
@Peter:
Totally agree. And having known Gus, he personified him perfectly.
Doug!
@MomSense:
@George Spiggott:
Yes and yes
MomSense
@Mnemosyne:
Definitely. I tend to think she overacts in HTGAWM but that whole show is also over the top.
But she destroyed me in Doubt.
MomSense
@Felanius Kootea:
I think we should do a movie night!
Mary G
Robert Duvall, in lots of stuff, but in particular Apocalypse Now. “I love the smell of napalm in the morning!”
Robert Shaw also in lots of stuff, but in particular in Jaws.
hueyplong
Maybe a little obscure, but J E Freeman (the Dane) in Miller’s Crossing.
Michael Stuhlbarg holds his own in a variety of roles.
Elmo
Basil Rathbone in anything. Robin Hood with Errol Flynn. If I Were King with Ronald Colman. Anything.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
A couple of other names whom I keep a special place for the way you do for Bressart:
Art Carney
Terence Stamp
Redshift
@Arclite: Yeah, yeah, I know, I almost mentioned that as an aside. But after that, he was in a bunch of things where he basically just seemed to play himself, which sometimes was fine (Romeo+Juliet) and sometimes dreadful (the aforementioned.) I avoided him after that, and the next thing I saw him in was The Aviator, where he was amazing.
Steve in the ATL
@JR:
And that goes double for “once upon a time”, if you’re unfortunate enough to have someone in your household who watches that.
cope
@raven:
“Now you wait a minute. I’m getting back down the same way I came up.”
Mnemosyne
@Elmo:
Yes to Basil Rathbone. I always admire actors who can shift between playing heroes and villains. Ray Milland was another actor who did that really well.
Waratah
Steve McQueen, The Great Escape and every film he was in. He stole every scene.
Tokyokie
@cope: I was going to mention Boone, but not just Hombre, but pretty much anything he did. Chief Dan George stole pretty much every scene he was ever in because the cadence of his language was always a bit askew, and I loved him for it. Also, Raymond Burr in films noirs. I’ll also throw in a different British Ian other than MacShane, Ian Bannen. And not such list would be complete without the delightful Robert Morley. I heartily recommend Theatre of Blood, which boasts some of the greatest British scene-stealers of all time — Morley, Michael Hordern, Arthur Lowe, Harry Andrews — all of whom basically have one big scene, which is getting killed by Vincent Price re-enacting a scene from Shakespeare.
Mr Stagger Lee
Dennis Hopper in True Romance. R LEE Emeryville as the drill seargean in Full Metal Jacket.
Ksmiami
@Nell: and he was great in the lovely bones- scary as hell
Immanentize
And for a comedy — how about Harvey Korman in Blazing Saddles?
Mnemosyne
Also, I will reiterate the first time I remember sitting up and saying, “Wait, who is that?” when an actor stole an entire movie with just one or two lines: Colin Firth in the 1987 TV movie version of The Secret Garden.
He has, like, three lines in the last 5 minutes of the movie and it’s the only thing I remember about it. ?
Immanentize
@Mr Stagger Lee: And Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet.
I once sat sipping a Bellini in Venice at a table next to Dennis Hopper and his stunningly beautiful date. He was gracious and also not very tall.
Mnemosyne
Warren Oates in Two-Lane Blacktop.
Though a very young Harry Dean Stanton nearly wrests it away from him with a single scene as a hitchhiker.
Felanius Kootea
@MomSense: I thought the same thing when I wrote that because Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Meryl Streep and Amy Adams were incredible but Viola was amazing.
@MomSense: We definitely should – come on down to SoCal – it’s too cold in the mid west for me :-).
Ksmiami
My faves: Michael Keaton (all), bill Murray, Emily blunt in young Victoria and Sicario. Javier bardem
Ksmiami
And lastly Gary Oldman in everything from Sid and Nancy to The Professional and tinker tailor…
The Golux
Jack Warden in Heaven Can Wait. He didn’t exactly steal the movie, but I loved the scene where it dawns on him that Joe Pendleton now inhabits the body of Leo Farnsworth.
Felanius Kootea
@Mnemosyne: I liked him best in Pride and Prejudice (the BBC series).
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
I think I have mentioned before that I was incredibly lucky to meet and spend several minutes chatting with Basil Rathbone in 1961-62 when I was a student at Northwestern. Charming man. I never mentioned Sherlock Holmes, but talked instead about my introduction to him in the 1940s in a 78 rpm record album of the opera Hansel and Gretel. He was both the narrator and the Witch (a very young Jane Powell sang Gretel). I like to think he was impressed that someone remembered that otherwise forgotten enterprise.
Tokyokie
@Waratah: In the Magnificent Seven, in the scene in which he and Bryner drive the hearse to the cemetery, McQueen totally winged the bit of business in which he shakes the shotgun shells next to his ear to check whether they’re good, and that diverts the audience’s attention to McQueen. Bryner was furious with him for doing that, but John Sturges left it in.
Ken Brown
Peter Lorre, anyone?
catbirdman
Sherilyn Fenn as Audrey in the original Twin Peaks. Couldn’t get enough of her!
Elmo
@SiubhanDuinne: OMFG I would have DIED.
zmulls
I pretty much agree that Almost Famous was a big snoozefest when PSH was not on screen. Except that Frances McDormand is *also* fabulous and *also* wakes the movie up, and blows everyone else away. But yes, when those two actors are not on screen, nothing to see here, move along.
(Appreciated Fairuza Baulk and Anna Paquin as the groupies)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ksmiami: taking the thread completely off the rails, to underrated movies with big stars: Bill Murray’s Quick Change.
@Ksmiami: Twitter Nixon started a thread a few weeks back over who was the better Smiley. My heart says Guiness, but as Nixon said, Oldman’s Smiley has done some terrible, but necessary, things in the service of his country, and you see that in his face.
On the third hand, the way Guiness’s Smiley treats Connie Sachs, in both series, is pretty ruthless.
Immanentize
@Felanius Kootea: I love Firth in that. My wife and I decided, however, that he should NEVER show his teeth when he smiles. He just looks goofy and spoils the allure.
Shana
@Immanentize: What a cool memory!
SiubhanDuinne
@Elmo:
I wasn’t smart enough at the time. In retrospect, of course, I go all weak in the knees when I think of it.
piratedan
well, for me, if you’re bad guy isn’t believable then you got nothin’… so I’ll cite someone like Bob Guinton in The Shawshank Redemption, other actors who simply seem to own the screen, I always go old school and think of someone like Sidney Poitier, he had a run in the 60’s like no other.
Just One More Canuck
@Immanentize: My wife wore out her VHS copy of that, and if it’s possible to wear out a dvd, she’ll do that too. It’s her go-to show for relaxing before going to sleep.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Not in the same league but would willingly travel back and kick my twenty-something self squarely in the behind when I think of the things could have asked Jim Backus about when we found ourselves at the same table, both nursing drinks, off in a corner away from the crowds at a record company shindig.
SiubhanDuinne
@Shana:
I agree! I love stories about unplanned/unexpected celebrity encounters.
My husband (as he then was) and I once sat next to Soupy Sales in the ever-so-trendy basement bar at Black Rock (CBS HQ) in NYC. Would have been around 1967-68.
Around the same time, I accidentally came across Mitch Miller at the (I think) Americana in NYC. I ended up buying him a slice of cantaloupe, don’t ask me why.
#hangingwiththestars
#rubbingshoulderswithgreatness
#eatyourheartsoutyoujealouslosers
Immanentize
@Just One More Canuck: it was one of our comfort shows too. We loved the scene we call “floating Darcy head” when Elizabeth is recalling some of his words in the carriage…. And everything Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
hugely
gotta go with DD Lewis as Bill the Butcher in Five Points or whatever it was called. That fucker peeled the paint off the walls in the theater. Also Don Cheadle in Devil in a Blue Dress
Immanentize
@Shana: It was so cool. It was at Harry’s bar in the late afternoon. We were in the bar area. Dennis wanted some food, but the restaurant part was not yet open…. We said hello, I told him how I have seen everything he was in since the boy with the green hair. He laughed at that and thanked me for caring and then my wife and I headed back out into the streets. Probably looking for ice cream.
hugely
oh and Stormy Daniels in anything (wearing nothing)
Just One More Canuck
@Immanentize: “I am most seriously displeased”
Another Scott
I liked GP in The Royal Tenenbaums. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
MomSense
@Felanius Kootea:
She was only on screen for about 7-8 minutes. Tour De Force.
Here’s a random one. Kevin Kline in Princess Caraboo if only for the absolutely perfect accent. It was a long time ago but I remember being pleasantly surprised at how enjoyable the movie was.
Immanentize
@Just One More Canuck: “There seems to a prettyish little wilderness on one side of your lawn.”
We called our messy back corner of our yard the prettyish wilderness.
Mnemosyne
@Felanius Kootea:
Well, sure, but I thought we were supposed to be talking about scene-stealers, not co-stars. ? Mr. Darcy can’t steal Pride & Prejudice from himself!
Just One More Canuck
@Immanentize: For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?
John Revolta
Victor Buono.
MomSense
@Ksmiami:
Agreed.
Bill Nighy is another actor who is great in everything.
Immanentize
@Just One More Canuck: I have written that in many emails at work. Seriously one of the best lines ever written.
JR
Matt McCounaghey in Dazed and Confused…
Just One More Canuck
@Immanentize: Are the shades of Pemberly to be thus polluted?
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
I loved Jim Backus, long before the Gilligan’s Island days. How cool that you got to spend a bit of time with him!
Jamey
PSH would be my go-to, mostly on the back of his perfs as “Freddy” in “…Ripley” and “Scotty” in “Boogie Nights.”
But it almost always goes back to Agnes Moorhead in “The Magnificent Ambersons,” and/or John Cazale in “Godfather” and “Godfather II.” Guess I can’t look away from pathos…
Here’s a dark-horse candidate: Charles Napier in a lotta comedic roles (“Dad” in “Married to the Mob”; “Tucker McElroy” in “The Blues Brothers.”
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@NotMax: Pete Postlewaite in “In the Name of the Father” also too
Felanius Kootea
@Mnemosyne: Not if you decide to view Jennifer Ehle as the star of the series ;-).
Heidi Mom
OK, if anyone’s still here: Jamie Foxx in “Ali.” Wes Studi in “The Last of the Mohicans.” Kerry Washington in “Last King of Scotland.” Naomie Harris in “Miami Vice.” And as mentioned above, PSH in “Twister.”
cosima
Daniel Day Lewis in ‘My Left Foot’ was so astonishing — that movie was amazing, he inhabited that role so deeply. He’s a beautiful man, and much as I like to look at him in other movies where he’s dolled up, My Left Foot is his best by far.
And I know it’s not movie/big screen, but William Macy in Shameless is so amazing. His character is completely OTT, and Joan Cusack’s Sheila is great. I don’t think we made it past season 5, so perhaps it went downhill after that, but I love that show, and it is those two that make it.
cosima
@Dr. Fungus: We just binge-watched Deadwood over the xmas holidays. I’d forgotten how much I loved that show, and why, and most of it was down to Ian McShane’s acting & character, the depths of both. And when the series was over I really didn’t like Bullock, not the actor or his acting, but the character, selfish & self-righteous — I’d not really got that when we last watched the series (about 10 years ago).
Manyakitty
@cosima: Swearingen MADE Deadwood. I still miss that show.
swiftfox
@Immanentize: Scrolling through the comments looking for a Blazing Saddles reference – Wilder, Little, Korman, and Pickens are great – But Madeline Kahn is the reason to watch it in reruns.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@swiftfox: Totally agree but everyone was pretty fantastic in that movie. Speaking of which, Harvey Kormann.
Hasn’t Morgan Freeman built an entire career on this phenomenon? Surprised no one has mentioned him yet.
Allison Janey and J.K Simmons in Juno. Anne Bancroft and Eli Wallach in Keeping the Faith. Also another middling rom com, Eli Wallach in The Holiday.
Alan Rickman in his most famous role in Die Hard. Also much more recently in Bottle Shock.
cosima
@Manyakitty: No need to pine for Deadwood — the dvd cost(s) are now quite reasonable. When we wanted to watch over the xmas hols we searched but couldn’t find our copies. So, I look online, and I think I got all 3 seasons for less than £15 (turned out we’d loaned them to friends), so now we have one set to watch, another to loan out. Little C watched it with us (she is immune to violence & bad language thanks to anime), and she & I ended up having some great conversations about the grey areas of personalities/actions/etc., with Swearingen as our case study.
cope
@SiubhanDuinne: My stepdad’s uncle was a character actor in Hollywood, he did some Three Stooges films (jailer in the beer one) and was the mailman on the TV show “Hazel”. He and Jim Bacus were best buds and when he visited us, he told us kids a bunch of stories about paling around with Bacus. Being kids at the time, we were mostly familiar with Jim Bacus as the voice of Mr. Magoo.
Heidi Mom
Glad to see this thread is still alive, as I went to sleep thinking of who else to add: Barry Pepper in “Saving Private Ryan,” Courtney B. Vance in “The Hunt for Red October,” Matt Damon in “Courage Under Fire,” Geoffrey Rush and Daniel Craig in “Elizabeth,” and — maybe the greatest performance in a supporting role ever — Michael K. Williams as Omar in “The Wire.”
mere mortal
Christopher Guest, Wally Shawn, and Billy Crystal in Princess Bride.
Just about everybody in Sneakers. No, really, watch it again. Redford, Poitier, Aykroyd, Strathairn. Gods, that movie.
Spader in Blacklist.
For me, it’s pretty much about seeing actors who are way, way bigger than not just the role, but the movie.
Miss Bianca
@Heidi Mom: “Omar’s comin’! Omar’s comin’!”
Time for another binge-watch of “Deadwood” and “The Wire” both – love those shows.