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Post by Deleted on Jun 29, 2018 13:18:58 GMT
Mentioning a guy who was mentioned in the first post as one of the all time American greats (even though he's Canadian close enough) Christopher Plummer. I don't think any Canadian wants to be confused as American right now.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jul 7, 2018 9:25:07 GMT
With Emmy nominations next week a small shout out to a guy who does all 3 mediums and can be expected to be at least a one time (maybe two!) nominee next week: Jeff Daniels. Emmy winner, Tony nominee (and possibly this year too) and a long solid film career. Not a standout in any medium but an admirable career for sure and maybe making a bigger move on TV.
Some of the heavy hitters in this thread looking to add to their career laurels if they get nodded next week - Pacino (4th nod for his 4th TV role), Lansbury (19 nods if she gets it which might be tough, she's never won!), and maybe Laura Linney - 4 Emmy's won, several Tony nod's, 3 Oscar nods........she's another one of those people who is on the cusp of a deeper level if she can continue to make a dent in at least theater or film.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jul 11, 2018 18:55:48 GMT
Mentioning one of the biggest guys that never would be initially thought of :
Geoffrey Rush - one of only 2 guys (2 guys EVER) with 3 unique Lead Triple Crown wins - Lead Emmy, Tony and Oscar roles - 4 Oscar nods, probably came really close to winning a 2nd (imagine if he had!), Shakespeare lover and performer, a stage powerhouse in Australia, a great essayist on real life people (Peter Sellers, Einstein, etc.)
Made a huge impact, quite a career despite being from Australia and not movie star handsome either.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jul 12, 2018 13:08:00 GMT
Today's acting great is Paul Scofield who I sort of saved as the best, or oddest for last (unless I think of some more!).
Like Rush a Triple Crown Lead winner (one of 3 males, ever) - although his Oscar and Tony are for the same role. I agonized over Scofield on my "Best Actors Of All Time" list because I know he is certainly that, but I had to put several in his place because he didn't have enough of a film career to be definitive or create a path in film.
But I can't argue anyone over him for talent......... because he was so great in everything a fine TV resume too and a historic, legendary stage career.
You have to sort of separate him because he did so little on film but he did it in a way that creates an awe of him. The closest in terms of a "perfect career" in what pre-dates Daniel Day Lewis (who would never touch his stage or TV work, but also would never speak negatively about Scofield the way he did at times, Olivier).
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Post by stephen on Jul 12, 2018 14:40:35 GMT
Today's acting great is Paul Scofield who I sort of saved as the best, or oddest for last (unless I think of some more!). Like Rush a Triple Crown Lead winner (one of 3 males, ever) - although his Oscar and Tony are for the same role. I agonized over Scofield on my "Best Actors Of All Time" list because I know he is certainly that, but I had to put several in his place because he didn't have enough of a film career to be definitive or create a path in film. But I can't argue anyone over him for talent......... because he was so great in everything a fine TV resume too and a historic, legendary stage career. You have to sort of separate him because he did so little on film but he did it in a way that creates an awe of him. The closest in terms of a "perfect career" in what pre-dates Daniel Day Lewis (who would never touch his stage or TV work, but also would never speak negatively about Scofield the way he did at times, Olivier). Scofield definitely deserves far more credit than a lot of people would give him. When it comes to Shakespeare, I think he is more than up to snuff to challenge Olivier's crown. I think his King Lear is definitive (if you can unearth the 1971 film of it), even if I'm not all that crazy about the film around him. He is the quintessential Ghost in Hamlet. He made a strong impression in Branagh's Henry V. Scofield was gravitas incarnate; he could make a pizza order sound like a sonnet, and he could just draw your eyes to him even if he wasn't doing much. I'm not all that crazy about his Quiz Show nomination (especially over Turturro for the same film), but I think he's masterful in The Crucible two years later, so it kinda balances out for me. I know you don't care much for the film or DDL in it, but even naysayers have to give Scofield his due for it.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jul 12, 2018 15:18:23 GMT
I don't like The Crucible overall but Scofield and Joan Allen are pitch perfect in it and I think in Quiz Show he does that thing I love where he plays something very specific (a father's disapproval/disappointment) in a way that doesn't soften the character so you'll "agree" with his position and everybody gets it and agrees - a very boring thing to do and a thing he fought against imo. Rather he plays it just sort of as it is, and he gets out of the way of the text which you realize rarely happens in such a role. He had a great understanding of material and what an actor had to do to serve the material.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2018 15:28:54 GMT
I don't like The Crucible overall Ryder and Day-Lewis are legitimately awful in it, aren't they?
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Post by pacinoyes on Jul 12, 2018 15:40:44 GMT
I think Ryder is awful and DDL is a miscalculated performance - the only one of his dramatic film career I can say that about. He sort of set it at the wrong pitch.
I actually think we need a new version of The Crucible, perhaps as a cable movie. You know, Elia Kazan channeled his energy about the McCarthy hearings into a great film where someone who testifies is a hero (On The Waterfront) and Arthur Miller channeled it into an opposite landmark play.
It's not really right that there's not a film version that is worthy of that great play.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jul 17, 2018 12:41:39 GMT
A strange one would be Jane Fonda - at one time a consensus pick as the American "Streep Before Streep" - not exactly, but certainly a major 2 time Oscar film career that still holds up - a controversial TV performance (at the peak of her film career!) the Emmy winning A Doll's House, 2 Tony nominations for not much theater work and think that she gave up a lot of post-Stanley & Iris years where she could have done so much more in TV and theater.
The American actresses that could be mentioned are so weak overall compared to the British - Dench/Mirren/Redgrave/Smith etc. that Fonda almost stings more because there was a chance to support that film career that wasn't really followed up on in other media.
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Post by stephen on Jul 17, 2018 12:50:47 GMT
Let me humbly submit two actors who have remained winless across the three big awards bodies, yet have been nominated for them in highly acclaimed arenas: Ed Harris and Sigourney Weaver.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jul 17, 2018 13:36:24 GMT
They are similar in that losing awards sort of defines them both and if they start winning you can look at them different - I was shocked like when Harris won a Golden Globe (I think?) because he always loses it seems like. Weaver I think is the only person who was double Oscar nodded the same year, lost both and then never went on to win at a subsequent point, its almost a cruel joke record to have. She does a lot of theater but not in a big showy way, not so much TV but she could easily do it so in that sense she might be bubbling under. Harris is a bit more major to me and I know people could see him different - he has 4 film nods and if you get 5 nods you are almost basically deemed a great actor without question (you don't have to get 5 nods to be called a great actor, but if you do get to 5, that "great actor" tag goes along with it - though Clooney has 4 and I'm not so sure about that but I digress). He clearly could have 5 nods - Sweet Dreams, Under Fire, Glengarry, Jacknife, etc. so he's bubbling under even within his own film work - he's the Duvall in the generation that doesn't value a Duvall as much which is why in historical context his Empire Falls co-star PSH is so majorly important (digressing again)........he could have had also major TV career earlier - great in Paris Trout and Empire Falls but his career went a different way in that time and it took him on a different path and like Weaver he does do theater but it's been more peripheral and less showy. They both are examples of how difficult it is to balance all 3 - basically if compare them to people who don't bother with TV or theater then you might say it's better career management in a way to try less - which of course defeats the purpose of this thread so forget that.
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Post by stephen on Jul 17, 2018 13:42:04 GMT
Well, looking at it through the prism of awards, they may not seem quite as major, but I’d argue that in looking at their work, it’s a different story: Weaver is second only to Spacek out of her generation—and can often do things like even Sissy can’t—and Harris is a powerful talent with a scary amount of range and versatility, capable of being vulnerable in one scene and terrifying in the next. I never really thought much about them in tandem with each other, but Ed and Sigourney are scarily similar in their capabilities and their talents.
Awards are wonderful to have, but again it should be remembered that for many of them, they are rewarded for how well they work the campaign circuit, how much they kiss the ring, and whoever has the most approachable part.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jul 17, 2018 14:12:08 GMT
Not a big proponent of awards myself - it comes in useful in a shorthand way for this thread (the Triple Crown etc.) but it's very silly at times and I think each of those 3 Awards are preposterous in their current state - Oscar and the Tony in the recent era 20-30 years are a corrupt mess, and the Emmy's who used to be a joke are now well ................not a joke exactly but very incapable of rewarding the medium they're supposed to be covering with the changes that have come (streaming etc).
Ed and Sigourney could have been the married couple in mother! - hmmmmmmmmmmm
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Post by stephen on Jul 17, 2018 14:20:14 GMT
I think it should also be noted in Weaver's case the amount of quality work she's been in outside of her performances. I would argue that there is no actress of her age group with a more solid filmography, but I think because Weaver tends towards genre fare due to her iconic status in that medium, she is overlooked. But seriously: a woman in her sixties with the resume she has, and she hasn't been relegated towards doddering grandmother roles yet? That's damned impressive.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 11, 2019 11:54:34 GMT
I guess we should also mention now that things are changing so rapidly that this thread - by far my favorite on here, edging out Best Cinematography By A Left-Handed Ethnic Male 1934 (sarcasm!) - the composition of this list may also significantly change going forward.
Pacino apparently close to signing for an episodic show, but this is coming in general whether he's on-board to do it or not. These types of opportunities just didn't exist for most mentioned in this thread and now things are open in so many ways.
It's funny because Dustin Hoffman - who I think was the first 2 time Oscar winner to do a series gets no credit for it because the fine show he did (it was just getting good when cancelled at least) Luck. Spacey (and Lange?) will be seen as the ones who changed things but Hoffman's is forgotten - and of course wasn't streaming. In Hoffman's and Spacey's career they were reviving or trying to revive floundering careers - in Michael Douglas or Pacino's (even Penn's more shaky TV try) it plays just like something else they're doing - no big deal.
This affects some of the guys bubbling under from being on this list who are missing TV or can use it in previously unavailable ways - in weird ways it cross-affects other mediums:
Denzel Washington, missing the prestige TV component in his illustrious career (though he comes from an acclaimed TV show early on) - could do tremendous things here right now - possibly he's better positioned than any other male right now actually - he could merge his love of theater with his weighty popularity into streaming services projects.
Benedict Cumberbatch who I've discussed on here as (sort of) approaching Olivier's dominance in TV in this era could now do things Olivier couldn't have fathomed in his time. When is his TV pull going to payoff in feature films.
Mark Rylance - The mind boggles with what he could do here on streaming TV - he's got an Oscar (though not the depth of work in film), his stage work is peerless and while he has a major TV footprint and was discussed in the first post - what is open for him is everything on TV and that could payoff to film and increase that depth of work there (like Cumberbatch, and a Washington reverse example)
Streep is coming in episodic TV and while her stage work isn't as weighty as her TV and film she could parlay it into a stage role easily (so the Washington AND Rylance example in reverse again)
This year's possible winner BA winner, Glenn Close, discussed earlier in this thread as a major American figure already in this group, is already very comfortable with TV (and is the first to have distinguished herself in episodic TV actually) and big things on streaming seem like a no-brainer for her, she's already done the hard work.
Exciting times across the mediums......
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 14, 2019 19:03:47 GMT
Just wanted to mention is if Close wins this year that not only does she become the most awarded American female across the 3 groups discussed here - multiple Emmy's and Tony's (across show type too - too musical and non) and that's 2 years in a row of the very rare "Lead" winners in the Triple Crown group.
No jinx!!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2019 0:38:45 GMT
Just wanted to mention is if Close wins this year that not only does she become the most awarded American female across the 3 groups discussed here - multiple Emmy's and Tony's (across show type too - too musical and non) and that's 2 years in a row of the very rare "Lead" winners in the Triple Crown group. No jinx!! She would have the most TC nominations of any TC-winning actor, ever (23), and would tie Maggie Smith for the most wins (7).
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Post by Deleted on Jan 19, 2019 2:51:42 GMT
Not yet mentioned: mother/daughter duo Rosemary Harris and Jennifer Ehle.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 20, 2019 16:45:02 GMT
I'd like too mention another guy and how tough this is for an actor - you hear the same men brought up over and over boringly as our "Best" Actors - but in the most prestigious UK theater/film class ever - O'Toole, Finney, Courtenay, Hopkins, Harris a guy many considered THE best and the oddest of all of them - think of that?!? - was Nicol Williamson.
Played Hamlet on film - in a natural style no less, like an American (the horror!) - Hopkins is Claudius to him. In the late 60s had multiple acting triumphs on film : The Reckoning, Bofors Gun, Inadmissable Evidence (his stage triumph too) on TV a bit (in the very difficult Arturo Ui he won a BAFTA for Godsakes), bravura stage work in London and on Broadway.
By the end of his career he was something of a bad joke in a way - certainly no one calls him great like the people listed above - I bet he didn't get one vote in our recent poll - not one - and it's because of alcoholism and bad temperament. Limited himself and was limited by others and time forgot him, cruelly......he lost roles, awards and the chance to do greater work because literally, people didn't "like" him and he couldn't put the bottle down.
He was a major and unusual talent, and if you don't know him, well you should. Use this thread as a great tip - you might have seen him but maybe never connected that it was him or realized who he was - without Williamson many of our fave actors today - would look quite different or a lot more boring that's for sure.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 21, 2019 21:14:18 GMT
Not yet mentioned in this thread which is odd because she's a Triple Crown Winner and I'm a big fan; co-President of the Actor's Studio; a crucial influence on Meryl Streep, Susan Sarandon and Glenn Close really - I see her in all of them - and in her way she rivaled Fonda in the 70s but in an entirely different way - not a movie star at all. She's ridden all three of these rails a good bit, to great acclaim. Ellen Burstyn.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 23, 2019 15:31:48 GMT
If Nicol Williamson is cruelly forgotten by time, his American equivalent but a much bigger star needs a mention here as well : Dustin Hoffman. One of the 3 great stage actors in NYC in the late 60s along with Langella and Pacino, the first to break through to film and the first with a TV triumph (his stupendous Death Of A Salesman on stage too).
Hoffman's astonishing career just stopped - Merchant of Venice on stage in '89 (didn't get the film, no more stage roles), Rain Man in '88 (no real definitive roles after that a staggering decline), and no TV work at all except for his ill-fated Luck.
In 1990 you'd put him as a soon to be Jack Lemmon or better in the 3 mediums - 2 BA Oscars, 1 BA Emmy (and more to come) and no Tony but one to come surely........... but it didn't and nothing else came - his director pals vanished and didn't cast him, his movie friends didn't support him in the light of some #metoo challenges nowadays, he has no projects planned and not enough work to sustain him at the very top of this list.
Still, that doesn't mean that a 20+ year film career of greatness and stage and TV triumphs for 2 of theater's greatest roles should be undervalued. He was indeed, brilliant across the 3 mediums in his day.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 25, 2019 15:26:33 GMT
Not yet mentioned : Holly Hunter. She's an actress that has deserved two BSA nods very recently imo (Manglehorn and The Big Sick), and has given one of film's GOAT performances (The Piano) and TV's too (Texas Cheerleader) - multiple Emmy winner and many time nominee, Oscar winner and 4 time nominee (and under-represented there I'd say) - great in comedy and drama.......not much recent theater work but some and she has the background to do it again (she's 61).
When we talk about all the hard work Glenn Close has put in a career serving all 3 mediums Hunter is one who could serve as a next up contender on a smaller scale - to many she's a "never was" - never a sex symbol, never a leading box office female in film...... but she also great a lot and was never anybody's fool on screen, she never pandered and was utterly her unique self on screen.
She'll be someone to watch in her 60s, she's a couple roles away and they could come at any time too.
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Post by stephen on Jan 25, 2019 17:36:33 GMT
Not yet mentioned : Holly Hunter. She's an actress that has deserved two BSA nods very recently imo (Manglehorn and The Big Sick), and has given one of film's GOAT performances (The Piano) and TV's too (Texas Cheerleader) - multiple Emmy winner and many time nominee, Oscar winner and 4 time nominee (and under-represented there I'd say) - great in comedy and drama.......not much recent theater work but some and she has the background to do it again (she's 61). When we talk about all the hard work Glenn Close has put in a career serving all 3 mediums Hunter is one who could serve as a next up contender on a smaller scale - to many she's a "never was" - never a sex symbol, never a leading box office female in film...... but she also great a lot and was never anybody's fool on screen, she never pandered and was utterly her unique self on screen. She'll be someone to watch in her 60s, she's a couple roles away and they could come at any time too. Holly Hunter is definitely one of the greats for sure, and I think she could follow her bestie Frances McDormand into Tony glory with the right stage role.
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Post by Mattsby on Jan 27, 2019 4:41:12 GMT
How about Peter Falk? His name never really comes up in these convos, he doesn't nearly have the stature of the big guns, but I love him to pieces, and I think if we stuck to TV/Film he's in there somewhere as an undersung pick. What he has that many others do not is a major, indelible television creation with Columbo. He's often pretty great in his early episode spots; he won an Emmy for The Price of Tomatoes (Dick Powell Theatre) in '62, the same year he did The Pigeon (87th Precinct) and if you look at these performances you can sort of view him as the connecting point between Brando and Pacino / De Niro.
With theater, he's there a bit. Some varied off-Broadway roles in Molière, Arthur Miller, Paddy Chayefsky, Eugene O’Neill (Iceman Cometh, when Jason Robards headlined), and a major Broadway role Neil Simon’s Prisoner of Second Avenue directed by Mike Nichols in a few hundred performances...
His film work might look a little short, and I still gotta go thru his later career for gems, but there's Mikey and Nicky which I sometimes rank (him and Cassavetes both) extremely high on my all time list for lead. He's a powerhouse in The Balcony. Terrifically slick in Machine Gun McCain. Husbands, Woman Under the Influence. That's without mentioning the comedies where he visibly excelled too. Even in smaller nothing projects like The Bloody Brood, the way he says "dumb luck" is stuck in my brain forever probably. He could be very smooth, very funny, thunderous, tense, poignant, damaged, conspiratorial, goofy - occasionally all at once.
How about some what ifs? What if he got the Tom Hagen role? What if he didn't take five years off in the '80s? What if Cassavetes lived longer?
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 27, 2019 7:08:35 GMT
Falk is a good mention here and an unsung pick is a good way to phrase it - and he also gets into the weird "what if's" for guys who are quirky and maybe don't have the totality of work in all 3 mediums (ie they'd be the "anti-Olivier's") - like Chris Walken is one of those also.
A notable film career, but not much on TV - why not?, if he had dialed down on film parts and concentrated on TV roles he may have been major there, and not enough major theater work maybe but he can dance and sing and has a couple Tony nods in a straight role and a musical. He has some great non-Broadway theater work too.
He's an example of a guy (of some significant stature) that like Falk everyone loves - yet who has a career arc that seems rather random and never seems as if he was ambitious in any way at all - if you look at his total work, there's a lot of "what if's" there for him as well.
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