Name a Popular Actor/Actress Who Can Actually Act

[fryguy]

edit: my original comment of "Keanu Reeves" here was done because I meant to write "CAN'T" in the title of the post.....

today, fryguy = idiot

[fertilizeonarbusto]

1. Meryl Streep, Johnny Depp

There's quite a few actually. I hope you were kidding about der Keanu. Hot he is, but...

[FellowAmerican]

2. And you start with Keanu Reeves??

[fryguy]

17. see correction

:crazy:

[devilgrrl]

3. Cate Blanchett

:-)

[mac56]

4. Paul Newman

Kenneth Branagh
Dustin Hoffman

Just to name a few.

[intheflow]

5. Dianne Weist , Alan Rickman, Toni Collette, and Johnny Depp.

Keanu can act like eye candy, but one need only watch 5 minutes of that horrible flick he did about the Buddha to know he can't act at all.

[MuseRider]

20. Yes

Dianne Weist, I have always liked her.

[Goldmund]

6. LOL Keanu Reeves?

Sarcasm?

[fryguy]

10. not a drop

the depth of his acting ability is less than most puddles i step in...and i'm not just talking about his performance in "point break"

on edit: I'm an idiot! I meant to put "can't" in the original title of my post, which makes the Keanu comment appropriate.....otherwise you are correct, i would have been VERY sarcastic.....

[Goldmund]

23. LOL touche

Maybe that's how Dubya got involved with Iraq. He _meant_ Saddam DIDN'T have WMDs and he WON'T attack Iraq.

[Verve]

7. Dustin Hoffman

[terrya]

8. Jude Law. NOT just a pretty face...or body....

The man can act.

[Kire]

9. Vincent D'Onofrio

[AlCzervik]

52. I just read in the paper that he's leaving L & O criminal intent

and being replaced by Chris Noth. That will suck, i like Noth, he was just fine in regular L & O but D'Onofrio is excellent in that show in criminal intent.

[Crankie Avalon]

11. Robert DeNiro...

...Check out "The King of Comedy," it's a lot different from his more signature tough guy roles.

[redqueen]

13. And at the exact same time, too!

[stinkeefresh]

26. I JUST selected that for our film appreciation group

two week sago! Such a great movie. A real companion piece to Taxi Driver.

[redqueen]

12. Robert DeNiro

[Goathead]

14. Cate Blanchett

She is awesome. Extemely diverse.

[MuseRider]

15. Gary Oldman,

Johnny Depp, Cate Blanchett. Keanu Reeves?

Edit Forgot Al Pacino, Alan Rickman

[fryguy]

34. he was awesome in The Professional

eom

[fryguy]

35. btw

re: Keanu Reeves - see my correction above....

[MuseRider]

44. Sorry

I did see it, I was tooling you around a little. I figured you were either joking or made a mistake. I loved Keanu in Bill and Ted but the rest? Hmmmm. About Oldman, I never noticed him much until just recently when it seems every movie I turned on had him in it. I was stunned by the characters he created. Have you seen Nobodys Baby? There are many more, some great some not so great. I have not seen the Professional yet.

[fryguy]

47. no prob

Wasn't pointing out my goof (idiocy) for any other reason than to try and restore my own wounded ego. Sure Keanu was good in Bill and Teds, although the sequel was a heaping load of turd IMO, but anything in which he tries to play a "normal" person makes it clear that he is perhaps the dimest bulb in all of Hollywood.

As for Oldman, he's a kick-ass actor; no two ways about it. In The Professional he plays the evilest corrupt cop you'll ever see. Sort of in line with his character in the Fifth Element (have you seen that one yet?)

Haven't seen Nobody's Baby, but I'll check it out.....

[MuseRider]

49. I loved him

in the Fifth Element in fact, for some odd reason I LOVE that movie. It is not my usual fair but it just seemed to work. He plays a hick crook with some heart in Nobodys's Baby, I am not certain how else to explain it but he is funny, the movie is charming and disturbing all at once. Was the Professional the one with Natalie Portman? If so I did see it. I will go look it up. I am waiting for Immortal Beloved to come back on, I heard that was really good too. He intrigues me, loved him in Sid and Nancy but that was a very difficult movie for me to watch. Also Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. See....they all came on in a two week period and everytime I watched a movie he as in it.

[motely36]

16. Leonardo Decaprio

was quite good in What's Eating Gilbert Grape and the Basketball Diaries

[Kire]

18. Wilem Dafoe, Al Pacino

[AngryLizard]

19. Jennifer Connelly

[Liberalynn]

21. Mcmahon

Julian Mcmahon's the man!

[BrainRants]

22. Al Pacino

from the sensitive single dad in "Author! Author!" to the blind Colonel in "Scent of a Woman" Al's the man! Hoo Hah!

[Mad_Dem_X]

24. Kevin Spacey, Meryl Streep

n/t

[stinkeefresh]

25. I used to be concerned with whether a movie star can act

but as my film studies have progressed I've come to understand some things about the art of film that are pretty interesting, and I don't care as much.

Much like the stock characters of old Italian Comedia, or even the greek heroes and gods that populated the earliest dramas, Movie Stars have value as story icons. I know this sounds a bit weird, but as it turns out Movie Stars tend to become popular based on what their personas represent in our cuture.

A great example is Katherine Hepburn, who represented something that people really responded to. She was a marvelous actor, but that didn't have as much to do with her popularity as the real human characteristics that she represented for the audience- something that was going on in society. (If you doubt me, see her play a ditz in 1935's Alice Adams. It will make your skin crawl to watch her play dumb.)

What's really fantastic is when a director uses what the audience expects from a certain "name" and subverts or leverages it in a meaningful way.

Take Jack Nicholson, whoe represents "crazy with a heart of gold" and see how Kubrick uses that expectation brilliantly in The Shining.

Or later when the same director cast Tom and Nicole in Eyes Wide Shut- everything you might know or expect from that couple is twisted or probed by that film.

Watch how Hitchcock uses Doris Day and Jimmy Stewart in The Man Who Knew Too Much- brilliant use of what these actors represent.

Anyway, my film-nerd point is that in many ways "good" acting is not always necessary to good story-telling, as long as what the actor "means" to the audience is utilized well by the film.

[ET Awful]

27. Charlize Theron - One only needs to watch Monster to see my point

EXCELLENT actress.

[Joe Chi Minh]

28. Pam Grier.

Sublime in Jackie Brown. Couldn't take my eyes off her. The author of the curious saying "The camera loves" him/her could have had her in mind.

[noonwitch]

29. Jodie Foster

Best of the 40ish actresses.

[bettyellen]

30. believe it or not, he's talented too. I'm wallpapering this damn place ..

with pictures of gael bernal......... he is the answer to every question in every thread.

[JAbuchan08]

31. Bill Murray n/t

n/t

[fryguy]

33. c'mon....

He broke new ground with his moving portrayal of a dedicated grounds keeper, yearning to be head grounds keeper and a cinderella story.....

[JAbuchan08]

38. Caddy shack,

I have to say I am not fanatical about the film, but Murray was very good in it.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

46. looking forward to 'the life aquatic'

murray and wes anderson go together so well

[quiet.american]

32. Gwyneth Paltrow, Liv Tyler

[ScreamingMeemie]

36. Diane Keaton. The very best of talented actresses.

:hi:

[ScreamingMeemie]

37. Mary Stuart Masterson

:hi:

[no_hypocrisy]

50. And Mary Louise Parker.

Check out both Masterson & Parker in Fried Green Tomatoes.

[bobthedrummer]

39. Susan Sarandon

[Ron Green]

40. Steve Buscemi, although I suppose he's not as popular as he deserves to be

[Joe Chi Minh]

43. There's an incredible English character actor

called Brian Blessed, who is utterly uniquely, many times larger than life. Totally hilarious. I mean in real life too, but on a recent TV programme, he murmured in a sad, small, little voice that actually he was better at serious parts. I wouldn't have thought he could make even genuine poignancy sound hilarious, but he managed to make it so because of that incredible persona.

And, actually, I quite believe him. But the problem is that, while character actors like him are unique, and will only crop up every fifty to a hundred years, really good actors for regular roles are, relatively speaking, two a penny.

In a programme on his life, another actor, Frank Windsor, who had acted with him in a revolutionary, classic, fifties police TV series called Z cars, turned out to be the act opposite to the parts he nortmally plays. Instread of being dour and colourless, he is a very very funny bloke.

During the nineties, he featured in a series of those insurance ads, intended to instil in the elderly, a terrible fear of future penury. And you know, he was still quite fit and young looking, but when the filming began, he had to start hobbling down the road with a walking stick, and it used to really **** him off. A wonderful documentary. Apparently, Blessed still earns a bomb giving after-dinner speeches. He'd be a gift to Disney, still. I think you Yanks would lap him up. You might even reconsider always casting us as the villains in your films - though personally I think that would be a mistake. Until, we can climb out of our complacency regarding the corporatist degeneracy we live with.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

41. johnny depp, sean penn, kate blanchett, and julianne moore

come to mind

[maveric]

42. Anthony Hopkins and Jeremy Irons.

Very versatile and intense.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

45. Naomi Watts

Amongst newer popular actresses, I think she's pretty good.

She blew me away in Mulholland Drive and 21 Grams.

Also pretty good in The Ring and I Heart Huckabees.

[alfredo]

48. Sean Penn

Billy Bob thorton
Tim Robbins
Edward Burns
Matt Damon
Kenneth Branaugh



Wynonna Ryder
Susan Sarandon
Glenn Close
Cathy Bates
Kate Winslet
Kate Blanchett
Emma Thompson
Mary Stenbergen

[MISSDem]

51. Keanu Reeves

[fluffernutter]

53. jack nicholson, helen hunt.

[CBHagman]

54. Denzel Washington, Kevin Spacey, Julianne Moore...

...Russell Crowe, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Robert Duvall (Hey, Boo!), Miranda Richardson, Emma Thompson.

[sans qualia]

55. Jennifer Jason Leigh