I got nominated by my very dear friend Martin Bradley for The Favorite Actors challenge. I thank him for considering me for this. Below are my 5 favorite male and female actors of all-time (compiling such a list at a short notice is never easy but I have tried to do my best :-) )... Male (I have tried to be a bit clever here by including as many as 13 actors instead of just 5): 5. Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, and Jack Nicholson (Pacino for The Godfather Trilogy, Scarface, Heat, The Scent of a Woman, Serpico, Scarecrow, ...And Justice for All, Dog Day Afternoon, Glengarry Glen Ross, Devils Advocate, The Insider, Donnie Brasco, Merchant of Venice, Insomnia, Carlitos Way, and The Local Stigmatic; De Niro for Once Upon a Time in America, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, The Godfather 2, The King of Comedy, Casino, 1900, The Last Tycoon, Heat, Mean Streets, The Mission, Awakenings, Cape Fear, A Bronx Tale, Great Expectations, wherein he only plays a cameo but I just adore it for the powerful impact that it actually creates; Jack Nicholson for Chinatown, The Shining, One Flew Over Cuckoos Nest, Five Easy Pieces, The Passenger, The Last Detail, The Missouri Breaks, Batman, The Pledge, A Few Good Men, The Two Jakes, and As Good as it Gets) 4. Orson Welles, Alec Guiness, and Gene Hackman (Welles for delivering nigh perfect performances in films like Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, The Trial, Lady from Shanghai, Mr. Arkadin, Othello, Macbeth and F for Fake, which is a documentary but his what Welles playful and deceptive narration does here is nothing short of a performance by any means; Guiness for his enduring performances in The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, A Passage to India, Great Expectations, Star Wars, The Ladykillers, The Fall of the Roman Empire and Doctor Zhivago; Hackman for his sublime performances in The Conversation, Scarecrow, Night Moves, The French Connection, Mississippi Burning, Unforgiven, Superman, Bonnie and Clyde, and The Runaway Jury) 3. Rod Steiger and Klaus Kinski (Steiger for his riveting performances in A Fistful of Dynamite, The Pawnbroker, In the Heat of the Night, Doctor Zhivago, Waterloo, and On the Waterfront; Kinski for his insanely brilliant performances in Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo, Nosferatu the Vampyre, The Great Silence, Woyzeck, For a Few Dollars More, and Cobra Verde) 2. Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai and Peter OToole (Mifune for Yojimbo, High and Low, The Throne of Blood, The Drunken Angel, The Stray Dog, Seven Samurai and Samurai Rebellion; Nakadai for Harakiri, Ran, Kagemusha, The Sword of Doom, The Human Condition Trilogy, and Yojimbo; OToole for his enduring performances in Lawrence of Arabia, The Stunt Man, Lord Jim, Becket, The Ruling Class, The Lion in Winter, My Favorite Year, Goodbye, Mr. Chipps, and Venus) 1. Marlon Brando and Humphrey Bogart (Brando for a career studded with a barrage of scintillating performances... like Queimada aka Burn!, Last Tango in Paris, The Godfather, On the Waterfront, A Streetcar Named Desire, Reflections in a Golden Eye, One-Eyed Jacks, Mutiny on the Bounty, The Missouri Breaks, Superman, and Apocalypse Now; Bogart for The Treasure of the Sierre Madre, In a Lonely Place, The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, The Big Sleep, Key Largo, The African Queen, and The Petrified Forest, which was also the film that turned the fortunes for Bogart). Female (this is a sort of a blind spot for me as I have yet to savor so many great performances): 5). Tilda Swinton (For Michael Clayton, Burn After Reading, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Only Lovers Left Alive and others... she is one actress who continues to impress me till this date with her riveting work) 4). Elizabeth Taylor (For Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Reflections in a Golden Eye, Cleopatra, and The Sandpiper among others) 3).Nicole Kidman (For her intense performances in Eyes Wide Shut, Dogville, The Hours, Moulin Rouge!, The Others, The Human Strain, and Cold Mountain) 2). Uma Thurman (Now, I know that I am being a bit biased but I just cant help it... her most adorable performances are Kill Bill: Vol I & II, Pulp Fiction, Gattaca, Dangerous Liaisons, Les Miserables, and Nymphomaniac - loved her cameo as a hysterical wife) 1). Vivian Leigh (though not as prolific as some of her contemporaries... for Gone With the Wind and A Streetcar Named Desire) P.S. Since not all of my friends here on facebook are very comfortable with tagging, I welcome all those who wish to contribute voluntarily to enlighten us with some knowledge related to any good actor(s)/performance(s) that comes to their mind here.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 19:52:03 +0000
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