Actors & Directors who won't work apart

Cafe Society
1

In the thread talking about Quicksilver & Scarlet Witch in the new Avengers film, people started listing the usual suspects of actresses-who-work-with-Joss to potentially play the latter. And I realized, Joss Whedon does keep working with the same actors and actresses over and over. And it’s kinda boring, really.

Much like Tim Burton. I don’t even think he can make a movie without Helena Bonham Carter and/or Johnny Depp in it anymore. And they’re kinda boring, too.

I understand the appeal of working with people you like being around, but it seems to be that actors improve by working outside their comfort zone. Any other actors or actresses that need to move on like this?

2

Off the top of my head, there are four major troupes running around Hollywood right now…

The Frat Pack: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Luke Wilson, Paul Rudd, Steve Carell

The Judd Apatow Players: Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Paul Rudd, Jason Segel , Jay Baruchel, James Franco, Bill Hader, Steve Carell

Kevin Smith’s Regulars: Ben Affleck, Jason Lee, Matt Damon, Kevin Smith, Jason Mewes, Joey Lauren Adams, Jeff Anderson, Brian O’Halloran, Ethan Suplee, George Carlin (RIP), Chris Rock, Alanis Morissette

Joss Whedon’s Company: Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof, Nathan Fillion, Summer Glau, Eliza Dushku, Alan Tudyk, Adam Baldwin, Gina Torres, Fran Kranz, and a few others (depending how you count).

3

Clint Eastwood

4

The Nolan Brothers seem to like Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Marion Cotillard, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

The Coen Brothers have a posse, too. Though of late, they’ve been branching out a lot more.

And of course, for each of those, they’re brothers who seem to always work together, so there’s that, too.

5

Yeah, Apatow movies have that samey-ness I’m thinking of: same people, same performance, and even with a completely different concept I end up feeling that I’ve seen the whole thing before.

6

Joshua Malina was in several Aaron Sorkin projects, although not the most recent ones.

ETA: Sorkin is not a director, although the things he’s written and produced do have a consistent feel to them.

7

Don’t forget Leslie Mann, working with Apatow in The Cable Guy and The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up and Drillbit Taylor and Funny People and This Is 40.

And, y’know, bedding him.

8

Is that how she keeps getting those parts?

9

Scorsese and DiCaprio, lately. (Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed, Shutter Island, and the upcoming The Wolf of Wall Street).

10

Chris Guest seems to have a troupe he prefers working with.

I think “Saving Private Ryan” may be the only project Ron Howard and Tom Hanks worked on that didn’t have Clint Howard in it. But that might be more of a charity thing.

Pixar has a stable of voice over artists too, if that counts.

11

I didn’t think Ron Howard had anything to do with that one.

12

You know, although I haven’t seen all of those, DiCaprio didn’t really turn in the same performance again and again. So maybe it worked for them (for once).

13

An acting company is a long tradition in theater. Obviously some professionals think there’s an advantage to that kind of dynamic.

14

There have always been directors who liked working with the same stable of actors. John Ford always seemed to be working with John Wayne, Maureen O’Hara, Ward Bond and Victor McLaglen, didn’t he?

Woody Allen has had different troupes- in the early days, his stable always seemed to include Diane Keaton and Tony Roberts. Later it had Mia Farrow and Julie Kavner and Maureen Stapleton and Diane Wiest.

Ingmar Bergman always seemed to use Max von Sydow, Liv Ullman and Bibi Andersson.

Clint Eastwood always used to use Geoffrey Lewis, John Vernon, Harry Guardino and then-girlfriend Sondra Locke.

Mel Brooks always had Dom Deluise, Marty Feldman, Gene Wilder, and Madalyn Kahn.

15

There’s no denying it is appealing to the actors & directors – they get to work with people they like, whom they know can be relied on to perform, etc. But I was struggling as a viewer to think of examples where it didn’t seem detrimental to the final performance.

Adam Sandler is the epitome of this: all his movies are the same actors giving the same performances (even the same gags, usually), over and over again. He and his cronies no doubt find an advantage in doing so. But the few movies where he breaks out of that rut – Punch Drunk Love for example – are the more interesting for it.

16

Wes Anderson has a small gang of actors who show up pretty regularly in his films.

17

I think there’s a much more basic problem with Adam Sandler movies.

18

I find this tendency in Apatow to get tiresome quickly as well, but I don’t think the issue applies equally to all the “troupes” discussed in this thread.

Whedon, in particular, tends to cast his favored actors in strikingly different roles. Amy Acker alone has portrayed everything from frightened, naive waif to brittle, scarred doctor to sharp-tongued Shakespearean leading lady to monstrous Old One (and two of those in the same damn show!). I’d argue that, at least in Whedon’s case, he’s just good at finding talented actors with range, and likes seeing how far they can push themselves.

19

Eric Stoltz has appeared in every Cameron Crowe film (except the Zoo one, I believe).

20

Hector Elizondo seems to appear in a significant supporting role in all of Garry Marshall’s movie.

And Jonathan Demme always seems to find a role for Southern character actor Charles Napier.