It has always fascinated me that some actors always play themselves (Cary Grant, Jennifer Aniston, Julia Roberts, Jack Lemmon, Jodi Foster, Tom Hanks, Vince Vaughn, Diane Keaton, Sandra Bullock) and others sink so deeply inside a role until you hardly know them (Chris Cooper, Kate Blanchett, Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robert Duvall, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, Daniel Day Lewis, Matt Damon, Sean Penn, Christian Bale, Tilda Swinton). Maybe this is what audiences want. Who do you want to see the expected performance from and who would you be shocked to recognize?
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Assuming the proper role, Robert DeNiro can roll out his usual package and I'll be happy with it. Jeff Bridges seems to tread the line between the two extremes you mention.
Every character is different, yet there's still a core of Jeff bridges in there somewhere, and it's all good .
As much as I enjoy the work of all the actors you mention who lose themselves in their characters, it's only in the past few years that I have come to appreciate the level of talent and craft in actors who pretty much escape public notice. Half a dozen times over the past two years, The beloved Spouse and I have sat up halfway through an episode of JUSTIFIED and said, "Holy shit! That's the Reverend/Johnny/Dan/Ellsworth from DEADWOOD, and not usually in their first appearance. Same thing with John Hawkes and Garret Dillahunt, also DEADWOOD alums who figure prominently in WINTER'S BONE. Forget about Master Thespian; that's acting.
(Word verification = defeuque. A Cajun term, used to add urgency to a phrase, as in "Let's get defeuque out of here.")
Good list, though I'm not 100% sure I'd put Matt Damon in the second group. I'd put Nicholson in the first group and say I'm pretty tired of the same old Jack. When he does - rarely - break out of it I usually enjoy it more.
I would put Jeff Bridges in the second group, at least when thinking of The Dude, Bad Blake and Rooster Cogburn.
What about Hugh Laurie? Would you ever guess the man who was Bertie Wooster could play Greg House?
Jeff M.
Al Pacino and Hilary Swank fall into that second group I think. They are consistent favorites of mine.
Interesting question! I like Harrison Ford doing his usual thing. And I think William Hurt does a find job of disappearing into his roles.
Oh, Harrison Ford is a perfect example and yet we expect to find him, don't we.
How could I forget Jeff? He can be either, I think. In other words, he can be a regular guy or quite an off the wall one. I'd say the same for Al Pacino. Look at Kevorkian. But he is often Al.
Hilary Swank looks for roles that transport her.
Actors from THE WIRE are turning up in TREME and I have trouble placing them much like the DEADWOOD guys. One reason is Simon uses them in small doses.
Sometimes it is the audience that becomes overly familliar with the actor. For years Robert Duvall was largely unknown to the public and was the Chris Cooper of his time. But sometime in the 1980s (Maybe Lonesome Dove) he became a star and now I feel he is playing the same roll over and over again.
Garret Dillahunt does tend to play a lot of psychopaths, though admittedly different ones, like the Russian guy in LIFE or the killer in BURN NOTICE.
Jeff M.
Johnny Depp (like PIRATES) and Claire Danes (like TEMPLE GRANDIN).
To me the ultimate example of the second category is Michael Rapaport. I don't think I would recognize himself on the sidewalk.
Bill Pullman is another.
I just saw Rappaport in BIG FAN and it took me a few minutes to figure out who he was. I think his voice finally reminded me.
Pullman is good. Jeff Daniels is another.
In LA you can bump into film actors and you get the same difference. We used to live near Anjelica Huston in Venice. You could find her in the mornings out for a stroll on the ocean front walk, and she was the same cordial, gorgeous woman with the faint smile from her movies. The other day I happened to share an elevator with Benicio Del Toro, who lives in my building. He was totally unrecognizable - and, unlike many of his movie roles, pleasantly cordial.
The same with Jeff Daniels who lives in Michigan. If you run into him at a Tigers game, he'll say, "Nice play at third."
This will sound sacrelige but I always thought Stallone could've been a John Wayne-style actor but he never worked with a good enough director like John Ford
I agree completey re: the HBO series. Some terrific character actors, but somewhat confusing. Which character was s/he in The Wire? etc. I thought Zooey Deschanel was terrific in The Good Girl but not so much in bigger roles. Scott Wilson is terrific in indie films like Junebug and Come Early Morning. Marion Cotillard rocks -- some of her French language films got me hooked early.
Patti, I would add Gary Cooper and Alan Ladd to your first group. I never really bought into Cooper, or Cary Grant, for that matter. They were always the same character, and I never cared for that character.
You can watch Cooper in THE FOUNTAINHEAD and see how awful he really is as an actor. He's wooden throughout, and the big courtroom speech at the end, which Ayn Rand insisted be incorporated word-for-word into the script, was simply beyond him. As he delivers this speech, you can tell he has no idea what he's saying. The speech was a passionate encapsulation of Rand's philosophy, and Cooper just didn't get it.
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