Ah yes, been awhile since I watched Boardwalk Empire. Dabney did an excellent job as the Commodore. And another who was that!? Time to watch it again!
I don’t want to spoil a perfectly good excuse to re-watch the entire film, but here are the end credits. Including Hackman:
Oldman is a bit of a chameleon, so it’s understandable. He’s almost unrecognizable in “True Romance.”
Tom Cruise in “Tropic Thunder” surprises a lot of people; only his voice gave it away for me.
Different definitions of uncredited. The name of the biggest star in the movie doesn’t appear on the movie posters and his name is not in the opening credits. That was done purposely to maintain the audience surprise of seeing Hackman in the movie.
Likewise Cate Blanchett in Hot Fuzz, though the whole joke is that no one could possibly recognize her in a hazmat suit and face mask.
Go back to my first post on this. I explicitly said that I didn’t know it was Hackman until the end credits.
The objection was that they thought he wasn’t even mentioned in the end credits. That he isn’t in the opening credits is completely irrelevant – nobody said he was “uncredited”
I became a fan of Powers Boothe after seeing him in a number of shows and movies (Philip Marlowe, Jim Jones, Red Dawn). I also loved the film Tombstone, and watched it at least a half-a-dozen times. It was only later when I discovered he played Curly Bill in the film. He did a great job, but I didn’t recognize him with the mustache!
The show was also great at casting “on the cusp of celebrity” comedy actors from the LA scene.
Melissa McCarthy. circa season 1 of Gilmore Girls, has a one scene part in “The Surrogate” one of my favorite episodes. Mindy Kaling. Jorge Garcia and Bob Odenkirk but I think he was already kind of known by then right?
And… huh… full disclosure, I was going to post “It took me until recently to realize the guy playing Mon Mothma’s husband on “Andor” was the guy from The Americans, Matthew Rhys”…but he’s not…He’s a guy named Alastair Mckenzie… So…anyway…
When Steve Buscemi was assaulted in Midtown Manhattan, “Saturday Night Live” responded with a message about the importance of protecting our nation’s kinda-recognizable actors:
Just finished bingeing Season 3 of The White Lotus. While watching the first episode, I was trying to figure out where I’d seen the middle-aged father from Texas. He looked vaguely familiar, but I just couldn’t place him. Looked up the show on IDMB and about fell off my chair when I realized it was Lucius Malfoy (Jason Isaacs). It wasn’t the hairstyle or the costuming - it was the voice. He sounded so completely different with the Texas accent I never would have placed him.
Just to nit-pick, the character is from Durham, NC. I know this because:
- I live in Durham and it was a big deal in the local media,
- It’s why they keep working Duke University into the conversations, and,
- a Durham-specific sub-Reddit had many, many discussions about how accurate the accent was, with a seemingly 50/50 split between, “fakest thing I’ve ever heard,” and, “he sounds just like my dad/uncle/grandpa.”
I didn’t say you said uncredited. But it’s not true that nobody said it.
They really should have worked a Hogwarts reference in. That would have been hysterical.
There’s an actor called Derek Wilson whose biggest role to date (IMO) was playing Wolf in the TV show “Future Man”. He was really funny in that show.
Between the crazy hair and makeup and the gravelly voice he used, I have a hard time recognizing him in other stuff (e.g. Gen V/The Boys, The Studio, Preacher). Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have given him a lot of work!
I totally did not recognize Mike Myers in Bohemian Rhapsody. (He was the record company exec who didn’t want Queen to do the song Bohemian Rhapsody because it wasn’t something teenagers driving around would bang their heads to. Which of course is a dead giveaway he was played by Mike Myers.)
Years ago I was watching a Star Trek Next Generation episode and could not place the guest star. I knew I’d seen him but couldn’t figure out where.
At one point he says something like “you don’t understand; I’m dead already”.
Me: What’s in a Gnome! He was the Viet Nam vet saboteur in What’s in a Gnome! [A Simon & Simon episode]. And he was. Richard Cox.
I stand corrected. I think there was a Facebook thing around when Gene Hackman died saying his performance was uncredited that installed itself in my brain.
Ditto, so I have to see an actor in about 6 roles before recognition sinks in. So the OP scenario happens to me a lot.
This one is embarrassing to me. It wasn’t until my second viewing of The Big Short that I realized one of the primary characters is played by Ryan Gosling, an actor who reminds me so much of a close friend of mine that I usually clock him within seconds in any role. But not that one.
I watched Thunderbolts* this past weekend. Val’s assistant bugged me; I could only recall that the last thing I had seen her in, she was hilarious. It turns out Geraldine Viswanathan played opposite Daniel Radcliffe in Miracle Workers.