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Who are your favorite actors?
So we did actresses, so obviously I need to ask about your favorite actors as well.
What makes them stand out and what are their best movies?
So we did actresses, so obviously I need to ask about your favorite actors as well.
What makes them stand out and what are their best movies?
I'm an old actor and my favorite actors are all dead or retired.
My very favorite of all-time is Peter O'Toole. I always said I suspected he had been formulated in a lab to perform. He is just too perfect in every way. Lawrence of Arabia is his great classic of course, but my very favorite performance by any actor ever is his portrayal of Henry II in The Lion in Winter. This is my very favorite film, which also includes stunning performances by my very favorite actress (how'd I miss that thread???) Katherine Hepburn as Eleanor d'Anjou and a very young Anthony Hopkins, Timothy Dalton, and Nigel Terry as the princes.
Marlon Brando had become a caricature of himself by the 60s (as did another favorite, Orson Welles) but his early body of work to me is the greatest collection of performances in film history. He basically invented modern naturalist realism for the screen, as well as convinced entire generations of actors (myself included) that in order to be a towering genius you needed to also be a towering asshole. What we never understood was that his difficulty came from his impatience, not arrogance. Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, and even his performance in flawed films like One-Eyed Jacks showcase his volcanic emotional power, complete lack of filter, and extraordinary sensitivity to the setting and other actors.
Until we lose him, 93 year-old Robert Duvall remains the greatest living actor in the English language. We might argue about my other choices but to me this is an incontrovertible fact. His ability to transform himself and bring gravity and raw emotional power to each role has made him the actor's actor since the 1970s. Terms of Endearment. The Great Santini. Apocalypse Now. The Godfather films. Lonesome Dove. Watching a great Duvall performance is almost terrifying because you know he will drag you through hell like no other.
I also love Paul Newman, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Ralph Richardson. And my favorite performance by an actress (better late than never) is the soul-searing genius of Mary Tyler Moore in Ordinary People.
After watching Conclave and The Grand Budapest Hotel, Ralph Fiennes is someone I need more of. I absolutely love his eloquence on the screen, and he was a perfect fit for the Ronald Dahl shorts too. I need to watch more of his stuff.
I'm also a Jake Gyllenhaal fan, he does have performances where he's just phoning it in but I do believe that he can really shine with a great script. Brokeback Mountain, Nightcrawler, and Donnie Darko are some of my favourites with him. I think he nails the "dark protagonist" for lack of a better word.
And maybe one more, Nic Cage. I honestly respect his work ethic. But above that, he really can act. Lord of War, Mandy, Pig, Longlegs. But I still haven't forgiven him for Jiu Jitsu.
I second Ralph Fiennes, just watched In Bruges last night since it'd been awhile, soo good.
I also love Denzel Washington and Robert Pattinson, to round out my recent top 3 I think. DW because he can be so intense, Training Day, Equalizer, and even his Shakespeare stuff like Macbeth and Much Ado. I can't yet put my finger on why I like RP, he's a newer addition to my list.
spoilers
You're an inanimate fucking object!!!
Nicolas Cage definitely deserves some recognition. He isn't picky about his roles and does a ton of wonky films, but I get the sense that whatever he does, he also goes in 110%. And when he gets good roles he can be fantastic. I would mention Adaptation., Dream Scenario, Moonstruck and also in The Rock as one of the greatest action movies ever.
I will watch any movie featuring him, one of my favorite actors.
One of the best critiques and and review of his work, and one I think about all the time, is the Abed-NicholasCage moment in Community.
Steve Buscemi in pretty much everything, but Big Lebowski and Death of Stalin stand out IMHO.
Neil Patrick Harris Starship Troopers, HIMYM, Dr. Horrible, just great at bringing quirky/dark comedy characters to life.
Patrick Stewart Picard. Probably had more effect on me / my self image than any other actor.
I should really have mentioned Patrick Stewart as well. If it came to how many hours I have watched of an actor, he will likely win by a big margin.
I used to have a huge thing for Nathan Fillion two decades ago and now all of Hollywood seems to copy his style of delivery. I don't see him much anymore though.
There's also several actors I've seen in series and movies over the years that I enjoy, but I'm absolutely terrible with names for them since I remember their characters and not the actor. Oh well.
He's in this show called The Rookie. It's a police procedural. It has action and comedy. I really like it. I'd recommend it if you haven't seen it
Ha! My wife recently watched this and I only paid like 10% attention... Completely missed him in it.
Pretty much every actor in the MCU.
Yeah in terms of talent, I really do not think it gets better than Oldman.
Like, the shit he pulls off and loses himself in a role...basically everyone else would not be able to pull it off (eg the Everyone in Leon).
I just wish he picked better movies lol
This was a bit more difficult for me to pick than the actresses, as their are of course plenty of good actors, they just don't stand out the same way or have made the same impressions as some actresses have.
However, I do have a few I need to mention:
Jack Nicholson is really one of those great names where his many iconic roles have stood the test of time. He is just really good at playing a manic, sometimes outright crazy, person who are both frightening and charming at the same time. While his great roles in The Shining, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Chinatown are worthy of much praise, I do want to highlight his two roles in Mars Attacks. He plays both the president and a sleazy casino owner. He is absolute mad, charming and show impressively good comedic timing.
Favorite films: Mars Attacks, The Shining, As Good as It Gets
Jim Carrey is maybe not someone that usually gets mentioned in a "best actors of all time", he fills a special place for me. I grew up with his comedies in the 90s starting with The Mask and all his great roles in Dumb & Dumber, Liar Liar, The Cable Guy and Ace Ventura. I think comedic talent is underrated when it comes to acting, and I have heard many actors say that it is way more difficult to play well in a comedy than the traditional emotional dramatic roles. Jim Carrey also managed to elevate his career by showing he had more than just a rubber face. Beginning with The Truman Show, then Man on the Moon and finishing it off with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I personally think he peaked with Man on the Moon, though Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a very close second, so it is sad to see that he never managed to continue that streak. His roles has mostly been downhill since then.
Favorite films: The Mask, Liar Liar, Man on the Moon
I just have to include Clint Eastwood as I have more or less seen all his films and I like him even when the movie is subpar. While he does play very much the same role almost every time, I think he later in his career managed to turn that stereotype into something different by sort of criticizing the macho sort of role he has played so often. Especially apparent in his own films Unforgiven and Gran Torino. Of course, it is his westerns with Sergio Leone that started it for me. I have read that he asked Leone for fewer lines when he did that role, which is really unusual as most upcoming actors want to have as many lines as possible. It just shows that Eastwood knows that he can do more with attitude than words.
Favorite films: The good, the bad and the ugly, Dirty Harry, Unforgiven, The Bridges of Madison County
Some actors and roles that have blown my socks off.
Richard gere and Lou Gossett Jr in officer and a gentleman.
Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins in Shawshank redemption.
Robin Williams in the Birdcage and Good will hunting,
Joel Grey in Cabaret. Yes it's a musical.
Al Pacino in the Godfather trilogy , and Scent of a woman.
Daniel Day Lewis in Gangs of New York.
Billy Chrystal as Miracle Max.
Edit Anthony Hopkins Remains of the Day, Shadowlands, Silence of the lambs
Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, and Tom Cruise are my big three. Versatility. I think it’s admirable that all came from humble beginnings. And at the very least Pitt and Cruise have no formal training. Quite awe inspiring. I’ve said this before but DiCaprio should have won Oscar’s for his performances in The Aviator and The Wolf of Wall Street.
In terms of classic Hollywood, I’m partial to Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart. They often played the same type of character admittedly, but they had a magnetic screen presence.
Young and up and comers: Timothee Chalamet and Austin Butler. Chalamet has seen a recent uptick in interest due to guys realizing he’s really bro-y and into sports (since I was always a fan I’ve known this for a while). It’s also cool we have a prestige actor with such a loud digital footprint.
Austin Butler wowed me with Elvis. I wasn’t familiar with him before, although I had watched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. But Elvis made me realize this guy is special. And in interviews he is so smart and eloquent. His performances in Dune Part Two and The Bikeriders are also phenomenal and shows me that his career has legs.
Here's a few slightly atypical selections:
Michael Shannon, particularly his work with Jeff Nichols.
Walton Goggins, particularly in Justified, which the girlf and I are rewatching right now.
Chris Parnell - Dr. Spaceman should have gotten his own spinoff show from 30 Rock 😂
Walton Goggins is amazing. I'd watch anything with him in it.
Brad Dourif is another character actor who deserves a lot more credit, I think.
Oh hell yeah, Wormtongue's Trek episodes are worth seeking out. I recall the one where he plays a murderer in TNG, he made that episode!
I love him in everything, but I always think of him as Boggs from one of my favorite X-files episodes
"I've already administered the epidural, so... Would you like one as well?"
😂😂😂😂😂
This is off the cuff, not a huge time investment to really think of every actor, but here goes:
I think my choices are probably pretty standard fare, and the actors are well paid not just for their abilities but to get butts in seats based on just their names.
Tom Hanks — no notes
Daniel Day Lewis — particularly There Will Be Blood
George Clooney and Brad Pitt — if it’s the pair, I’ll watch it. Their dynamics on and off screen are great.
Daniel Radcliffe — I feel like I grew up with him, and as kids we looked somewhat alike, and I’ve just never been able to shake my affinity for him. Cemented with Swiss Army Man.
Terry Crews
Honorable mentions:
Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Gosling, Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Alan Rickman, …so many more.
Conan O’Brien is technically an actor (he is in a festival film right now). By that technicality, he is really my favorite person that is also an actor.
Realizing now it’s all a bunch of white guys of a certain type.
I really like strong supporting characters and Sam Rockwell and Paul Giamatti always bring something extra to a movie.
Moon and Sideways show that they can pull off a leading man as well.
I will half-accidentally cheer whenever Keith David pops up in something and I didn't know beforehand. I latched onto his voice acting as Captain Anderson in Mass Effect and never let go. Now with Daniel Tiger constantly on in my house I'm hoping he makes a Mister Rogers' Neighborhood cameo someday...
James McAvoy: He seemed to get his big break with SyFy's Children of Dune. His part in Split was sensational.
Michael Fasbender: After his turn as David in Prometheus, Steve Jobs in Jobs,and Frank in (well... here we are again) Frank, I would watch him sell toilet paper.
(The above are ironic because of the superhero connection where Fasbender sold me with just one special scene)
Chris Evans: I'll just come out and say that he made Captain America into a character I could believe in. He played the part so well that you could almost always see that innocent weakling with the most honorable and brave heart at the core of the muscle-bound man with the shield. Despite such strength, always vulnerable. Much of that was the writing team that wrote the Cap films and the last two Avengers films but the actor had his part.
Hugh Jackman (god dammit, another superhero actor!): The Fountain made me bawl like a little child. He broke my heart. I was later fortunate to see him on Broadway in Jess Butterworth's The River: just haunting. I'm sad I may never be able to see it again and will only be able to settle for the script. Full disclosure: I'm very biased here. While both of these works, and his performances within them, are outstanding, the works and his performances within are of deep personal significance to me. I lost my first wife to Huntington's Disease and was still struggling with the trauma of her death when I saw The River with the woman who was to become my now wife. In that way, I saw coincidental reflections of myself within both performances because of where I was in my life. Oddly specific and odd that they were both played by the same man.
I've only had two actors who impressed me to the point of wanting to follow their careers.
The most recent was Lakeith Stanfield when Short Term 12 came out - it's insane how he much he stole the show in a movie with a loaded cast of Brie Larson, Kaitlyn Dever, Rami Malek, Stephanie Beatriz, John Gallagher Jr. The rap scene in particular is just amazing (doesn't have spoilers for the rest of the movie, though would recommend if you haven't seen it to watch the movie).
And then getting to see him in a leading role in Sorry To Bother You was so awesome. I think easily the best movie to come out of America since 2018; and, while a lot of credit to go around for it, he played a big role in just how good it is. I still need to see Judas and the Black Messiah, but I've heard he's amazing in it as well.
The only other actor to catch me like that was Joseph Gordon-Levitt . It was 500 Days of Summer that made me want to look deeper into him, but it was his early indie films that had me fall in love with him. His performance in Brick has since gotten appropriate attention after Rian Johnson blew up and Manic was such a great counter performance by both him and Zooey Deschanel when relating it to 500 Days
But it's the film Mysterious Skin that really fucking sells it. By far my favorite movie of all time and really stretches his talent to the max. Same with Brady Corbet in the movie - wish he did act more, but can't say he made the wrong choice by becoming a director instead with how many awards The Brutalist is winning
Lot of people I would mention have been mentioned. I'll add Glenn Howerton (Dennis in Always Sunny in Philadelphia).
He's not a proliferate actor, but I have a sense that he has phenomenal untapped range. I spend a lot of time paying attention to how actors deliver. I feel like he is really good at every little body motion fitting the scene, in a way that see very few other other actors pull off.
I've seen him pull off everything from his famous mouth-frothing rage scenes to gentle to serious and all things between and orthogonal.
I think he'd be a perfect leading hero or villain. I'd put him in a lot of the same roles as Christian Bale.
Benedict Cumberbatch. I just think he is an incredibly good actor. I started following him after Doctor Strange and Sherlock. I have mixed opinions about Sherlock, but Cumberbatch is a fantastic actor throughout. But, let’s face it, both of those are essentially the same character, just one has magic.
Then my cousin got me to watch Patrick Melrose. That is a fantastic series. Cumberbatch acts the heel out of that role throughout the entire serious. It really shows off his skills and flexibility as an actor.
He is my favorite actor, and the only one that can get me to watch a movie that I otherwise don’t care about. He wasn’t enough to want multiverse of madness, but he sure tried.
I loved Cumberbatch as Smaug!
Cumberbatch is a great actor but he's been in some pretty dire things. Mind you, I wouldn't be turning down Marvel money if I were him, and the Sherlock pilot probably looked good on paper.
His best role was Captain Martin Crieff (Cabin Pressure is amazing and totally worth a listen)
Notable, in no order.
I've been eyeing Prisoners of the Ghostland for awhile, this is the kick I needed to watch it. Thanks!
Its a strange one, absolutely strange, and that's why I absolutely loved it. It's a thousand cliches barely held together by the casual lucidity of an acid trip. Hope you enjoy it!
I believe Philip Seymour Hoffman was fantastic in basically every movie he appeared in? The Master, Capote, Synecdoche: New York, Boogie Nights, Almost Famous, ...
Whenever I see Michael Keaton he does an amazing job, e.g. in Dopesick, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), as Vulture in Spiderman or in 'Knox goes away'.
I really liked Clive Owens performance in The Knick and Children of Men.
Michael Stuhlbarg is very versatile, great in Boardwalk Empire, Dopesick and A Serious Man.
Shea Whigham appears typically as a side character and always brings a kind of distinctive calmness (?) to his roles (maybe not a good description, but english hard). He was also in Boardwalk Empire, and more recently in Perry Mason and American Primeval.
John Goodman is also usually great, very intense in 10 Cloverfield Lane, but also shines in smaller roles like in The Big Lebowski or Inside Llewyn Davis.
e: oh, since no one mentioned him: Robert De Niro is also a pretty good actor. 🙂
Christian Bale - A brilliant actor with a knack for picking brilliant movies.