Your Favorite Character Actors (pre-poll data gathering)

Cafe Society
1

The current thread Actors you will always associate with one role gave me this idea for an offshoot.

I’d like to build a poll of SDMB’s favorite character actors and the roles most associated with them.

Getting some names that people recognize and whose work they are familiar with is a needed first step toward that goal.

Just list those character actors you know and like.

Any number is okay.

Here’s a start:

Jack Elam
Strother Martin
Richard Jaeckel
Ben Johnson
Buddy Ebsen
Elisha Cook Jr.
Ward Bond
Lee J. Cobb
Gregory Itzin
M. Emmet Walsh
Neville Brand

Most of my list are older (and mostly dead) guys. Newer ones would be a great addition.

Add any criteria to the thread’s purpose as you see fit. Let’s make it a good list.

2

Dan Hedaya
Harry Dean Stanton
Joe Don Baker
Philip Baker Hall
Bruce McGill
And the most prolific, Željko Ivanek

3

Strother Martin
Ben Johnson
Harry Dean Stanton

All already mentioned.

Michael Gambon
Brian Cox
Gary Oldman

4

IMDb has all sorts of lists of these people to assist in jogging your memory. A case in point is Best “supporting” actors.

Do let’s include the women, too!

5

James Cromwell.

6

Hey, it’s that guy!

(The site is defunct, but it’s still a good list).

Oh, and Ron Perlman. Always Ron Perlman.

7

J.T. Walsh

8

Mark Williams
Jim Broadbent
David Jason
Eddie Marsan
Steve Coogan
Bill Nighy
Mark Strong
Stephen merchant
Richard E Grant
Richard Griffiths
Tim Curry
Wallace Shawn
Ray Walston
Charles Durning
John Goodman

Maggie Smith
Kathy Najimy
Mary Wickes*
Pam Ferris
Kathy Burke
Olivia Colman
*Looking up the cast of Sister Act

9

J. K. Simmons

Dale Dickey

10

Steve Buscemi
Walter Brennan
Lee Van Cleef
Eli Wallach
Robert Morley
Peter Lorre
Claude Rains

11

Bill Paxton
Tony Mordente
Robert Strauss
Tucker Smith
Rita Moreno
Maggie Smith
Donald O’connor
George O’hanlon
Danny Aiello
Johnathan Pryce
Sammy Davis Jr.
Joe Spinel

12

We need some bad guys:

Chistopher McDonald
William Atherton
Clancy Brown
Michael Ironside
James Rebhorn

13

Don’t forget Bruce Davison.

14

Stephen Tobolowsky

15

David Strathairn
Robert Knepper
Walton Goggins
Tommy Flanagan
John Carroll Lynch

It’s hard to think of women in this category, for some reason.

16

Wilford Brimley

17

Don’t forget my favorite: Burt Mustin.

If you don’t know the name, you surely know the face.
mmm

18

William Fichtner

19

G.W. Bailey

20

I was just thinking about this guy, one of my favorite character actors, after recently seeing him in Ulzana’s Raid and Tom Horn. Among many others he was also in Spartacus, Monte Walsh, The Cowboys, Papillon, Blazing Saddles, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Roots, Comes a Horseman and The Natural. Know him?

Richard Farnsworth