After posting on this thread, I got to thinking–why are some film performances completely uncredited? I thought Owen Wilson was pretty good in Night in the Museum , and the movie wasn’t totally awful (IMHO, anyhoo)–why was he uncredited?
I also remember Bill Murray having no screen credit in Tootsie --a very good film.
I understand the whole “Alan Smithee” thing regarding directors–why are some acting performances uncredited?
Sometimes the film turned out so badly that the actors don’t want their names associated with it.
Also, some are not sure if the movie will be good, so they remove their names “just in case.”
I’m just quoting what I’ve heard. I’m not sure why they wouldn’t want their names associated with a good film, however.
A big star might want to preserve the element of surprise. One example of this would be the person who played the killer in Se7en. (I think this actor was also delighted to not have to go to the trouble of participating in publicity interviews.)
Hmm. I didn’t really answer the question that was asked.
In Hellboy, the character Abe is physically played by contortionist/actor Doug Jones (in a heavy costume that completely obscures his face), but voiced by David Hyde Pierce of Frasier. From Wikipedia:
It often seems to be the case when it is a big star doing a role that it more of a cameo, think Robin Williams in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, often the actor has a close personal friendship with someone else involved in putting the film together.
This has lead me to speculate, repeat speculate, that there’s something going on with money.
Sometimes an actor who normally is able to demand very high a pay rate might be perfectly happy to do a film for scale (union regulated minimum pay) as a favor for a friend and because s/he is expects to have fun working with friends on a film.
Although the normally high paid actor might not mind the small paycheck, the actor’s agent usually doesn’t like these situations because once it is known that an actor is working for less money it is much more difficult to negotiate the big bucks for future projects. By not taking a credit it is easier to obscure the situation.
I think there are also situations where an actor will agree to do a non-union film because s/he is impressed with the director and/or the script. Once an actor is in the Screen Actors Guild, the union gets really pissed off if the actor uses the loophole that allows them to do nonunion work. The actor then becomes ineligible for any union honors or for holding any office within the union. So, if a big star agrees to a small role in a non-union film, s/he may prefer to take no credit so as to draw as little attention to it as possible.
Yes, in these situations everyone in the business knows what has happened but they are more likely to ignore it, less likely to ask questions, when the actor takes no credit.
The actor in question was not really an A-list star at that point. That was the year he really hit the public consciousness, with his roles in Se7evn and, of course, that other movie he won the Oscar for.
There are cases where an actor playing a supporting role has more “status” than the main star of the film, i.e. he would be entitled to be billed above the star, ala Jack Nicholson in the first Batman movie receiving top billing over Michael Keaton, but chooses to go uncredited so that he doesn’t detract from the main character.
A good example is Whoopi Goldberg going uncredited for her role as Guinan in recent Star Trek movies. Whoopi commands more star power than the regular ST:TNG actors, and so would be entitled to top billing. However, Star Trek movies are not Whoopi Goldberg movies, and so she chose to go uncredited. She didn’t feel her name belonged above the title in this case.
Basically they’re not credited because the audience would normally *expect *them to be credited. A cameo is a little joke about stunt casting, about star egos, about the fourth wall–it wouldn’t work as a joke if the actor were credited.
In the case of Bill Murray and Tootsie, I recall reading somewhere (imdb?) that they decided he would be uncredited because they didn’t want audiences to think it was a “wacky Bill Murray” movie like Meatballs or Stripes, etc.
Favorite moment from Tootsie is courtesy of Murray:
“That…is one…nutty…hospital”
Hopefully not a hijack:
Why is Gene Hackman never top-billed? Even Hoosiers, where Gene is the main character, Dennis Hopper gets billed first?
He did have top billing in The French Connection .
He got top billing in *Superman II * and Superman IV. He was behind only Marlon Brando in Superman, and wasn’t in *Superman III * — the only one of those 4 movies where top billing went to the actor playing the title character.
James Earl Jones similarly refused credit as the voice of Darth Vader in Star Wars, believing David Prowse brought the character to life, not him. (He did recieve credit in the Special Edition, however.)
Williams was credited under a punny psuedonym, Ray DiTutto (a play on the Italian phrase for “King of Everything.”) Similarly, Dustin Hoffman was credited as “Sam Etic” in a Simpsons episode where he played a Jewish school teacher.
Regarding Owen Wilson in Night at the Museum, I’m not sure why he refused credit, but he apparently doesn’t mind publicity, seeing as he is named in TV advertisements for the film (somewhat the opposite of Robin Williams in Aladdin, who was credited for his performance but did not want advertising to focus on the Genie character- a near impossibility, since he was one of the highlights of the film).
I’ve heard the same. It seems to me a workable idea, since it does let them maintain leverage for salary negotiations. After all, as I understand it generally the major reason for hiring a big name actor is so you can plaster their name on the advirtisments as an added draw. If someone says to the agent "We’d like to hire your client for what he worked for in Minor Film X, he/she can say, “If you want, as long as you nowhere mention you have done so, just like the producer and director of Minor Film X.” Which kind of undercuts the point of doing so.
In the case of Judson Scott (Star Trek II: TWOK), it seems having your agent play “chicken” with the producers doesn’t always pay off.
One interesting uncredited role is Arliss Howard’s Kenneth Parnell in “I Know My First Name Is Steven,” based on the kidnapping (Parnell) of Steven Stayner.
He’s only in practically every scene, and his character is the reason that there is a movie to begin with–but no on-screen credit.
Another example of an A-lister with a sizeable role going uncredited: Bruce Willis in Four Rooms. However, it was probably done for fun, and as a favor to his friend Quentin Tarantino (who directed him the previous year in Pulp Fiction).
You know, instead of circumlocuting the point of whom you’re talking about, you could always use one of these! 