Daniel Radcliffe. I think he’s a fantastic actor. Charismatic but not doesn’t put ego into his roles. I loved him in Horns. This is where I was first really turned onto his acting chops.
But he is actually not very good in the Harry Potter movies. He’s not terrible mind you, and a bunch of it is not is fault: Harry Potter is a pretty weak character, all told, and Hermione, Ron, Snape, and, well, just about everyone else ends up more interesting than Harry. But I think it’s also fair to say that Radcliffe doesn’t bring anything special to the character that helps it transcend its weaknesses. Harry just seems to be going through the preordained motions most of the time.
But as the Joker? Nope. I am a fan of Batman Begins, but I think The Dark Knight is a really stupid and tiresome movie (and Rises is just abysmal trash). I think the Joker in this movie isn’t fun or interesting, just overly mannered and kinda fake. All of the lizard tongue and tics and whatnot: overdone. As with Harry Potter, however, I don’t think the character is very well written, so I don’t blame Ledger for doing as much as he could with little, though I don’t praise the direction he took, either.
Feel free to concur or disagree with my examples and… what are YOURS?!
I’m a big fan of the 1985 film Witness, so that’s what I always think of first when I hear the name “Harrison Ford.” Does he act better in it than in, say, Star Wars or the Indiana Jones flicks? I suppose he does.
(A very young Viggo Mortensen also appears briefly in Witness, so I almost gave that as my answer to the OP, but that would have been a joke answer – his part is too small to demonstrate acting skills.)
If you’ve got a strong stomach for gross-out medical humor, check out A Young Doctor’s Notebook with Radcliffe as the young doctor and Jon Hamm as his older self. (The hardest thing to buy here is that Radcliffe could grow up to be Hamm, who’s a good 8 - 10 inches taller).
He was also very good as Kipling’s son in My Boy Jack with David Haig.
I’m not big on Harry Potter either, but I like what Radcliffe’s been doing with his grown-up career when he could have just coasted.
The Twilight had me thinking Kristen Stewart would be a trendy, disposable, flavor-of-the-month blessed to have her flavor last artificially longer than it should since she lucked out and booked a franchise.
I was disappointed to hear she would get to play Joan Jett in The Runaways, but I actually thought she was great in it. Since then I’ve seen her in On the Road, Clouds of Sils Maria, Still Alice, American Ultra, Café Society, Certain Women, and I’m really looking forward to Personal Shopper (same director as Clouds of Sils Maria). She has consistently been quite good.
Horns was a fucking awesome movie!
I’ll go with Woody Harrelson in “Natural Born Killers”. Especially for the time in his career he played it. He went from the lovable rube on Cheers to playing the part of a total psychopath.
No way I could have guessed he could pull off a bad guy role before that movie.
Yes, I haven’t seen her in much but she does seem to have turned out to be a “real” actress. And now she’s directing as well. She seems to be a strong-willed, genuine person: Hey, I’m dating a chick, I don’t care what you think. Good on her.
I think Jim Carrey’s dramatic work is 10 times better than all his comedy ones. No offense to Ace Ventura (his best comedic work) but he’s fantastic in The Majestic, Truman Show and Man on the Moon.
I’m not a big fan of Jack Black, and could live without most of his films. But I have to admit, despite my misgivings when I first heard about it, I liked him as Carl Denham in peter Jackson’s remake of King Kong. The part was completely different from Robert Armstrong’s original depiction, but it was supposed to be, and Black carried off the re-interprtetation surprisingly well.
Marlon Brando is a Master Thespian, who always gives a good performance.
However, I did not really care for Vito Corleone in The Godfather, or Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire. (Although I will admit that those may have been intentional, and that my dislike of the characters could be a testament to the greatness of the actor.)
Someday I may force myself to watch On the Waterfront, but the subject matter does not interest me.
I’m only a mild Star Trek fan. But Patrick Stewart really was at his best playing Sejanus in the excellent series I, Claudius. I’m sure his performance was lauded but I also am sure many fans aren’t familiar with it.
Actually I’d say Harrison Ford’s best work was in The Mosquito Coast. After only seeing him in adventure films and hero roles (Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Witness) to suddenly see him as this obsessed patriarch, it was a revelation.
I’m a big fan of Al Pacino…in one of my favorite movies, Author! Author! I haven’t seen most of the other work that he’s known for (except in the ubiquitous clips), and what I have seen - Sea of Love, Scent of A Woman, *The Devil’s Advocate *- I didn’t like much.