I wonder if Michelle Yeoh is more well-known now for her dramatic roles than her 30-year-old never-released-in-the-US action flicks.
Then aren’t you contradicting yourself? Along with Play Misty For Me, Clint Eastwood also starred in LOTS of ‘non-action’ films.
For example:
Paint Your Wagon
Every Which Way But Loose
HonkeyTonk Man
Bronco Billy
Bird
Pink Cadillac
The Bridges of Madison County
A Perfect World
Jersey Boys
Mystic River
Million Dollar Baby
Most of his professional acclaim has not come from his action roles, but from movies like Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby, which he starred in and directed, and which won for best picture, best director, and he was nominated for best actor. Does that disqualify him from being an ‘action star’?
Not as long as he’s got all those other Dirty Harry and Unforgiven films making most of his filmography to back up his claim as an Action Star.
He didn’t act in Bird, Jersey Boys or Mystic River, he was only the director. And sure, it would be unfair to call him a director specialized in action movies. Although dramas, there are action elements in A Perfect World and Bronco Billy. there was enough shooting in Pink Cadillac to consider it an action comedy.
Would you say that Michelle Yeoh (your only qualifier if we keep both A) and B) rules in effect) is still known mainly for action? I’d say she’s known now mainly for non-action roles, which should disqualify her on the grounds of failing B).
It just seems like a really weird criteria to me. It’d be like if we were thinking up the Mt Rushmore of scream queens and you disqualified Jamie Lee Curtis because she went on to a successful career outside of horror. That feels like an arbitrary and meaningless distinction.
Scream Queens is a completely different thing. You can be a Scream Queen with one role. Or a great villain with one role. Those are not genres.
To be called a 'genre" star, you do need to be at least somewhat specialized in that genre. I wouldn’t say that Eastwood is a musical star, for instance.
Otherwise, since practically any actress has had a role that could be considered action, including Dame Judy Dench with the Bond movies, you can just make a list with your top 5 favorite actresses and be done with it.
Totally agree. An Action Star is simply someone who can credibly play a leading action role, and whose star power increases box office sales. That’s the minimum criteria. Bruce Willis was a romantic comedy star before he made ‘Die Hard’. Harrison Ford never played an action role before Han Solo and Indiana Jones. Keanu Reeves was best known as Bill from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure before he starred in Speed and John Wick.
If he have to rank the action stars, we can start to include the other stuff like whether they do their own stunts, how good their acting is, etc. But if they are pulling in huge audiences to action films based on the draw of their name, they are action stars. Even if they can’t act well at all.
Maybe to you. I know her for her kicking ass on screen, myself. But again, most of her filmography is about beating the crap out of people, which I’d say qualifies her, and then some.
Dame Judy Dench is a background character in the bond films. She’s no more an action star than Tom Arnold or James Belushi.
If Dame Judy Dench starred in “Bond’s Boss”, and it made a gazillion dollars and had her running around with guns and dispatching bad guys with martial arts and weapons, and as a result she got a $20 million dollar advance to play the same character in “Bond’s Boss II”, then hell yeah, she’d be an action star. Regardless of how many other serious movies she made.
Here’s a good test case: Matt Damon. Is he an ‘action star’? In my book, of course he is. The Bourne movies made him one. He got huge paydays for them, and I’m sure he gets scripts to play ass-kicking spies and such all the time. But the vast majority of the movies he’s made are either not action movies, or his role was not an action role.
And that’s why The Rock should be in the Mount Rushmore of Male Action Stars and Matt Damon shouldn’t. Damon isn’t an ‘actual’ action star.
I would turn that around. I don’t doubt that you personally know her first as an action star, but I think most people who know her now know her from movies like Crazy Rich Asians. You can’t use a criterion of “Mostly known to me as an action star” as a reasonably objective standard. If you’re just picking your favorite actresses and calling it good, then fair enough. But you seem to be going for an objective measure.
A “scream queen” is a synonym for “horror star” and “final girl.” It is every bit the genre as “action star” is.
I don’t disagree with either you or Sam that credibility is a factor, but instead of just “knowing it when I see it” (which isn’t a terrible way to go for this question), I’m using the market to demonstrate credibility. If someone isn’t credible headlining an action film, people won’t go see it and it won’t make money. This automatically disqualifies potential nominees such as:
Saorise Ronan for Hanna ($40 million domestic on $30 million budget) < = Not a total flop, but not a success
Amanda Seyfried for Gone ($12 million domestic on unknown budget)
Keira Knightley for King Arthur ($52 million domestic on $120 million budget) <= Ouch!
Nobody (including me) is suggesting that any of these women belong on the Mt Rushmore of female action stars despite them headlining an action film. You can just look at them and realize they likely won’t be beating anyone up with their fists, which I think contributed to their action movies not being very successful.
Regarding Matt Damon, I would say he is a somewhat-successful action star. The Bourne movies did great. The Adjustment Bureau (which I loved), not so much. The Brothers Grimm and The Great Wall were both massive flops.
Using the same logic, I would say Gina Carrano is a failed action star.
Cheng Pei Pei
Michelle Yeoh
Cynthia Rothrock
Michelle Rodriguez
I roll with Go_Arachnid_Laser, and reject Ellis Dee’s parameters unconditionally. I’m not even interested in indulging the idea of an action star list, where the “star” part matters more than the “action” part. Frankly, I don’t care how big a draw you are, or how much your movies have done at the box office, if I can count the number of action roles you’ve done on my fingers then, AFAIC, you’re not an action star.
Strictly speaking, didn’t Mission: Impossible 2 wind up being the highest-grossing movie of the final year of the 20th century?
I’m not. I’m using “percentage of movies in the actors filmography belonging to that genre” as an objective measure.
What? No. That’s just a name for a type of role.
Ugh. As a lover of crappy, straight to video, barely-breaking-even movies, I could never bring myself to equate box office success with good action.
Days of Thunder was a sports drama. I’d also argue that Top Gun was more of a romantic drama with some action than an action movie.
Let’s agree to disagree, then. To me, you’re every bit as clearly wrong as I am to you.
That’s what this thread is for, I guess.
By the criteria discussed above, Robert Downey Jr. is the biggest action hero of all time. Dude’s at $4.4B domestic.
If you mean my criteria, I don’t rank them by box office. It’s just a qualification to get into the conversation. If you aren’t successful, you’re not a star. You can’t be one of the top four “action stars” ever if you aren’t even a star in the first place.
The only rigid ranking system proposed was percentage of movies you’ve done in the action genre. (Which is insane to me; that would knock Arnold down the list because of his family comedies.)
EDIT: Also, I don’t generally count superhero comic book movies as “action star” vehicles in a traditional sense. For many of them, the comic book character(s) is the draw, not necessarily the actor playing it.
I do think that there’s plenty of wiggle room for cult figures, people who is influential even if they’re not particularly successful. John Carpenter would be in my Mount Rushmore of genre directors, even if he never had a blockbuster, for instance.
That’s an odd claim to make. Let me check: according to imdb he’s got 74 credits, almost all of them action, except for a couple of cameos, Jingle all the Way and Junior.
He did, though. Are you saying if he didn’t make Halloween, The Thing, etc… he’d still be on your Rushmore?
Jingle All the Way, Junior, Twins, and Kindergarten Cop are family friendly, plus Aftermath and Maggie are dramas.
The 74 titles includes everything, 27 of which are shorts, music videos, tv shows, video games, cameos listed as “(uncredited),” etc… Removing those brings us down to 47. Of those 47, I’m seeing at least five cameos: Scavenger Hunt, Dave, Around the World in 80 Days, The Expendables, and Killing Gunther, bringing us down to 42 movies total, 6 of which aren’t action.
If we were talking about someone else you’d probably disqualify movies like End of Days and Batman & Robin as not action roles, so that’s 8 out of 42 = 81% of his roles are action films.
Guys like Steven Seagal, JCVD, Jeff Speakman (stop with the kicking!), and many B-listers I’ve probably never heard of are going to be way over that percentage.