Mine is William H. Macy-- though his typical role is that of a sad-sack loser each performance has enough to differentiate themselves from one another, yet has enough in common to provide familiarity
Well, Eccentro you took the obvious choice, and I'm spitting this out on the spur of the moment, but I will include amongst the land of the living, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Brendan Gleeson, Jonathan Pryce, and on the distaff side, I'd name Parker Posey and Allison Janney. I'd better stop because some of the greatest actors of all time were "character actors", including Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers.
"Naked Woman, Naked Man Where did you get that nice sun tan?"
Posts: 12874 | Location: Behind the Orange Curtain | Registered: 14 May 2004
"If it were beneficial, their father would produce children already circumcised from their mother. Rather, the true circumcision in spirit has become profitable in every respect." -Jesus, from the Gospel Of Thomas
Marcia Gay Harden is damn near the top of my list as well as Chris Cooper, Patricia Clarkson, Paul Giamatti adn even Jude Law before he became a STAR! Bruce Dern was great in the late 60s and 70s. Chris Walken and Joe Pesci (what happened to him?) weren't bad in their prime either. Are we talking more supporting roles cuz if we aren't then Sean Penn would have to be at the top, followed closely behind by Nicholson.
Here's a few from the "old days" when the studio system was in its hey day:
I love the Warner Brothers studio and its stock company.
Allen Jenkins: He was part of the Warner Brothers stock company and was always hilarious playing gangsters and second bananas who were usually losers. He was in DEAD END, for example, with Bogart playing, of course, Bogie's gangster sidekick.
Elisha Cook Jr. A terrific character actor who always played losers. He was terrific in Kubrick's THE KILLING, THE MALTESE FALCON, PHANTOM LADY (as the drummer) and I just caught up with him in BORN TO KILLER, where he played Lawrence Tierney's sidekick and, of course, he ended up six feet under. Later in his career he had a small role in ROSEMARY'S BABY playing the doorman at the Dakota.
Dan Duryea: Another terrific character actor who always played villains in films like Lang's THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW & SCARLETT STREET & Anthony Mann's WINCHESTER '73. He was also in THE LITTLE FOXES.
Frank McHugh: Jimmy Cagney's best friend and part of the Warner Brothers stock company he always played second bananas. In many, many WB films.
Edward Brophy: Another one of the many great character players in the WB stock company.
Peter Lorre: What a creep. How can you forget him in CASABLANCA, THE MALTESE FALCON, BEAT THE DEVIL and on and on and on.
Sydney Greenstreet: Always seemed to be paired with Lorre he also was in CASABLANCE & MALTESE FALCON and a Greenstreet-like character, played by Robert Morley, was in BEAT THE DEVIL.
A character actor I like quite a bit is David Thornton. He is one of those guys you see all the time, but can never remember his name. I took another look at the underrated film "High Art" on video the other day and Thornton was terrific as a supercilious photography magazine editor in a relatively small role. He was flat out terrific in a film populated with terrific performances, i.e., Ally Sheedy, in the role of her life, as a desiccated photographer; Patricia Clarkson, as a heroin addicted, washed-up actress; Radha Mitchell, the protagonist, as the a naif.
I just finished reading a biography about Bob Fosse, who directed the underrated film "Star 80," which brought to mind a terrific character actor who is underused and who was in STAR 80.
That would be David Clennon. He played a facile doctor and neighbor of Eric Roberts, the STAR 80 lead, and was terrific in that film. I think that was the film where he first appeared on my radar screen.
Clennon was also in another underrated film, Paul Schrader's LIGHT SLEEPER, where he played a drug dealer who worked for Susan Sarandon.
You can see him in another small role in SYRIANA (my choice for best film of '05) where he plays a smug justice department lawyer. He has some great scenes with Jeffrey Wright.
Like David Thornton, David Clennon is definitely underused.
I liked him in his first role, in The Paper Chase, but the ones which really stand out to me are his ineffectual bureaucrat in Costa-Gavras' Missing and his nuclear terrorist in the memorable TV flick, Special Bulletin.
"Naked Woman, Naked Man Where did you get that nice sun tan?"
Posts: 12874 | Location: Behind the Orange Curtain | Registered: 14 May 2004
You are right regarding Clennon's role in MISSING. I was going to write about that, but I thought the role was in Ollie Stone's SALVADOR. I conflated Clennon's role with that of the role Michael Murphy played as an outgoing ambassador.
I must admit that I've seen THE PAPER CHASE several times, but didn't realize or had forgotten that Clennon was in it.
Another character actor I'd like to throw a bow to is James Gammon. I recently re-watched an underrated film called THE BALLAD OF GREGORIO CORTES and he was in it. He has a deap, gravelly voice and is always so good in roles.
Also another character actor who always lights up the screen for me is Bruce McGill. He also was in GREGORIO and has been in many other films, including the made-for-cable film THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST, based on David Halberstam's acclaimed book. McGill played George Ball.
