Although Your Favorite Character Actor – Final Poll is still open, it appears that Steve Buscemi is far enough ahead in the voting that he will emerge as SDMB’s Favorite “Character Actor.”
This morning the voting stood at:
View Poll Results: Who are your Top Five Character Actors of all time?
This poll will close on 04-22-2013 at 01:32 AM
Steve Buscemi 33 46.48%
John Goodman 22 30.99%
Peter Lorre 21 29.58%
Stanley Tucci 17 23.94%
David Strathairn 15 21.13%
Frances McDormand 13 18.31%
J.K. Simmons 13 18.31%
Harry Dean Stanton 13 18.31%
Stephen Root 12 16.90%
Jim Broadbent 11 15.49%
Joan Cusack 10 14.08%
Margaret Dumont 10 14.08%
Claude Rains 10 14.08%
Tim Roth 10 14.08%
Chris Cooper 8 11.27%
Garret Dillahunt 8 11.27%
M. Emmet Walsh 8 11.27%
Walton Goggins 7 9.86%
Slim Pickens 7 9.86%
Giovanni Ribisi 7 9.86%
JT Walsh 7 9.86%
Charles Durning 6 8.45%
Carol Kane 6 8.45%
Cloris Leachman 6 8.45%
Strother Martin 6 8.45%
Warren Oates 6 8.45%
Elisha Cook Jr 5 7.04%
Sydney Greenstreet 4 5.63%
John Hawkes 4 5.63%
Ben Johnson 4 5.63%
George Kennedy 4 5.63%
Jack Warden 4 5.63%
Jack Elam 3 4.23%
Ned Beatty 2 2.82%
Dan Hedaya 1 1.41%
Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 71
Back in August 2010 as Boardwalk Empire was about to premiere on HBO The BEST Steve Buscemi Role attracted 136 Voters who posted at least one vote for the names in this new poll. If your top 3 Steve Buscemi roles are not included, please vote Other and post your choice(s).
Honor system public poll (others can see your votes) on the way…
Yeah, had to check that myself. I voted for the three (other than Pulp Fiction) that I’d actually seen: The Big Lebowski, Reservoir Dogs, and Boardwalk Empire.
I voted for Reservoir Dogs, Trees Lounge (a very good movie), and Desperado (small, but memorable part to open the movie).
Of his other prominent roles that I’ve seen:
Initially I checked Fargo, and he is great in it, but I just really liked him in Desperado.
The Big Lebowski - certainly a memorable movie, but IMO Buscemi’s part is mostly memorable for John Goodman yelling at him, and not for anything he actually did in the movie.
Ghost World - he was good, but I didn’t really care for this movie.
Boardwalk Empire - he is very good in this, but I’m just not sure I totally buy him in that role.
The Sopranos - while a decently large part, still felt kind of tacked on to me.
Living in Oblivion was one of my favorite movies in the mid-90s. He’s so great in it (as is a young Peter Dinklage… “I’m a dwarf I don’t even have dreams with dwarfs in them!”).
I have, but it’s quite possibly been over ten years since I’ve seen it. I have only the vaguest recollection of the film in general (lots of Minnesota accents and a wood chipper that is used to chip something other than wood), much less Buscemi’s role in it.
Oops. Forgot about that. Tie between Ghost World and Reservoir Dogs for number one on the poll – hard to imagine either movie without him (yes, I think both movies are excellent, which helps). Trees Lounge ended up as the third choice, just because it was an OK movie and he was OK in it.
Happy Franks, the suicidal lounge entertainer on the ocean liner in The Impostors.
“He was a great agent. I loved him like a brother, I loved my wife like a mother and a hooker, and look where it’s got me, alone, afraid, and I just wanna die!”
While I’ll stick with my choice of “Fargo,” it’s almost unfair to an actor to pick that movie because it’s one of the three best roles of the careers of any actor who was in it; it was as good a script as has ever been written.
The opening scene with Buscemi, William H. Macy and Peter Stormare in “The King of Clubs” establishes not only the entire plot AND foreshadows exactly what’s going to happen (“Oh no, it’s real sound, it’s all worked out!”) but you understand, in two or three minutes, all three characters absolutely bang on.
