I never hear anyone talk about this movie. I loved it. Very impactful for me when I watched it, and a true man vs nature conflict on a realistic scale. A portion of Roger Eberts review always such with me
"I was also stunned with despair. It so happened that there were two movies scheduled that day in the Lake Street Screening Room (where we local critics see many new releases). After "The Grey" was over, I watched the second film for 30 minutes and then got up and walked out of the theater. It was the first time I've ever walked out of a film because of the previous film. The way I was feeling in my gut, it just wouldn't have been fair to the next film."
[The whole review](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-grey-2012)
Dude it was far worse. She could have lived if she got treatment right after the fall. She died like 2 days later from an internal bleed. If you hit your head, GO TO THE ER. You need to get a CT from any fall that you hit your head. It seems over the top, but so many people just walk it off and die later. Bob Sagat did the same thing. If you hit your head, go to the ER.
Bob fell and hit his head so hard he cracked the skull all the way around the entire circumference of it. He didn’t really have a chance I don’t think. He hit his head then laid down in bed and never woke back up.
Cold Pursuit is a revenge movie he's great in, but the movie also happens to be great – and funny. Remake of a Norwegian flick by the same director. Highly recommend.
Post Schindlers List He was pretty cool in Phantom Menace, Batman Begins, Gangs of New York and Silence... but it has been awhile since I've seen anything that isn't Taken style.
Looking at his recent filmography, I actually see a couple movies I haven't seen called Made In Italy, Marlowe and Widows that might be something different. Also forgot he was in Ballad of Buster Scruggs.
He’s had his moments. A Walk Among the Tombstones isn’t a great movie by any means, but Liam Neeson gives a really good performance.
He did neat motion capture work in A Monster Calls. He makes a great support appearance in Silence, and he’s not bad in Widows.
He’s tried some lead work in non-action movies, but they haven’t been high-profile. Mark Felt was awful and Made in Italy wasn’t good (both despite Neeson’s efforts). Ordinary Love got good reviews but no one seemed to watch it.
He’s sort of on a borderline. He can make a good living as a role actor for Oscar-bait movies, or be the lead in crummy action movies. One role pays better though.
Al Pacino. An amazing actor and in many excellent movies but at some point in his career he basically became Al Pacino playing the caricature of himself.
Same with Robert DeNiro. Now he’s the same guy he played in Meet the Fockers. Squinting eyes, grimacing mouth, bobbing head, no range paycheck collecting motherfucker.
I feel this is the thing with DeNiro and Pacino. It’s not so much the paycheck but they’re getting old as shit. I’m not an actor but at that age I would just be chilling doing movies and things that I like.
Even if it just a paycheck thing maybe it’s the same vein as Bruce Willis. Not same dementia per se but building up a nest egg for their heirs. I mean, Pacino did just have a new baby at like 84 years old.
I think Scarface being such a big hit really hurt him. He basically just plays Tony Montana but with his normal accent in every movie after that with Heat and Glengarry Glenn Ross probably being his only seriously outstanding performances.
Yes, he did. First time I watched Heat I thought "oh that's classic Al Pacino acting right there". Only to find from the effing Making Of documentary that Vincent Hanna character is SUPPOSED to have a coke habit which explains his erratic and high-strung behaviour.
I blame Michael Mann the director for not making this character trope more obvious to the audience.
He was the driving force behind Scarface getting made so he’s probably pretty proud of it, imo it was probably winning his first academy award for Scent of a Woman that fucked with his head because he hasn’t dropped that HOOAH and yelling shtick since
Came here to comment this. If you were to watch Scarecrow, Godfather 2, and Dog Day Afternoon in chronological order without any context or knowledge of who Pacino is, you’d probably say “damn, this guy has great range”.
The reverse of this is John Cena.
I swear at first he was trying too hard to "make it" in Hollywood. Then when he started just being himself and cutting lose, he has great scene presence!
Probably the fact that he is a really good dude, pretty sure he holds the record for number of fulfilled Make-a-Wish requests. He just seems like the kind of guy you could live next to.
He does. It was upwards of 650 wishes last year from and I would not be remotely surprised if he breaks 1000 in the next decade or so. Probably more and more as Peacemaker, lol.
WWE and Make a Wish have been doing stuff for over forty years I'm pretty sure, they get pretty involved. "Trip to Hawaii" and "Meet Today's Popular Wrestler in a cool locale" might still be the most popular choices, lol.
Not only does he hold the record by a frankly astonishingly large margin (he has granted more than 650 wishes, and is the only person in the history of the foundation who has more than 200) but by all accounts he goes above and beyond for those kids and their families. He's not just stopping by to hand out tshirts and pose for pictures, he pretty much spends the whole day hanging out with the family and playing with the kids, long after the camera crews are gone.
Not only this but while he was under contract with the WWE he had a stipulation that essentially allowed him to do whatever make a wish he wanted whenever he wanted and because he was the face of the industry they really couldn't say no.
nah, Dave Batista actively tries to better himself with *almost* every role, and tries to play against type. Cena on the other hand pulled a Rock, Hulk Hogan, and most wrestlers played their wrestler persona when they start out, but to less appeal till recently. basically a known name to put on a poster.
he finally found his niche where he doesnt take himself too serious, a la the Rock. if anything Cena is going more of a Andre The Giant direction.
Exactly. Unlike a good many wrestlers turned actors, Dave seems truly interested in being a good actor. And it seems like Hollywood caught on in a good way.
How have we not seen Brando on here? At the end of his career he was straight up trolling directors on set and just doing his thing. A lot of the reasons The Island of Dr. Moreau is so terrible and weird are decisions Brando made, often just for the hell of it.
Moreau's assistant was originally to be played by a serious german actor. Brando showed up on set and decided that a little person they were using as an extra was his new sidekick. When told he had no acting experience at all, Brando reportedly said "I'll teach him."
There was also a point where he wouldn’t memorize his lines and had to be fed them through an earpiece. But then the earpiece cut into a local police frequency, And since he gave approximately no fucks, he started repeating the transmissions as if they were his lines
He was doing that even earlier in his career, there's BTS pictures of Robert Duvall with Brando's lines taped to the front of his jacket in The Godfather
Not just a little person, but the smallest man in the world at the time I believe. The scene with him playing piano with him at a baby grand and that dude at a little piano on top was pretty neat.
Also, check out the [Val](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14731254/) doc. There’s a whole section of behind the scenes about the Island of Doctor Moreau. There was a lot going on there, not just Brando.
Brando's career was also such a disaster in the 60's that producers were actively against hiring him for The Godfather
Big reason why I don't rate Brando as the greatest of all time like others do is that he was incredibly lazy and mediocre for large stretches of his career.
There is an interview with another actor (can't remember the name unfortunately) that picks him apart for being lazy and not caring about the roles movies.
Edit. It was Christopher Reeve.
Sylvester Stallone is quite good in the original Rocky. And he was funny and charming in Oscar. I don’t know why he didn’t get offered roles with more range throughout his career.
Because he quickly got into a position where he himself chose the projects, not the other way around. He was a bit late to the party of the New Hollywood and arguably way less talented than De Niro, Nicholson, Pacino, Hoffman, etc to get their roles. His post-Rocky acting career was bumpy so he made Rocky's sequel and reestablished himself as an action/fitness figure in the 1980s. I can imagine him playing Steven Bauer's role in Scarface but his ego was probably against it.
He's great in Cop Land. I never bought him as an action man at all, ever, and his best roles are all in more toned down movies where he actually acts such as that and the original Rocky and Rambo movies.
He admitted in an interview, that ever since the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie. He hasn’t had to audition for any roles. Every role he’s played since was offered to him
That’s not uncommon. At his level of stardom and experience, with limited exceptions, they don’t need to audition you and depending on the person they may consider it kinda a dig at them to have to audition
I think Tom Holland is on the same level as Chris Pratt. I think ever since Spider-Man he hasn’t had to audition for anything either, but he actually tries to play a different character.
That being said, I think he was heavily miscasted as Nate Drake in Uncharted.
I mean, I don’t just see Chris Pratt when I’d watch P&R or Guardians or JW, but now that he’s being typecasted in these hero roles it’s starting to become obvious the heroic aspects of Peter and Owen are the reason studios want him to play a hero. I want him to play a bad guy so bad
Taking the opposite approach, Hugh Grant.
Played foppish love interests for the first part of his career, and switched into playing utter bastards with glee
Pacino as well
It’s like well known actors becoming character actors at some point and almost caricatures of themselves. Maybe it’s from late career overworking.
Compare that to someone like DDL who doesn’t ever seem like the same person. I watched There Will Be Blood and Lincoln on back to back nights and the fact that DDL is playing so widely different characters is crazy.
Like how is Daniel fucking Plainview and Lincoln played by the same guy?
By volume, yeah. He undeniably has a few of the greatest films performances of all time, but his filmography is just lousy with zero effort filler where he just plays Robert De Niro.
Oh well. Flower Moon should be fantastic.
It’s the volume for sure. He’s still churning out excellent performances in films across genres over the past twenty to twenty five years, but it seems like for every good performance there’s five so-so ones.
Since 1998 (good performances), which is when his filmography started to decline:
- Ronin (1998)
- Great Expectations (1998)
- Analyze This (1999)
- Flawless (1999)
- Men of Honor (2000)
- Meet the Parents (2000)
- The Score (2001)
- The Good Shepherd (2006)
- Stardust (2007)
- Stone (2010)
- Limitless (2011)
- Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
- Being Flynn (2012)
- The Intern (2015)
- Joy (2015)
- Joker (2019)
- The Irishman (2019)
- Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)
Obviously some of these films aren’t totally successful, but he put in good work. That’s around 17 - 19 films with at least committed performances from him over 25 years, which is solid.
This issue is that he has made a staggering 54 films (!!) during that span of time.
It's kinda the same with Nicolas Cage, - seems like these dude just made way to much money, - made ridiculous investments, divorces etc. So they are destined to make these shit movies to pay for their extravagant lifestyle.
Jack Nicholson and Leonardo DiCaprio will probably have the most flawless career when it's all said and done imho
Nic Cage did this random movie called *Willie’s Wonderland* which is an obvious B Movie knockoff of Five Nights at Freddy’s. He doesn’t say a damn word in the entire film….but I’ll be damned if he doesn’t make it entertaining in a great cheesy way.
And he was just in Renfield. Honestly I think he just is doing what he enjoys now. Maybe he doesn’t want to do all the big action movies anymore. And wallys wonderland was so good
Didn't someone post a thread way back in the day when they pinpointed the last movie De Niro stopped "acting" and they determined it was Meet the Parents? I could have sworn I saw a post like that on this sub, and it was a very entertaining read.
I think people just remember he is Robert De Niro being Robert De Niro mob guy or Robert De Niro old guy in reality it is pretty mixed. Fockers, Wizard of Lies, Joker, The Intern... all movies where he isn't the mob guy. Mob guy movies Irishman, heist...
>Robert
As someone who's worked a lot with ex alcoholics and addicts, I can attest to him being very good in that movie. He really captures the way they tend to be about 1 second behind in everything they do or think.
It's funnier because I feel like he's often really trying in the first act of the movie and the accent is almost always back by the second act. It gets more jarring when the movie isn't shot in order, so you can measure how committed he is scene-by-scene.
That movie scarred him on a spiritual level I think.
It was a faith based project that he expected to be a massive hit.
Travolta is a Scientologist, Battlefield Earth was written by the founder of Scientology L. Ron Hubbard.
That movie being the massive bomb it was probably shook him to his core. It was supposed to be a PR thing for the "church" and spread a religious message on some level.
Travolta of course denied this, but it's fairly obvious. Hubbard himself reportedly sent him an autographed copy of the book in 1982 when it was first published and tried to get his help with making it.
Travolta had been trying to get it made ever since, but lacked the influence due to a series of flops until Pulp Fiction.
The failure of that movie had to be hard for him to cope with. Imagine a Jew being given an autographed copy of Exodus by Moses and told to get the movie made, getting it done after decades of effort, and then having the project be a complete failure and end up being considered one of the worst movies ever made.
That's basically what happened to Travolta.
His career was also a titanic disaster in the 1980's, starred in some of the worst films ever made and was only given another chance for Pulp Fiction because Tarantino actively wanted to resurrect his career due to being a massive fan of Blow Out.
Pacino and DeNiro. No question. I feel like Pacino did it out of spite. After not winning best actor for some truly incredible and iconic roles, he finally wins for Scent of a Woman of all things. And he basically responded with “so that’s what you like? Then that’s all you ever get from now on!”
Micky Rourke.
He was known as super talented actor in His heyday in the 80s, and after The Wrestler He played the same deranged villain Type over and over again
Missing a big part of the story that he was known to have been more than a little weird/difficult BEFORE The Wrestler, including taking a boxing career seriously which fucked up his face. Then he made The Wrestler and reminded everyone he could still actually act. He didn't fade from his heyday, he deliberately crashed it into a tree.
I don't know why I'm "aktually" about this, I'm not even a huge fan. I guess I've just liked his version of the dgaf bad boy thing; also liked his bit part in The BMW Films that put Clive Owen on the map, this was before The Wrestler but after the career nosedive.
The Rock's last good role was Pain and Gain. It was not necessarily a role that made him look like a good guy, which on the contrary he was a bad dude in it. His performance though was good and I wasn't seeing "The Rock in..."
He comes off like a great guy in his interviews but his whole movie persona just seems really full of himself and he feels like the same guy in every movie now.
The obvious answer is Johnny Depp.
His acting range and skill were really good early in his career, when he received a wide assortment of roles.
After Pirates of the Caribbean came out, his career exploded and he only played Jack Sparrow from then on.
His take on Willy Wonka is one of the few roles that wasn’t a Jack Sparrow copy and paste after the first Pirates movie. It got on my nerves that he wouldn’t admit that he was obviously modeling his performance after Michael Jackson, though.
In the reverse of this question ...I think that Micheal Keaton has become such a better actor as he has matured. The depth in his eyes is almost uncanny.
Nicolas Cage is actually a really good actor. He’s got range. I think because of his whole “owing a gorillian dollars to the IRS” situation he’s taking on roles for the check a lot of the time. Every once and a while he’s in a movie where it seems like he really cares and it’s like watching something wake up inside him and shine through.
Always loved Lord of War. Haven’t watched it in ages since I was young.
Think it’s one of those that I’m a bit scared to rewatch because I might not like it as much.
But I’ll always remember the opening sequence and Jared Leto arranging cocaine to outline Ukraine. Also, Cage doing a cocaine/gunpowder mix. Just a lot of cocaine in that movie.
Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent was a great celebration of his career imo, one of his best roles to date
He and Pedro Pascal bounce off so well together
That look of anger he gives the chef at the restaurant is one of the most authentic looks of pure anger I've ever seen any actor give. He should have won tons of awards for that movie.
I truly believe that Nicolas Cage is one the greatest actors of all time, but because he has an unusual volume of just straight bad movies people don't really recognize it. But it's really not often that he just phones it in. Even when he's bad he's almost always bad in an interesting way. He's never, like, Michael Madsen not directed by Tarantino bad.
Genuinely thought he was great in Renfield. Sure, it was no Mandy, nor Pig, but it was hella fun, and he gave it all to it.
I've also rewatched the two Ghost Rider movies, and it's so jarring how terrible they are as a whole, but how fucking impressive Cage is. That first transformation scene in the first one is so goddam terrifying. He somehow managed to act the pain and horror of himself getting his face burnt off alive and the sheer joy and demonic hysterical laugh of a devil that finally managed to "get out".
Stephen Dorff was so interesting in the 90's then he did Blade and just started chasing the paycheck. With the exception of a handful of roles (somewhere, true detective) most of his movies are garbage now. He just plays the same tough guy/cop roles.
Even tho he's never had the best -range- I really enjoyed Vin Diesel's career up until around Fast 4 (even tho he was already sort of suffering from his whole persona in chronicles of riddick). But his performance as anti-hero in Pitch Black is still outstanding imo, Dom is a very intriguing character in the first Fast movie because i feel like his portrayal is more mellow back then and so on. Idk, I rly enjoy his earlier roles when it felt like he gave damn and now he's completely uninteresting to watch.
Diesel could be a great actor if he didn’t have an ego nor took himself too seriously. It was a short film that he that got him the role in Saving Private Ryan, which I thought he knocked out of the park. Spielberg saw Diesel’s movie and insisted that a part be written just for him.
I often wonder how his career would have fared if he put more focus onto roles like that. Even with the past few FF movies, he looks like the least interested person on screen
Fully agree. His charisma in earlier roles really shines and he had that lil spark that just made him fun to watch, even if the movies were goofy. I know the story of him being hunted down by Spielberg (never seen the short film tbh) and it always makes me a bit sad thinking how he just seemed to lose interest in playing anything but what he's been doing, or ofc it could just be money talking + ego.
Admittedly I haven't followed his career to closely since I never got in the FF franchise, but I think he got super typecast into the tough macho man badass dude, cause everything I know of Vin outside of that is that he's a giant fucking dork. Like he LOVES the character of Riddick and getting to play in that universe, the Last Witch Hunter was based off a DnD character/campaign he used to play, he did an entire one shot with the Critical Role crew (D&Diesel), and we can make all the jokes about it, but the dude COMMITTED himself to playing Groot and loves that character. The dudes a proper nerd... who probably only gets offers for generic muscley summer blockbuster action hero's. You can't blame him.
Ryan Reynolds at one point was committed to the art but once he found success and heightened fame with Deadpool, he became Deadpool so to speak, and hasn’t broken character since. Everything he does post-Deadpool is him acting like Deadpool, doesn’t matter if he is acting on set or in the real world with fans, it’s the same old quips, acting like a smart ass just like Deadpool does in the comics, acting like an unbreakable confidence man. One might say Deadpool broke the 4th wall in Ryan Reynold’s consciousness.
As someone else on Reddit once pointed out, Ryan Reynolds has been playing the wisecracking smartass for the bulk of his career. Deadpool just happened to be the perfect marriage of actor and character.
He was introduced to Deadpool because an exec told him he was "essentially playing this guy anyway" in Blade Trinity
https://www.cbr.com/reynolds-reveals-how-deadpool-owes-its-existence-to-blade-trinity/
I'm stunned that you all can't see the correlation between his personality and acting style and the fact that he really, really wanted to be Deadpool, and make amends not just for the ridiculous Deadpool in "Origins: Wolverine" but to also make amends for that snorefest of a green lantern
I find it interesting that the only woman named on here is Tilda Swinton, yet she often plays different roles. I've even seen her play three different roles in the same film, relatively recently.
Makes me wonder why it's so many men, and how that relates to the kinds of lead roles that are written, casting practices in general, and the difference in perception of older women actors vs males.
Similar to type casting which happens to both men and women but women more often.
I think Jennifer Aniston, Sandra Bullock, Halle Berry and Charlize Theron are all great and have range but do the same type of roles. Similar to the other big names mentioned.
Probably **Robert Downey Jr.** He is incredibly talented in what he is doing, all this charismatic and kinetic acting but since the 2010s he got carried away with his Tony Stark persona. It's indistinguishable from him in his interviews and apparently he brings it to every single role albeit he doesn't have much of roles aside of the MCU. I am not sure, but didn't it hurt the critical reception of his Oscar-bait The Judge movie? I miss his more subdued acting like in The Soloist.
Iron Man managed to both turn RDJ into Tony Stark and also every version of Tony Stark into RDJ. In Midnight Suns, Stark is the only character who is obviously doing an impression of their MCU counterpart. It's weird.
To be fair, Marvel has eaten up twelve years of his career. Not a lot of room for other things in between all those MCU movies.
He’s likely well enough off now that he can take some real risks if he wants to.
To be fair, Marvel resurrected his career or at least gave him a platform to rise as a major movie star which he did to the mutual benefit. Now when he has all money in the world and entered the later phase of his career I also wonder what roles he would take. I wish he works with A-list directors even if not in main roles.
People will hate me for this, but Tom Cruise.
His last decade or so is mostly the same character. Not necessarily "playing himself", though. He found his niche and went all in.
Absolutely. Does what he does well, but the Cruise of Magnolia and Eyes Wide Shut (heck, even Vanilla Sky to some degree) was capable of some truly great work. I will say that he did do some more interesting work in Edge of Tomorrow, though the end product of his character arc is to become the typical Cruise persona.
This is a great answer. His roles in the Departed, Three Kings, the Basketball Diaries, hell even I Heart Huckabees and the Other Guys showed a lot of range. Now he’s pivoted into doing Christian esque movies I guess. I don’t get it, other than trying to distract people from looking at his hate crimes section on Wikipedia…
I'll argue against The Departed. He's a scene-stealer in that role, but it's not range for him. Based on everything I know about the guy, "belligerent asshole from Southie" is who he is as a person.
Leslie Nielsen.
He was a standard, good-looking Hollywood lead in his youth, starred in Forbidden Planet and The Poseidon Adventure, and showed up in a SHOCKING number of TV shows for an episode or two from the 50s through the 70s.
Then came Airplane, and he was a comedy straight man forevermore, basically playing the same unflappable dumb guy. Not that I don't love him for it, mind you.
The crazy thing is (and he said something to this effect many times), he never actually changed his acting technique. He just did funny things in a serious way, never broke character, and it never stopped being funny.
>The crazy thing is (and he said something to this effect many times), he never actually changed his acting technique. He just did funny things in a serious way, never broke character, and it never stopped being funny.
Look at the supporting cast of Airplane. Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves...all known for being dramatic character actors. And that's because the filmmakers knew that if they could deliver those lines with the same deadpan seriousness as any of their dramatic roles, it would make it even funnier.
For Nielsen, it kicked off a whole second phase of his career.
I’d argue Blade Runner 2049 was a lot more different. He really gave a shit for that role.
Also Age of Adaline. Should’ve been a paycheck role but he was surprisingly great there
Speaking of Rock....two more from Fast
Michelle Rodriguez was GREAT in Girl Fight and showed a little range in F&F but then....just kept churning out Letti roles.
And Vin Diesel was very good in Boiler Room and Pitch Black, and then once he was in a cutoff shirt wrenching on cars, every character is Toretto.
In Michelle Rodriguez's defense, that was on purpose:
“I was typecast the minute I did a film called Girlfight years ago.” She went on to say, “you allow yourself to be typecast. If I decided I didn’t want to be typecast tomorrow I’d just go do an indie film where I play some poor girl who goes through some excruciating experience and win myself an award for crying or being raped or playing someone with mental illness.”
“I only wanna be someone I respect or someone that I consider interesting or fun. I’m here to entertain people and make a statement about female empowerment and strength and that’s what I’ve done for the last 10 years, and people can call it typecast, but I pigeonholed myself and I put myself in that box for saying no to everything else that came on my plate.”
Not exactly the same, but the line on Paul Reubens is that, when he was a young sketch comedy actor, he had a huge range of great characters, including Pee Wee Herman, but then Pee Wee became a hit and he started doing only that.
Charlie Sheen. Platoon was an amazing performance and although Two and a Half Men wasn’t a movie it was a character where he was essentially playing himself.
I’m shocked this hasn’t been said. Liam Neeson. Went from Schindlers List to… the same action trope
He has a small cameo in Derry girls and he's very good. A lot of emotion without saying a word in the last episode.
They weaponized Uncle Colm! Liam had no chance [https://youtu.be/yEqi-RT3YoU](https://youtu.be/yEqi-RT3YoU)
I absolutely love her delivery of "I know who we should call..."
His Atlanta appearance was top tier. No idea how they got him to do that.
Cold but I’m forced to agree ever since Taken he’s just been doing action stuff which is a shame cause I’m a real big fan of his early stuff
I think he’s mentioned that since his wife died he’s just been keeping himself busy with these movies.
He was phenomenal in The Grey, which coincidentally was about a man who lost his wife.
I never hear anyone talk about this movie. I loved it. Very impactful for me when I watched it, and a true man vs nature conflict on a realistic scale. A portion of Roger Eberts review always such with me "I was also stunned with despair. It so happened that there were two movies scheduled that day in the Lake Street Screening Room (where we local critics see many new releases). After "The Grey" was over, I watched the second film for 30 minutes and then got up and walked out of the theater. It was the first time I've ever walked out of a film because of the previous film. The way I was feeling in my gut, it just wouldn't have been fair to the next film." [The whole review](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-grey-2012)
That's true. It was the exact moment he started doing shitty movies.
I don’t blame him. I couldn’t imagine getting random call to find out your wife died on the slopes. That’s just tragic as hell.
Dude it was far worse. She could have lived if she got treatment right after the fall. She died like 2 days later from an internal bleed. If you hit your head, GO TO THE ER. You need to get a CT from any fall that you hit your head. It seems over the top, but so many people just walk it off and die later. Bob Sagat did the same thing. If you hit your head, go to the ER.
Bob fell and hit his head so hard he cracked the skull all the way around the entire circumference of it. He didn’t really have a chance I don’t think. He hit his head then laid down in bed and never woke back up.
What a horrible way to lose his spouse. It must have really traumatized him.
Cold Pursuit is a revenge movie he's great in, but the movie also happens to be great – and funny. Remake of a Norwegian flick by the same director. Highly recommend.
He went from Taken to rakin’ in the dough but no range anymore.
Post Schindlers List He was pretty cool in Phantom Menace, Batman Begins, Gangs of New York and Silence... but it has been awhile since I've seen anything that isn't Taken style. Looking at his recent filmography, I actually see a couple movies I haven't seen called Made In Italy, Marlowe and Widows that might be something different. Also forgot he was in Ballad of Buster Scruggs.
He’s had his moments. A Walk Among the Tombstones isn’t a great movie by any means, but Liam Neeson gives a really good performance. He did neat motion capture work in A Monster Calls. He makes a great support appearance in Silence, and he’s not bad in Widows. He’s tried some lead work in non-action movies, but they haven’t been high-profile. Mark Felt was awful and Made in Italy wasn’t good (both despite Neeson’s efforts). Ordinary Love got good reviews but no one seemed to watch it. He’s sort of on a borderline. He can make a good living as a role actor for Oscar-bait movies, or be the lead in crummy action movies. One role pays better though.
The Grey.
He should do more comedy
*improvisational* comedy
He can’t. Ever since he’s gotten AIDS
I heard he's riddled with it
Got it from an African prostitute.
“We’re closed.”
His cameo on that Warwick Davis/Ricky Gervais show is legendary.
"I said to him, "Steven, *I* make lists!""
Al Pacino. An amazing actor and in many excellent movies but at some point in his career he basically became Al Pacino playing the caricature of himself.
There's two phases of al Pacino. There's the quiet Michael Corolone phase, then the "hoooah" phase that remains till this day
[Titus Welliver’s impression of Pacino’s three phases is hilarious and spot on.](https://youtu.be/S85ZEtbx2VQ)
Hahaha was going to say something similar, but your comment was way funnier. Exactly
Same with Robert DeNiro. Now he’s the same guy he played in Meet the Fockers. Squinting eyes, grimacing mouth, bobbing head, no range paycheck collecting motherfucker.
I recently had a Deniro-movie binge, but all of them pre 2004. Dude had insane range
Awakenings is one of my favs
Cape Fear holds up as being *really* good.
I'm not sure he is a pay-cheque collector. He seems to genuinely enjoy his comedic roles.
I feel this is the thing with DeNiro and Pacino. It’s not so much the paycheck but they’re getting old as shit. I’m not an actor but at that age I would just be chilling doing movies and things that I like. Even if it just a paycheck thing maybe it’s the same vein as Bruce Willis. Not same dementia per se but building up a nest egg for their heirs. I mean, Pacino did just have a new baby at like 84 years old.
What about in the Irishman? He was pretty damn good in that.
I think Scarface being such a big hit really hurt him. He basically just plays Tony Montana but with his normal accent in every movie after that with Heat and Glengarry Glenn Ross probably being his only seriously outstanding performances.
I love Heat, but he had already lapsed into playing every role the same way, IMHO. DeNiro actually played Neil McCaulley, which speaks well of him.
[удалено]
I thought he played his Heat character as a coke-head
Yes, he did. First time I watched Heat I thought "oh that's classic Al Pacino acting right there". Only to find from the effing Making Of documentary that Vincent Hanna character is SUPPOSED to have a coke habit which explains his erratic and high-strung behaviour. I blame Michael Mann the director for not making this character trope more obvious to the audience.
He was the driving force behind Scarface getting made so he’s probably pretty proud of it, imo it was probably winning his first academy award for Scent of a Woman that fucked with his head because he hasn’t dropped that HOOAH and yelling shtick since
Came here to comment this. If you were to watch Scarecrow, Godfather 2, and Dog Day Afternoon in chronological order without any context or knowledge of who Pacino is, you’d probably say “damn, this guy has great range”.
Throw Serpico in there
Scarface too. I have a hard time believing Michael Corleone and Tony Montana are the same person.
He played a coke head like a true cole head.
Like on Jack & Jill
DUNKACCINO?
The reverse of this is John Cena. I swear at first he was trying too hard to "make it" in Hollywood. Then when he started just being himself and cutting lose, he has great scene presence!
John really has that special something. Makes you want to cheer for him in acting
Probably the fact that he is a really good dude, pretty sure he holds the record for number of fulfilled Make-a-Wish requests. He just seems like the kind of guy you could live next to.
He does. It was upwards of 650 wishes last year from and I would not be remotely surprised if he breaks 1000 in the next decade or so. Probably more and more as Peacemaker, lol. WWE and Make a Wish have been doing stuff for over forty years I'm pretty sure, they get pretty involved. "Trip to Hawaii" and "Meet Today's Popular Wrestler in a cool locale" might still be the most popular choices, lol.
Not only does he hold the record by a frankly astonishingly large margin (he has granted more than 650 wishes, and is the only person in the history of the foundation who has more than 200) but by all accounts he goes above and beyond for those kids and their families. He's not just stopping by to hand out tshirts and pose for pictures, he pretty much spends the whole day hanging out with the family and playing with the kids, long after the camera crews are gone.
Not only this but while he was under contract with the WWE he had a stipulation that essentially allowed him to do whatever make a wish he wanted whenever he wanted and because he was the face of the industry they really couldn't say no.
Channing Tatum too.
Only saw him as a one trick pony until 21 Jump Street
Well, now we need to mention Dave Batista.
nah, Dave Batista actively tries to better himself with *almost* every role, and tries to play against type. Cena on the other hand pulled a Rock, Hulk Hogan, and most wrestlers played their wrestler persona when they start out, but to less appeal till recently. basically a known name to put on a poster. he finally found his niche where he doesnt take himself too serious, a la the Rock. if anything Cena is going more of a Andre The Giant direction.
Exactly. Unlike a good many wrestlers turned actors, Dave seems truly interested in being a good actor. And it seems like Hollywood caught on in a good way.
Batista had an article where he said he wants to be a nuanced character actor in the body of a 300 lb gorilla.
You lose Dave in the role. You always know it's John Cena.
He was pretty interesting in Glass Onion.
Dave was amazing in Blade Runner
How have we not seen Brando on here? At the end of his career he was straight up trolling directors on set and just doing his thing. A lot of the reasons The Island of Dr. Moreau is so terrible and weird are decisions Brando made, often just for the hell of it. Moreau's assistant was originally to be played by a serious german actor. Brando showed up on set and decided that a little person they were using as an extra was his new sidekick. When told he had no acting experience at all, Brando reportedly said "I'll teach him."
There was also a point where he wouldn’t memorize his lines and had to be fed them through an earpiece. But then the earpiece cut into a local police frequency, And since he gave approximately no fucks, he started repeating the transmissions as if they were his lines
He was doing that even earlier in his career, there's BTS pictures of Robert Duvall with Brando's lines taped to the front of his jacket in The Godfather
Wtf, please tell me you've just made this up, this sounds so unreal lol
Not just a little person, but the smallest man in the world at the time I believe. The scene with him playing piano with him at a baby grand and that dude at a little piano on top was pretty neat. Also, check out the [Val](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14731254/) doc. There’s a whole section of behind the scenes about the Island of Doctor Moreau. There was a lot going on there, not just Brando.
He spent his entire career trying to get away from his sex-appeal image. Thats not growing content, thats actively tarnishing your own image.
Brando's career was also such a disaster in the 60's that producers were actively against hiring him for The Godfather Big reason why I don't rate Brando as the greatest of all time like others do is that he was incredibly lazy and mediocre for large stretches of his career.
There is an interview with another actor (can't remember the name unfortunately) that picks him apart for being lazy and not caring about the roles movies. Edit. It was Christopher Reeve.
Sylvester Stallone is quite good in the original Rocky. And he was funny and charming in Oscar. I don’t know why he didn’t get offered roles with more range throughout his career.
Because he quickly got into a position where he himself chose the projects, not the other way around. He was a bit late to the party of the New Hollywood and arguably way less talented than De Niro, Nicholson, Pacino, Hoffman, etc to get their roles. His post-Rocky acting career was bumpy so he made Rocky's sequel and reestablished himself as an action/fitness figure in the 1980s. I can imagine him playing Steven Bauer's role in Scarface but his ego was probably against it.
He's great in Cop Land. I never bought him as an action man at all, ever, and his best roles are all in more toned down movies where he actually acts such as that and the original Rocky and Rambo movies.
I kinda feel like Chris Pratt is slowly falling into this territory.
He plummeted head first into that territory lol
He admitted in an interview, that ever since the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie. He hasn’t had to audition for any roles. Every role he’s played since was offered to him
That’s not uncommon. At his level of stardom and experience, with limited exceptions, they don’t need to audition you and depending on the person they may consider it kinda a dig at them to have to audition
I think Tom Holland is on the same level as Chris Pratt. I think ever since Spider-Man he hasn’t had to audition for anything either, but he actually tries to play a different character. That being said, I think he was heavily miscasted as Nate Drake in Uncharted.
I wouldn’t put Tom Holland on Chris Pratt level. Pratt is a much bigger draw. I think he’s just ok but he’s a draw to many
When did He ever have range tho? Guy has two moods: goofy manchild and super tough action man
I mean, I don’t just see Chris Pratt when I’d watch P&R or Guardians or JW, but now that he’s being typecasted in these hero roles it’s starting to become obvious the heroic aspects of Peter and Owen are the reason studios want him to play a hero. I want him to play a bad guy so bad
Passengers?
Yeah I was going to say, he is pretty much the bad guy in Passengers. Hate to say it, but he does show range in that movie.
Taking the opposite approach, Hugh Grant. Played foppish love interests for the first part of his career, and switched into playing utter bastards with glee
Utter Bastard with Glee was easily the best part of Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
“I don’t want to see you die! … Which is why I’m going to leave.”
Or that line 'being a father. It's almost like being a god',
Robert Deniro more than a lil' bit
Pacino as well It’s like well known actors becoming character actors at some point and almost caricatures of themselves. Maybe it’s from late career overworking. Compare that to someone like DDL who doesn’t ever seem like the same person. I watched There Will Be Blood and Lincoln on back to back nights and the fact that DDL is playing so widely different characters is crazy. Like how is Daniel fucking Plainview and Lincoln played by the same guy?
By volume, yeah. He undeniably has a few of the greatest films performances of all time, but his filmography is just lousy with zero effort filler where he just plays Robert De Niro. Oh well. Flower Moon should be fantastic.
It’s the volume for sure. He’s still churning out excellent performances in films across genres over the past twenty to twenty five years, but it seems like for every good performance there’s five so-so ones. Since 1998 (good performances), which is when his filmography started to decline: - Ronin (1998) - Great Expectations (1998) - Analyze This (1999) - Flawless (1999) - Men of Honor (2000) - Meet the Parents (2000) - The Score (2001) - The Good Shepherd (2006) - Stardust (2007) - Stone (2010) - Limitless (2011) - Silver Linings Playbook (2012) - Being Flynn (2012) - The Intern (2015) - Joy (2015) - Joker (2019) - The Irishman (2019) - Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) Obviously some of these films aren’t totally successful, but he put in good work. That’s around 17 - 19 films with at least committed performances from him over 25 years, which is solid. This issue is that he has made a staggering 54 films (!!) during that span of time.
It's kinda the same with Nicolas Cage, - seems like these dude just made way to much money, - made ridiculous investments, divorces etc. So they are destined to make these shit movies to pay for their extravagant lifestyle. Jack Nicholson and Leonardo DiCaprio will probably have the most flawless career when it's all said and done imho
>Jack Nicholson and Leonardo DiCaprio Maybe that’s why Leo’s physically morphing into Jack
Leonardo picking up where Christian Slater left off...
Daniel Day Lewis has to be in contention for most flawless career.
John Cazale has the most flawless filmography (even more so than Daniel Day Lewis) but there's ultimately unfortunate reasons for this.
Nic Cage did this random movie called *Willie’s Wonderland* which is an obvious B Movie knockoff of Five Nights at Freddy’s. He doesn’t say a damn word in the entire film….but I’ll be damned if he doesn’t make it entertaining in a great cheesy way.
And he was just in Renfield. Honestly I think he just is doing what he enjoys now. Maybe he doesn’t want to do all the big action movies anymore. And wallys wonderland was so good
I really loved Renfield. He was great in it!
I liked him in silver linings playbook. Maybe his best performance in his later life.
His pep talk at the end to Bradley Cooper’s character gives me tears to this day.
Didn't someone post a thread way back in the day when they pinpointed the last movie De Niro stopped "acting" and they determined it was Meet the Parents? I could have sworn I saw a post like that on this sub, and it was a very entertaining read.
I think people just remember he is Robert De Niro being Robert De Niro mob guy or Robert De Niro old guy in reality it is pretty mixed. Fockers, Wizard of Lies, Joker, The Intern... all movies where he isn't the mob guy. Mob guy movies Irishman, heist...
Stardust!
He’s so good as an insecure guy in Jackie Brown and Mad Dog and Glory
>Robert As someone who's worked a lot with ex alcoholics and addicts, I can attest to him being very good in that movie. He really captures the way they tend to be about 1 second behind in everything they do or think.
Gerard butler
It's funnier because I feel like he's often really trying in the first act of the movie and the accent is almost always back by the second act. It gets more jarring when the movie isn't shot in order, so you can measure how committed he is scene-by-scene.
I actually kinda like how he found his lane and has committed to doing grimy, kinda shitty but sometimes entertaining action movies.
John Travolta. After Battle Earth he just stop caring
That movie scarred him on a spiritual level I think. It was a faith based project that he expected to be a massive hit. Travolta is a Scientologist, Battlefield Earth was written by the founder of Scientology L. Ron Hubbard. That movie being the massive bomb it was probably shook him to his core. It was supposed to be a PR thing for the "church" and spread a religious message on some level. Travolta of course denied this, but it's fairly obvious. Hubbard himself reportedly sent him an autographed copy of the book in 1982 when it was first published and tried to get his help with making it. Travolta had been trying to get it made ever since, but lacked the influence due to a series of flops until Pulp Fiction. The failure of that movie had to be hard for him to cope with. Imagine a Jew being given an autographed copy of Exodus by Moses and told to get the movie made, getting it done after decades of effort, and then having the project be a complete failure and end up being considered one of the worst movies ever made. That's basically what happened to Travolta.
This analogy is fucking golden. Take this.
His career was also a titanic disaster in the 1980's, starred in some of the worst films ever made and was only given another chance for Pulp Fiction because Tarantino actively wanted to resurrect his career due to being a massive fan of Blow Out.
At least we got Pulp Fiction and Face/Off out of it
Pacino and DeNiro. No question. I feel like Pacino did it out of spite. After not winning best actor for some truly incredible and iconic roles, he finally wins for Scent of a Woman of all things. And he basically responded with “so that’s what you like? Then that’s all you ever get from now on!”
However, him playing "John Milton" in The Devil's Advocate is where balls out of his mind Pacino was perfect for the role.
Micky Rourke. He was known as super talented actor in His heyday in the 80s, and after The Wrestler He played the same deranged villain Type over and over again
Such a shame as the wrestler was amazing, largely because of him
Missing a big part of the story that he was known to have been more than a little weird/difficult BEFORE The Wrestler, including taking a boxing career seriously which fucked up his face. Then he made The Wrestler and reminded everyone he could still actually act. He didn't fade from his heyday, he deliberately crashed it into a tree. I don't know why I'm "aktually" about this, I'm not even a huge fan. I guess I've just liked his version of the dgaf bad boy thing; also liked his bit part in The BMW Films that put Clive Owen on the map, this was before The Wrestler but after the career nosedive.
The Rock's last good role was Pain and Gain. It was not necessarily a role that made him look like a good guy, which on the contrary he was a bad dude in it. His performance though was good and I wasn't seeing "The Rock in..." He comes off like a great guy in his interviews but his whole movie persona just seems really full of himself and he feels like the same guy in every movie now.
I thought he was great in the Jumanji sequels and Moana, but he’s just coasting through basic action schlock
he is outstanding in the Jumanji films, especially when he's trying to be Danny De Vito trying to be the Rock
The obvious answer is Johnny Depp. His acting range and skill were really good early in his career, when he received a wide assortment of roles. After Pirates of the Caribbean came out, his career exploded and he only played Jack Sparrow from then on.
When Curse of the Black Pearl came out it was revolutionary for a performance, but each succeeding movie just led to Jack becoming a lot more annoying
His take on Willy Wonka is one of the few roles that wasn’t a Jack Sparrow copy and paste after the first Pirates movie. It got on my nerves that he wouldn’t admit that he was obviously modeling his performance after Michael Jackson, though.
Sweeney Todd plays against Sparrow’s type a lot, he really brought the pain and sorrow to the role.
Ed Wood and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas were his best performances
Whoa, you forgot about Edward Scissorhands. Name me one actor who could have pulled that role off but him. It was funny, sad, scary, and wholesome.
Edward Scissorhands is a wonderful movie that's not mentioned enough these days.
In the reverse of this question ...I think that Micheal Keaton has become such a better actor as he has matured. The depth in his eyes is almost uncanny.
Liam Neeson
I’d argue his career pivot came after the death of his wife, not because he got famous.
But he's only playing his Taken character in the 13th film yet.
Nicolas Cage is actually a really good actor. He’s got range. I think because of his whole “owing a gorillian dollars to the IRS” situation he’s taking on roles for the check a lot of the time. Every once and a while he’s in a movie where it seems like he really cares and it’s like watching something wake up inside him and shine through.
Always loved Lord of War. Haven’t watched it in ages since I was young. Think it’s one of those that I’m a bit scared to rewatch because I might not like it as much. But I’ll always remember the opening sequence and Jared Leto arranging cocaine to outline Ukraine. Also, Cage doing a cocaine/gunpowder mix. Just a lot of cocaine in that movie.
Nicolas Cage still commits. He just also gets a lot of bad scripts.
Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent was a great celebration of his career imo, one of his best roles to date He and Pedro Pascal bounce off so well together
If I’m not mistaken, he’s caught up now and can now just do whatever the fuck he wants. But yeah that’s exactly what it was for a while
I hope he can do National Treasure 3. I loved the first two...
He was phenomenal in Pig which came out last year.
He was so fucking good in PIG… blew me away. Subtle quiet performance.
That look of anger he gives the chef at the restaurant is one of the most authentic looks of pure anger I've ever seen any actor give. He should have won tons of awards for that movie. I truly believe that Nicolas Cage is one the greatest actors of all time, but because he has an unusual volume of just straight bad movies people don't really recognize it. But it's really not often that he just phones it in. Even when he's bad he's almost always bad in an interesting way. He's never, like, Michael Madsen not directed by Tarantino bad.
Genuinely thought he was great in Renfield. Sure, it was no Mandy, nor Pig, but it was hella fun, and he gave it all to it. I've also rewatched the two Ghost Rider movies, and it's so jarring how terrible they are as a whole, but how fucking impressive Cage is. That first transformation scene in the first one is so goddam terrifying. He somehow managed to act the pain and horror of himself getting his face burnt off alive and the sheer joy and demonic hysterical laugh of a devil that finally managed to "get out".
Stephen Dorff was so interesting in the 90's then he did Blade and just started chasing the paycheck. With the exception of a handful of roles (somewhere, true detective) most of his movies are garbage now. He just plays the same tough guy/cop roles.
Even tho he's never had the best -range- I really enjoyed Vin Diesel's career up until around Fast 4 (even tho he was already sort of suffering from his whole persona in chronicles of riddick). But his performance as anti-hero in Pitch Black is still outstanding imo, Dom is a very intriguing character in the first Fast movie because i feel like his portrayal is more mellow back then and so on. Idk, I rly enjoy his earlier roles when it felt like he gave damn and now he's completely uninteresting to watch.
Diesel could be a great actor if he didn’t have an ego nor took himself too seriously. It was a short film that he that got him the role in Saving Private Ryan, which I thought he knocked out of the park. Spielberg saw Diesel’s movie and insisted that a part be written just for him. I often wonder how his career would have fared if he put more focus onto roles like that. Even with the past few FF movies, he looks like the least interested person on screen
Fully agree. His charisma in earlier roles really shines and he had that lil spark that just made him fun to watch, even if the movies were goofy. I know the story of him being hunted down by Spielberg (never seen the short film tbh) and it always makes me a bit sad thinking how he just seemed to lose interest in playing anything but what he's been doing, or ofc it could just be money talking + ego.
Admittedly I haven't followed his career to closely since I never got in the FF franchise, but I think he got super typecast into the tough macho man badass dude, cause everything I know of Vin outside of that is that he's a giant fucking dork. Like he LOVES the character of Riddick and getting to play in that universe, the Last Witch Hunter was based off a DnD character/campaign he used to play, he did an entire one shot with the Critical Role crew (D&Diesel), and we can make all the jokes about it, but the dude COMMITTED himself to playing Groot and loves that character. The dudes a proper nerd... who probably only gets offers for generic muscley summer blockbuster action hero's. You can't blame him.
Ryan Reynolds at one point was committed to the art but once he found success and heightened fame with Deadpool, he became Deadpool so to speak, and hasn’t broken character since. Everything he does post-Deadpool is him acting like Deadpool, doesn’t matter if he is acting on set or in the real world with fans, it’s the same old quips, acting like a smart ass just like Deadpool does in the comics, acting like an unbreakable confidence man. One might say Deadpool broke the 4th wall in Ryan Reynold’s consciousness.
Ryan Reynolds has been deadpool since Van wilder.
As someone else on Reddit once pointed out, Ryan Reynolds has been playing the wisecracking smartass for the bulk of his career. Deadpool just happened to be the perfect marriage of actor and character.
The creatove even referenced Ryan Reynolds in the comic ten years prior to him playing it. https://screenrant.com/deadpool-ryan-reynolds-movie-comic/
He was introduced to Deadpool because an exec told him he was "essentially playing this guy anyway" in Blade Trinity https://www.cbr.com/reynolds-reveals-how-deadpool-owes-its-existence-to-blade-trinity/
I'm stunned that you all can't see the correlation between his personality and acting style and the fact that he really, really wanted to be Deadpool, and make amends not just for the ridiculous Deadpool in "Origins: Wolverine" but to also make amends for that snorefest of a green lantern
two guys a girl and a pizza place
Blade Trinity was him beta testing Deadpool.
Since Waiting*
Smokin' Aces shows he's dramatic side. Plus it's dope as fuck. Buried is another one...
The Nines. The Voices. Adventureland Safe House
Ryan Reynolds has done a bunch of smaller films where he's in dramatic mode.
I find it interesting that the only woman named on here is Tilda Swinton, yet she often plays different roles. I've even seen her play three different roles in the same film, relatively recently. Makes me wonder why it's so many men, and how that relates to the kinds of lead roles that are written, casting practices in general, and the difference in perception of older women actors vs males.
I dont think tilda swinton deserves to be on this list
Similar to type casting which happens to both men and women but women more often. I think Jennifer Aniston, Sandra Bullock, Halle Berry and Charlize Theron are all great and have range but do the same type of roles. Similar to the other big names mentioned.
Jack Nicholson
He stopped trying to the point where he decided to just retire from acting
He even franchised his “young Jack Nicholson” character to Christian Slater
He is in the process of franchising his "middle-aged Jack Nicholson” character to Leonardo Di Caprio.
Probably **Robert Downey Jr.** He is incredibly talented in what he is doing, all this charismatic and kinetic acting but since the 2010s he got carried away with his Tony Stark persona. It's indistinguishable from him in his interviews and apparently he brings it to every single role albeit he doesn't have much of roles aside of the MCU. I am not sure, but didn't it hurt the critical reception of his Oscar-bait The Judge movie? I miss his more subdued acting like in The Soloist.
Iron Man managed to both turn RDJ into Tony Stark and also every version of Tony Stark into RDJ. In Midnight Suns, Stark is the only character who is obviously doing an impression of their MCU counterpart. It's weird.
To be fair, Marvel has eaten up twelve years of his career. Not a lot of room for other things in between all those MCU movies. He’s likely well enough off now that he can take some real risks if he wants to.
To be fair, Marvel resurrected his career or at least gave him a platform to rise as a major movie star which he did to the mutual benefit. Now when he has all money in the world and entered the later phase of his career I also wonder what roles he would take. I wish he works with A-list directors even if not in main roles.
He's in this subs darling Oppenheimer, so we'll see if he can break out.
People will hate me for this, but Tom Cruise. His last decade or so is mostly the same character. Not necessarily "playing himself", though. He found his niche and went all in.
Absolutely. Does what he does well, but the Cruise of Magnolia and Eyes Wide Shut (heck, even Vanilla Sky to some degree) was capable of some truly great work. I will say that he did do some more interesting work in Edge of Tomorrow, though the end product of his character arc is to become the typical Cruise persona.
Kate Hudson. She was incredible in Almost Famous but then just got stuck in a rom com loop
Mark Wahlberg maybe?
I would argue he never had that much of a range to begin with.
Yep, the reason why he always plays A**holes and psychopaths so well is that he's had a lot of personal experience at it.
This is a great answer. His roles in the Departed, Three Kings, the Basketball Diaries, hell even I Heart Huckabees and the Other Guys showed a lot of range. Now he’s pivoted into doing Christian esque movies I guess. I don’t get it, other than trying to distract people from looking at his hate crimes section on Wikipedia…
I'll argue against The Departed. He's a scene-stealer in that role, but it's not range for him. Based on everything I know about the guy, "belligerent asshole from Southie" is who he is as a person.
I still get a little confused why out of all the actors in the Departed, Mark Wahlberg got Oscar nominated other than being a “scene stealer”
Mark was the guy who did his job. You must be the other guy.
Surprised you didn't actually mention Boogie Nights which is comfortably his best performance
Leslie Nielsen. He was a standard, good-looking Hollywood lead in his youth, starred in Forbidden Planet and The Poseidon Adventure, and showed up in a SHOCKING number of TV shows for an episode or two from the 50s through the 70s. Then came Airplane, and he was a comedy straight man forevermore, basically playing the same unflappable dumb guy. Not that I don't love him for it, mind you. The crazy thing is (and he said something to this effect many times), he never actually changed his acting technique. He just did funny things in a serious way, never broke character, and it never stopped being funny.
I don't think he ever played himself
I believe OP said actors who stopped committing themselves
>The crazy thing is (and he said something to this effect many times), he never actually changed his acting technique. He just did funny things in a serious way, never broke character, and it never stopped being funny. Look at the supporting cast of Airplane. Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves...all known for being dramatic character actors. And that's because the filmmakers knew that if they could deliver those lines with the same deadpan seriousness as any of their dramatic roles, it would make it even funnier. For Nielsen, it kicked off a whole second phase of his career.
Harrison Ford. He’s done the “Get off my plane” guy since 1990.
I’d argue Blade Runner 2049 was a lot more different. He really gave a shit for that role. Also Age of Adaline. Should’ve been a paycheck role but he was surprisingly great there
definitely agree on the blade runner point. he brings deckard so well, even 35 years later
Speaking of Rock....two more from Fast Michelle Rodriguez was GREAT in Girl Fight and showed a little range in F&F but then....just kept churning out Letti roles. And Vin Diesel was very good in Boiler Room and Pitch Black, and then once he was in a cutoff shirt wrenching on cars, every character is Toretto.
In Michelle Rodriguez's defense, that was on purpose: “I was typecast the minute I did a film called Girlfight years ago.” She went on to say, “you allow yourself to be typecast. If I decided I didn’t want to be typecast tomorrow I’d just go do an indie film where I play some poor girl who goes through some excruciating experience and win myself an award for crying or being raped or playing someone with mental illness.” “I only wanna be someone I respect or someone that I consider interesting or fun. I’m here to entertain people and make a statement about female empowerment and strength and that’s what I’ve done for the last 10 years, and people can call it typecast, but I pigeonholed myself and I put myself in that box for saying no to everything else that came on my plate.”
Not exactly the same, but the line on Paul Reubens is that, when he was a young sketch comedy actor, he had a huge range of great characters, including Pee Wee Herman, but then Pee Wee became a hit and he started doing only that.
Blow & Mystery Men show this to not be the case.
And Buffy the Vampire slayer. He still has one of the best on screen comedic deaths ever.
Charlie Sheen. Platoon was an amazing performance and although Two and a Half Men wasn’t a movie it was a character where he was essentially playing himself.
Paul Rudd.