Thursday, January 3, 2013

19 (Ok 20) Actors I'd Watch Anytime

Retro Hound -- a great blog you should follow -- challenged me to name 19 actors I'd watch anytime.  Since I'm a big mouth I had to go for 20...


Paul Newman 
Remade his career in the early 1980s with an amazing hot streak, He did Absence of Malice, The Verdict and The Color of Money all within a 5 year period.



Laurence Harvey 
Brooding, theatrical and gifted with superb acting tools, Harvey rarely found roles that deserved him.




                                                                    Andre Dussollier
If you have a favorite French film, he's probably in it.




Gerard Depardieu 
Yes, he’s been making an arse of himself a lot lately, but Depardieu remains one of cinema’s most charismatic talents.



Peter O’Toole
Commanding and larger than life, while retaining a gentle edge of kindness and humanity.



Jimmy Stewart 
Stewart was a rare package of honesty and charm. He was the perfect embodiment of of his generation’s ideals.




Roy Schieder
Something terrible happened to Roy in just about every movie he was in. He was the ultimate cinematic survivor.



Gene Hackman
Name a movie he was in that wasn't made better by his presence. You can't.



Tommy Lee Jones 
You can always sense a deep emotional churn that even his characters don’t fully understand.




Robert Duvall 
Check out Duvall’s early TV work on shows like Route 66 and The Fugitive. He pushed the eccentricity envelope even back then.




Toshuro Mifune 
Japan’s John Wayne, and the classic embodiment of the wandering ronin.




Marlon Brando 
In 1970, this matinee idol was considered washed up. Eight years later, due to some brilliant choices of roles, he was the highest paid actor in the history of Hollywood.





Anders Danielsen Lie 
Not many roles under his belt so far, but he has a riveting vulnerability that will make him an international star.



Morgan Freeman 
A national treasure



Michael Shannon 
Charismatic, but with dark and unstable edges. Stole Revolutionary Road from DiCaprio and Winslett and made them like it.



John Wayne 
A Hollywood star in the truest sense, with an underrated comedic ability. Despite their political and artistic differences, Wayne was always loyal and deferential to his mentor John Ford.




Henry Fonda 
Like Wayne, Fonda transcended his characters and made them true extensions of himself. He is sorely missed.




Daniel Autieul 
He makes the whole acting thing look easy, and you can’t take your eyes off of him.




Olivier Gourmet 
The perfect everyman, but there’s always more going on than meets the eye.






Jack Lemmon
Timing is everything, and Jack was the master.



8 comments:

Retro Hound said...

I should have done 20 and added Gene Hackman myself.

One could always make this list longer, I could pretty easily have added Paul Newman, but he was in some that don't really grab me.

Peter O'Toole did not have an edge of kindness in The Stunt Man. He was one mean cold SOB.

Jimmy Stewart should have been on my list.

Morgan Freeman was great in Lean on Me, he wasn't the wise sage we've come to know him as. It was nice to see him not be Morgan Freeman.

Jack Lemmon almost made my list also.

Bunched Undies said...

Au contraire mon frère, Eli Cross was a bastard until he had gotten the shot, then he was nice again. Like any director :)

Retro Hound said...

He still tried to gip him on the amount to be paid for the stunt!

Marcheline said...

Am a bit surprised there are no female actors on this list. They are actors now, you know... "actress" went out with "stewardess" and "waitress". 8-)

I'm with you on Newman, Stewart, Lemmon, Fonda, Jones, Freeman, and Brando.

Not with you on John Wayne. To me, watching him act is like eating five pounds of creamed corn. A spoonful would have been enough, but you don't get a choice.

I would have added:

* Anthony Hopkins
* Judi Dench
* Derek Jacobi
* Alan Rickman
* Kenneth Branagh
* Philip Seymour Hoffman
* Antonio Banderas
* Paul Giamatti
* Ed Norton
* Kevin Spacey


I know, I know... I should do my own list. 8-)

Bunched Undies said...

Yes....do your own list by all means! I think we are doing actresses later as a separate thingy. And yes your choices are excellent. I was thinking more toward the classics....although Synchdouche NY rules out Hoffman for me. :)

Paul van Yperen said...

Excellent choices, although three are unknown to me. So I add three of mine:

- Robert de Niro
- Alain Delon
- Rutger Hauer

Bunched Undies said...

Good ones Bob. I forgot about DeNiro, He should have been on mine

Anonymous said...

Is this heaven... haha, great list.

Adding the 3Ms in my list: Montgomery Clift, Michael Caine, and Matthias Schoenaerts (just saw Rust & Bone). xo

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