John Lithgow in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai. At least, I saw that at the time and liked it, and saw him in enough other roles to start recognizing him.
Smokin’ hot, but every time I see her in a movie I wish she’d inherited a bit of her mother’s spunkiness.
Yes. Same here, although he’s “only” one of our numerous second-favorites.
Another of our second faves. Mrs. C and Me hated Easy Rider, despite our having been far out and groovy at the time, but JN’s performance was phenomenally good. We’ve followed him ever since.
Tim Curry, not surprisingly in Rocky Horror Picture Show. I think I have seen just about every movie he has made. Close to it, anyway. Still love him!
Paul Newman in The Long Hot Summer. I was too young to really even understand what a crush was, but that night I slept with my arms wrapped around my pillow.
Am I the only Cary Grant fan? The first film I saw him in was North by Northwest.
Kate Winslet in Hamlet.
Scarlett Johansson in Lost in Translation.
I didn’t have a favorite actor until I saw Edward Norton in Primal Fear.
I always refer to him as the guy from Primal Fear and totally forget he was in Fight Club, which is one of my favorites. Ha!
Ewan McGregor in Moulin Rouge!
Kim Novak in Bell Book & Candle.
le sigh She could have cast a spell on me any old time.
Barbara Harris in Who is Harry Kellerman and Why is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? It is not a good film, but she has a brilliant “audition” scene about half way though.
Producer: Do you see your self as primarily a singer? An actress? Or what?
Barbara: Um… an amnesia victim?
I first saw Natalie Portman in Leon: The Professional which was her first high profile film. And I don’t really like Kate Winslet but do love Melanie Lynskey in Heavenly Creatures, which was also her first film.
Even though I saw Gary Oldman in the aforementioned The Professional, I really took notice of him in The Fifth Element.
And I first paid attention to and admired Heath Ledger, Alan Tudyk, Paul Bettany, and even Rufus Sewell, in A Knight’s Tale. It is a film only ruined by James Purefoy’s awful performance (yes, even Shannyn Sossamon was better than him).
First noticed William H Macy in Fargo
First noticed Anne Hathaway in Brokeback Mountain, although at the time I was aware of her mainly as ‘that girl from the Princess Diaries’, (which I have not seen)
I saw Daniel Day-Lewis in Last of the Mohicans. ::Swoon:: Since then, I’ve seen him in My Left Foot, The Age of Innocence, In the Name of the Father, The Crucible, and Lincoln but I still haven’t watched The Boxer, There Will Be Blood or Gangs of New York because I’m not into hyper-violent films.
Christian Bale really intrigues me, but I haven’t seen any of his films.
I don’t really have a favorite actress right now.
Scarlett Johansson in Girl With A Pearl Earring
Are you me? Except she was On Golden Pond age when I first saw the movie.
More: Antonio Banderas, Desperado
Michelle Pfeiffer, Grease 2
Geoffrey Rush as Inspector Javert in the 1998 version of Les Misérables. Smart, intense, and crazy.
Colin Firth in the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice. Along with about eleventy billion other women.
Sorry Skald, I just realized I broke your rule about no TV. In light of my error, I’ll add Al Pacino in The Godfather.
+1. Noticed him in Die Hard, but fell in love with him in Truly, Madly Deeply. I start crying about 10 minutes into that movie and will continue to sob the entire way through.
I love both leads in Heavenly Creatures, and was fairly shocked to learn that the hot crazy chick with great wheels from 2 &1/2 Men had once been the somewhat dumpy teen from that movie.
Antonio Banderas - Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Saw it at the local art house cinema around sometime in the late 80’s early 90’s maybe. Then hunted down every other movie available that he had even a small part in at the local independent video store. Then he made his american debut I got to be one of the few people who knew who he was and annoyed the hell out of everyone urging them to watch his Almodavar movies.