Favorite Leading and Character Actors by Craig Hammill (SMC Founder)
We wanted to post about just a few of our own personal favorite actors. And we'd love to hear about yours. This programmer has always felt actors, in many ways, are the ones taking the biggest risks in moviemaking. They're in front of the camera after all while the rest of us are behind it. And it's their performances and humanity that become the conduits into the greatest movies.
GENE HACKMAN (b. 1930)
Hackman was blessed (in a weird kind of way) with a rugged everyman quality that allowed him to play everything from the introverted paranoid sound expert in Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (Hackman's own personal favorite performance) to the extroverted selfish family patriarch in Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums. If this programmer could choose any acting career as his North Star, it would be Gene Hackman's. Selfishly, I wish he'd keep acting even though he's 90! Some of my other favorite personal Gene Hackman performances (there are too many to pick) include his turns in Bonnie & Clyde, The French Connection, Young Frankenstein, Reds, Mississippi Burning, Unforgiven. Even his comedic turns as Lex Luthor in Superman 1 & 2 raise both those movies to greater heights. But like Hackman himself, my all-time favorite performance is The Conversation. Coppola originally wanted Brando. As much as I love Brando, I think Coppola lucked out when he got Hackman instead.
GIULIETTA MASINA (1921-1994)
From her almost saintly innocent circus performer in La Strada to her fiery vital prostitute in Nights of Cabiria to even her confused, struggling, trying to find normalcy jilted wife in Juliet of the Spirits, Giulietta Masina turned in some of the greatest performances of the 20th century. Probably her two best known (though she was in dozens of movies) are her turns in her husband Federico Fellini's La Strada and Nights of Cabiria. These are two of the greatest performances this programmer has ever seen. In La Strada, she plays Gelsomina, a trusting innocent, sold (in a way) to be the assistant of a brutish, abusive, unfaithful circus strongman. Throughout the movie, Gelsomina never loses her faith or ability to love despite the horrible treatment she receives. The performance borders on something of a miracle. In Nights of Cabiria, Masina is laugh out loud funny as a Roman prostitute who refuses to be defined by her job or to ever give up on the idea of finding romantic love. Masina imbues her character with all the rich contradictions of all of us. She "sins" constantly yet is a devout Catholic; she is constantly discarded by unfeeling men yet never loses her belief she'll find one who will truly love her. The last shot of Cabiria (no spoilers) is one of the most rightfully famous of all cinema. And the job of pulling it off falls 100% on the shoulders of Masina. Watch it and see if you don't break down in tears.
JIMMY STEWART (1908-1997)
Jimmy Stewart, for this programmer, has always been one of the most underappreciated actors despite the fact that he's usually universally loved. What I mean is that folks often think of him as the "Aw shucks'' midwestern bumbling good guy. When, this programmer would argue, Stewart has one of the most varied, incredible, committed filmographies of any Hollywood actor who ever lived. Look at Stewart's too trusting innocent Senator in Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Then put that up against his very worldly yet decent and responsible assistant shopkeeper in The Shop Around the Corner. Then put that up against his jaded disillusioned journalist in The Philadelphia Story. Then put that up against his stressed out familyman George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life. Then put that against his near psychotic bounty hunter in The Naked Spur then put that against his obsessive detective in Vertigo then put that against his sly, morally loose lawyer in Anatomy of a Murder... Stewart was a method actor before the term existed. He would deeply study the careers, stories, histories, details of characters he played. He once famously stayed up all night and had a doctor spray a chemical on his vocal chords so he could deliver the filibuster speech in Mr. Smith believably. Hitchcock (and later Scorsese) famously pointed out Rear Window can't work without Jimmy Stewart. Any other actor and it would be a creepy movie about a perv staring out the window. With Stewart's innate goodness and commitment, it becomes about all of us tempted to glance sideways when our neighbors leave the curtains open...
THELMA RITTER (1902-1969)
Ritter was one of those character actors who was in almost everything in the 1950's yet this programmer feels we just don't talk about enough in 2020. Cinema needs great character actors like buildings need rafters, rivets, and frames. Their often unacclaimed work is what gives movies their life, detail, grace notes. Ritter was one of the absolute best. Just check out her heartbreaking monologue in Sam Fuller's Pickup on South Street, her non-stop street smart common sense nurse in Hitchcock's Rear Window, and her beleaguered seen-it-all landlord in John Huston's The Misfits. Not to mention her turn in All About Eve. Great characters don't just get the job done. They elevate the job and the entire cinematic work like anonymous filmic saints. If there's a Pope of moviedom, she or he needs to beatify Thelma Ritter stat!
TOSHIRO MIFUNE (1920-1997)
Simply the best. What can you say? Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune was so talented he even played an indigenous Mexican in Animas Trujano... and everyone still loves that role. Director Akira Kurosawa said that Mifune could express in a few seconds of film what it would take any other actor at least 20 seconds to express. And like Jimmy Stewart, sometimes we forget just how VARIED and talented Mifune was. Look at his consumptive gangster in Drunken Angel versus his guilt-ridden detective in Stray Dog versus his wild animal thief in Rashomon versus his stunningly controlled Hamlet in The Bad Sleep Well. When people talk about certain actors having that "spark", Mifune is a raging intergalactic solar fire. Easily one of the best actors who ever lived. This programmer will watch anything he's in.
GENA ROWLANDS (b. 1930)
Gena Rowlands is a force of nature. Like Gene Hackman, I wish she would keep making movies but I guess at 90 she deserves to kick it. When I think about it, only someone of Gena Rowlands volcanic intensity could be married to John Cassavetes. Rowlands work in Cassavetes' Faces, A Woman Under the Influence, Gloria, Opening Night, and Love Streams make those movies. And Cassavetes knows it. Rowlands is one of those rare actors, like Michael Caine, who went on to an amazing second act with great performances in Another Woman (where she was romanced by Gene Hackman!), Jarmusch's Night on Earth, and her own son's The Notebook to name just a few. If you have Gena Rowlands in your movie, then your galaxy has a star around which all the planets can operationally rotate. And though this programmer has said it before, possibly the most Shakespearean performance ever given by an American actor is Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influence. One of the ALL-TIME great performances.
JIMMY CAGNEY (1899-1986)
Is there any film still that more perfectly encapsulates an actor's special something than this one from Raoul Walsh's White Heat of Jimmy Cagney? Stanley Kubrick often said "natural is nice but interesting is better" and cited his favorite actor as Jimmy Cagney. Cagney was almost always like watching a box of firecrackers go off in every scene. He just couldn't be boring. And he had great rules for engaging the camera. One of my favorites is that he would always look in the eye of his co-star CLOSEST to the camera and that would give his performances added intensity. Like so many great actors, Cagney could do it all. Literally. He could play good guys, bad guys, anti-heroes. He played gangsters in Public Enemy and White Heat. He danced and sang in Yankee Doodle Dandy (Cagney actually got his start as a hoofer on Broadway). And he could make you laugh out loud with mile a minute hilarious deliveries in Billy Wilder's One Two Three. A Cagney performance always ensures you that at the very least his parts will be great in a movie. Jimmy Cagney truly is "White Heat".
PEDRO INFANTE (1917-1957)
Pedro Infante, even among all the amazing actors listed, may be the only one who could do everything he did AMAZINGLY. Infante was an amazing dramatic actor, just check out his indignant turn as the father of an unfairly treated biracial daughter in Angelitos Negros. Infante was an even MORE amazing comedian: just check him out in Los Tres Garcia, Los Tres Huastecos, A Todo Maquina, and Dos Tipos De Cuidados to name just a few. And he was an even MORE amazing singer: this programmer actually sings (awfully) Infante's Amorcito Corazon to his children at bedtime out of sheer love for that song and performance in Nosotros Los Pobres. For those who do not know about Infante, his discovery will suddenly blast joy and sunlight in a dark corner of your cinema love you never knew existed. Spanish speaking audiences have been hip to Infante for over 70 years. For we English speakers lagging behind, he's like Cary Grant, Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Cagney, Charlie Chaplin all rolled into one actor. Just a sheer tour-de-force.
Written by Craig Hammill. Founder and Programmer of Secret Movie Club.