I came in to post this.
Check out Devil in a Blue Dress. Completely stole the movie from Denzel Washington.
Dude, have you seen Out of Sight? Have you seen Devil in a Blue Dress? He played secondary characters in both, and stole both movies from the stars, by “lighting up the screen,” as you say.
I adore him. I haven’t gotten the guts to watch Hotel Rwanda yet. One day my love for Cheadle will overcome.
How hard is it to watch, really?
This character would have been infinitely better if Cheadle were playing an IRA man, dodgy Norn Iron accent and all.
I will check out Devil in a Blue Dress, and give him a fair shake, but stealing the show from Denzel is no great feat, in my humble opinion.
I adore him. I haven’t gotten the guts to watch Hotel Rwanda yet. One day my love for Cheadle will overcome.
How hard is it to watch, really?
Difficult but worth it.
Heck, I even think he was great in the Ocean movies. Yes, the accent is absurd, but the whole movie is absurd. He’s still great, and his frustration at trying to get the guys to understand a rhyming slang reference was hilarious.
Don Cheadle’s one of those guys who truly vanishes into a role, like Gary Oldman. A true - uh, whatever the opposite of “Character actor” is, Don Cheadle is that. Watch his performances in “Out of Sight,” “Hotel Rwanda,” and any other randomly chosen Cheadle role - Traitor, Traffic, whatever you want. Completely different.
I love “Out of Sight” and Cheadle’s one of the best things about it.
I was flipping channels about an hour ago, and “Out of Sight” was on Channel 9, and it was about 10 seconds away from the greatest line in the movie, which belongs to Cheadle. Knowing it’s an R-rated line (spoilers), I was curious as to how it would be censored or overdubbed. The result:
“A situation like this has a high potentiality for the common monkeyfeather to bail out!” 
Heh, I never found that Gary Oldman vanishes into a role. Don Cheadle either for that matter.
Then you’re not talking about the Gary Oldman in True Romance. Or The Professional. Or Sid and Nancy. Or Batman Begins.
He’s hard to recognize as the same actor in those four films.
Yeah, Gary Oldman is one of my favorite actors and I didn’t even recognize him Batman Begins until the very end when I thought, “hey, the guy they got to play Gordon kind of reminds me of Gary Oldman.” And then I saw the credits :eek:. By the way, RickJay, that is character acting, not the opposite of character acting.
No, it’s the absolute opposite of a character actor.
A character actor is an actor who is easily recognizable as playing a certain role and thus usually plays the same type of role over and over. Character actors are typically supporting actors and quite often have physical traits that make them stereotypically identified with a certain character type, thereby allowing the audience to immediately understand the character’s role.
Steve Buscemi is a character actor. 90% of the time, he’s a weird weasel. He looks like a weird weasel, and is good at acting that way. Joe Pesci is a character actor (angry little Italian guy.) J.T. Walsh was a character actor. R. Lee Ermey should be in the dictionary next to “Character actor.”
An actor who effectively plays many different types of role is the opposite of a character actor.
So according to you, Paul Giamatti, Gary Oldman, and Martin Landau - 3 of the most successful and revered modern character actors - are not character actors at all. Interesting. I’m sure they’d all be surprised to hear it.
And I just saw Hotel for Dogs. Loved it. But I’m a sucker for cute dogs. The OP implies that it was somehow embarrassing for Don Cheadle to be in it. I’m not sure why. I admit that the role was a little odd for an actor of his caliber. I mean, “kindly social worker” doesn’t exactly require major chops, but just because it was an easy role in a lightweight movie doesn’t mean it was beneath him. I just figured he did it for the paycheck or to return a favor, or maybe because he’s really into pet adoption and wanted to support the campaign associated with the movie. Regardless, I’m glad he was there. He really does make any movie just that much better.
Cisco: I’m not sure you know what “character actor” means.
I’m not entirely familiar with Gary Oldman’s earlier work - he’s been around awhile - but he quite certainly isn’t a character actor now. He is the very opposite.
A character actor is an actor who specializes in playing one particular kind of character. That is why they’re called “Character actors.” Gary Oldman doesn’t do that; he is, in fact, rather well known for being an actor who can play a limitless variety of different roles.
Sorry dude, not correct. A character actor is someone who specializes in doing different characters. The opposite is someone like Cary Grant or Kate Hudson, not actors so much as stars.
I guess we’re working off different definitions, since I have never heard such a thing. I was always taught “Character actor” meant “An actor who specializes in a particular character.” It seems a pointlessly vague term to just mean “an actor who isn’t a star.”
Sadly, there are few definitions handily available on the Web that clearly support either case, except Wikipedia, which supports mine.
Yea I saw Gary Oldman there in all of them. Recognized him immediately. Brendan Gleeson, now he disappears into a role. Not Gary Oldman.