Let me argue in favour of Jude Law. Gay troubled kid in Midnight in the garden of Good and Evil? Slick android in A.I? Creepy killer in Road to Perdition? John Watson? There’s more range in there than in 90% of actors.
Also Will Smith is not always keanu-ing his roles. Ali? Hancock? Pursuit of Happyness?
I’ll give you Jude Law, I forgot about those roles, though I think other than the character in Garden of good and evil the others were not that far from his baseline, but it is range so that’s fine, he’s a moderate range guy sort of like Matt Damon, usually the same, a few key performances show off more. Jude is certainly a great actor in any case. Road to Perdition is one of my favorite films. It’s sad and has a lot of honest human truth in it, which I attach to in the movies I like most.
I know everyone loves Will Smith (I hate his stuff. For me he ruins everything he touches) Ali was alright for range, pursuit was just him making himself believable emotionally, it was Will Smith slightly dulled down from the usual high-gloss, also it was an absurd Horatio Alger story that I want nothing to do with, but then that’s a different issue. I mean really is there a single Will Smith movie that you look back on and think: “That movie had greatness in it.” Ali and Pursuit wanted to be that and they guilt you into thinking for half a second you should like them but in the end they’re not well done and predictable.
I don’t really think that the greatness of Smith’s movies depend on his range. Casablanca had greatness in it, and Bogie had the range of Spongebob Squarepants.
Most actors are way more limited than Law or Smith, not to mention Damon (Come on, he made Bourne look like an actual Real Life badass. That ain’t so easy), it’s all I’m saying.
Well I never said an actors range was equivalent to their quality. They’re totally different. But Will Smith is a big enough deal that one can conclude at this point that Will Smith + Video and sound = bad (Not in a good way like Michael Jackson’s song, in a bad way like Michael Jackson + children).
Damon will always have a spot on my shelf for his role in The Talented Mr Ripley. Guy can make movies with greatness in them, even if a lot of his stuff does wind up being career filler.
Really? I would have said just the opposite. He seems to me always to be playing a slight variation on Phillip Seymour Hoffman.
Has John Cussack ever played anybody but John Cussack?
Stand-up comedians don’t play themselves.
It’s Type Casting, and Hollywood types with limited imaginations.
“I see this character as a sort of Samuel Jackson type. See if he’s available.”
I am so stealing that line.
I cannot watch Ray Liotta with thinking “There’s Joey Perini,” the role he played on the soap opera Another World from 1978 to 1981. He’s another one with no range.
Annie’s appearance here reminds me that Woody Allen, despite his many virtues as a director, writers and musician, and of course his exemplary conduct in his personal life, is an extremely limited actor.
I’m not sure how much acting Tracy Morgan has ever done, but then again, maybe he’s pretty convincing as that Tracy Morgan-ish guy.
Allen seems to have modelled his life after Charlie Chaplin’s, creating and playing the same character on screen and marrying a much younger daughter of a famous person in real life.
Murphy did get an Oscar nomination, but Arkin (well-loved two-time loser in a Best Picture nominee) would not be denied.
The Big Labowski
Punch Drunk Love (This is a character/like the character of his you see most)
Doubt
Capote
Magnolia
Flawless
Love Liza
Twister
Some of these aren’t known by a lot of people. In hollywood one is often considered for roles and cast to play parts they have already played since then the director( and whoever else gets involved in casting) knows what they’re getting and can plan more precisely. PSH is no exception to this causing him to often play similar characters.
But if you watch all of these saying the guy has no range quickly becomes a ridiculous statement.
Bruce Willis in Moonlighting was good in a comedy role and different from his action role in * Die Hard*.
I like Bruce a lot, pulp fiction, fifth element, die hard, tears of the sun… but ya if that’s your example you’re pretty much proving my assertion on his lack of range there.
Watch** Out of Sight**, then Up In The Air, then O Brother, Where Art Thou?, then Syriana, then Burn After Reading, then The American, then Three Kings, then Good Night, and Good Luck, then The Good German, then Michael Clayton, then Fantastic Mr. Fox and then you’ll be able to discuss.
I have seen the bolded ones , and I stand by my opinion. They are all just slight variations on Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Even Capote. I really don’t understand all the internet love for the guy.
I think it’s worth noting the difference between good “actors” and good “character actors”. A good actor looks like a real person on screen, behaving a in a way that makes you believe that you’re looking at a real person, living believably, rather than a person on a movie set with bright lights in their eyes. This does not mean that such a person has any kind of range; I usually believe that Tom Cruise* is living in whatever role I see him in. However, I never, ever feel like he’s anyone other than Tom Cruise. For an example of a lousy actor, watch most child actors. They’re usually reciting lines, painfully, and it’s patently obvious that they’re not any good at acting.
A good character actor does not appear to be the same person on screen in different roles. He or she is a radically different person in different roles, sometimes to the point that a viewer cannot identify the actor in different roles. For instance, I have never successfully identified Christopher Guest in a role until after I’ve seen his name in the credits or otherwise been tipped off to look for him. He entirely changes into a different role when he acts.
*I’m holding him up as an adequate actor, not a great one, for what it’s worth, and I recognize that his earlier work is better than his more recent work.
Some actors are better suited for a type than others. Candice Bergen was OK in drama but she really broke through and shined in comedy. Most people never thought of Candice Bergen as comedic but she was
Similar to Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett, they did drama and did OK with it, but they are so exceptional in comedy roles, that it make their drama acting look worse than it is.
Charlie Sheen, I think is a decent actor in both comedy and drama, but he favors comedy