What performance defines "scene-stealer" for you?

Cafe Society
61

Sam Rockwell in Galaxy Quest.

“Hey guys…there’s a red thingy…heading towards the green thingy…::choking up:: I think we’re the green thingy.”

“Don’t open that! It’s an alien planet! Is there AIR?! You don’t know!” ::holds breath::

“Guy, you have a last name.”
“Do I?! DO I?!”

62

“Did you guys ever watch the show???”

63

Rod Stieger totally stole In the Heat of the Night from Sidney Poiter’s main character. And deservedly got an Oscar for it.

64

War Horse. Celine Buckens as Emilie, the granddaughter, just walks away with the entire movie.

65

Edna May Oliver! I win.

66

Animated instance, but the comically-behaved horse in Disney’s “Tangled”. In a movie where the female lead is the primary character the horse is better remembered than the male lead, and recieves at least as much audience attention/thought as the female lead does throughout most of the movie.

A lot of memorable quasi-eligible thefts in the** TV series “Boardwalk Empire”**, but I’ll only blab about the first two that come to mind.

For one, not an acute scene steal but more of a gradual role steal. Michael Pitt played an antagonist, Jimmy Darmody, who got more character development and attention than the female lead/secondary protagonist, but Jack Huston played a supporting antagonist, Richard Harrow, who has become the most universally loved character among viewers and who gets about as much screen time as the female lead. I’ve heard rumours that Pitt resigned due to displeasure about having to share so much intellectual territory with Huston, who had expected to just be a sort of guest star (Richard was only planned to show up in one episode but his popularity earned him the supporting-antagonist role in the first place).

Because it’s due to the writing rather than the acting this may not count as scene-stealing, but Pitt-as-Jimmy then stole a large portion of the second season and especially the season 2 finale from the main character (Nucky Thompson) played by Steve Buscemi. Acting-wise I’m of the opinion that anyone can take a scene from Buscemi pretty damn quick, but Pitt’s character changes so much and Buscemi’s so comparatively little that for a lot of viewers he was the lead in name only. Then when (SPOILERS!) Nucky kills Jimmy in the season finale:

  1. they gave Buscemi bland dialogue in what was quite a pivotal moment for Nucky and gave the scene-making dialogue to Pitt, and
  2. throughout much of the scene the camera switches between Nucky and Jimmy, but when it focuses on Nucky his pose changes very little and expression changes even less, while when it focuses on Jimmy he changes position and facial expressions as the tone of the conversation shifts. So that
  3. a lot of folks were left feeling like the show had lost its main protagonist, rather than feeling like losing a major antagonist brought the lead’s development ahead a step.
67

I swear, when I read this post I thought I had yet again stumbled into a zombie thread.

Anyhoo…

My nomination is Jack Black in High Fidelity:

Clip

Too bad I don’t like much of anything he’s done since.
mmm

68

I thought Sinestro stole the movie Green Lantern from Green Lantern. A much more interesting and intense character than the usual hotshot test pilot hero.

Also, Zoey Deschanel and the guy who played her boyfriend stole Failure to Launch from Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew McConnaghey. They were fun to watch, the lead couple were just dull.

69

Speaking of animated movies, Puss in Boots stole every scene he was in in “Shrek 2.”

70

I’ll vote for Hopper and Walken - one of the best scenes in movie history!

71

But it was the drunken horse that really stole one of the best scenes in Cat Ballou.

As Lee Marvin said when he accepted the Oscar:

72

Ian McShane in any Deadwood episode.

73

I don’t think you can “steal a scene” . . . from yourself.

74

I came in to mention Steiger in Oklahoma! vs. Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones, but come to think of it, ALL of the supporting actors (Chalotte Greenwood, James Whitmore, Jay C. Flippen, Eddie Albert, Gloria Grahame) stole every scene they were in with MacRae and/or Jones. She’d get a lot better in later movies, but he never did.

75

Gene Hackman as the blind monk in Young Frankenstein

76

I’m not sure he was acting.

How about Brian Blessed in Flash Gordon?

77

The first thing I think of is Emma Caulfield’s moment in “The Body,” and please God somebody tell me they know what I’m talking about before I retreat gibbering madly to the trees.

78

What’s even better is, I read that Costner didn’t like what Rickman was doing to “his” movie and cut some of Rickman’s parts out. And Rickman still stole the thing.

79

David Threllfall as Preserved Killick in Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World.

80

Oh, I just thought of one - Richardson in Deadwood fits the stricter definition. I mean, EB will be doing his thing but in the background there’s this crazy old guy with this face - I can never take my eyes off him.