Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance in The Shining

             There are some actors we go to watch because we know they’ll deliver a great trademark performance that you've come to expect from them. Such a performance is Jack Nicholson from Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film The Shining, based on the novel by Stephen King. By 1980, Jack Nicholson was already a highly acclaimed actor known for playing rebel troublemakers in movies such as Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, The Last Detail, Chinatown and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. All those films earned Nicholson Oscar nominations including culminating in an Oscar win for best actor for his performance in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in 1975.

            Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is one of the most acclaimed and artistic horror films ever made. Its story is as basic they come. It involves a writer named Jack Torrance who has accepted an offer of being a caretaker of the isolated Overlook Hotel during its off-season in the winter. Jack has a wife and son that accompany with him to this abandoned motel. Soon after Jack and his family move into this hotel, Jack starts to experience an extreme case of cabin fever and starts to go mad. Jack begins seeing ghosts of dead people who have occupied the hotel over the years. He also has an extreme case of writer’s block but is constantly seen typing. (The repeating message he is typing is revealed in a memorable scene later in the film.) Jack eventually becomes so psychotic that he decides that he must murder his family.

            Stephen King, the author of the novel the film is based on, was adamantly against the casting of Jack Nicholson. King felt that the casting of Nicholson would tip audiences off too early that his character would eventually go crazy. Stephen King wanted an average-Joe looking actor to play the main character and felt Nicholson already seemed like a crazy person. This was especially true because of Nicholson was most well-known for his role as McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I completely agree with Stephen King’s valid points, but he missed the appeal of seeing Nicholson playing this character that suited him so well. Because the simple fact is, no one can play crazy like Jack Nicholson.(link)

            With his wild eye brows, his expressive brow, his unkempt hair, his unshaven look and that devilish grin of his; Nicholson can look crazy as well as anyone. Also, in the film Nicholson frequently has his eyes rolled in the back of his head, a look that has become accustomed to someone who is trying to act psychotic. The Shining was a rare opportunity for Nicholson to go all out with his performance and he does so perfectly.

Many film critics criticized Nicholson’s performance claiming he goes over-the-top, but in a film dealing with madness I think going over-the-top is part of the territory. An actor that goes over-the-top implies that you are taken out of the movie and are noticing the actor’s acting. This is not the case of Jack Nicholson in The Shining because we really believe that Nicholson is going absolutely crazy. This wouldn’t have been the case of watching a normal looking actor go crazy, something director Stanley Kubrick was well aware of when he casted Nicholson. Jack Nicholson and his character Jack Torrance can almost be viewed as one and the same, because people’s perception of Nicholson is not far off from his character. I believe this benefits the movie and his performance greatly because we instantly accept Nicholson as this character.

His character of Jack Torrance is one of the most unsympathetic characters Nicholson has ever played, and he’s played quite a few. His character is a recovering alcoholic, he’s angry all the time and he doesn’t seem to have much of a connection with his wife and son. I don’t believe Kubrick ever intended the audience to view Nicholson’s character as someone we could relate to. Rather, Nicholson’s character was a disturbing portrait of a man going nutty.

Many scenes and moments from The Shining have become part of our pop-cultural lexicon and most of them resulted because of Nicholson’s unforgettable performance. One of the most famous scenes from the movie occurs when Jack Nicholson breaks down a door with an axe trying to get to his wife and son. Once Nicholson opens a small hole in the door to look at his terrified wife and son, Nicholson says, “Here Johnny!” in his freakiest voice. The line was ad-libbed (came up with on the spot) by Nicholson, who was referencing The Johnny Carson Show.(link)

Another brilliant improvisation by Nicholson was he was seen a few times in the film bouncing a tennis ball off the wall when Jack was trying to write but unable too. In the script it just stated that “Jack is not working.”  Bouncing a tennis ball off a wall when you’re alone has now become a staple used in film and television when portraying a character who is losing their mind.

One of the most well-known scenes from the movie is when Jack’s wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) reads what Jack has been typing throughout his stay at the hotel. She sees the line, “All work and no play make Jack a dull boy” repeated throughout a countless number of pages. Jack then appears and simply but creepily asks, “ How do you like it?” This scene illustrates the incredible momentum a scene can have come from an actor’s performance. Nicholson starts out the scene seemingly calm and in control, but gradually he starts getting angrier, louder and turns violent.

Suprisingly, Nicholson did not receive an Oscar nomination for The Shining, even though it’s arguably now his most renowned performance. People had an idea what to expect when Jack Nicholson was cast in The Shining, but Nicholson went way beyond anyone’s expectations and delivered one of the most terrifying screen performances ever seen on film. It also helped that Nicholson has the perception of being a crazy man in real-life. But whether that is true or not, doesn’t really matter because after watching The Shining there is no doubt that acting crazy is Nicholson’s true forte. 

Al Pacino as Sonny Wortzik in Dog Day Afternoon

                 Acting has never looked more physically exhausting than watching Al Pacino as Sonny Wortzik in Dog Day Afternoon. Dog Day Afternoon was released in 1975 and was directed by the legendary Sidney Lumet, who recently passed away on April 9, 2011, at the age of 86. Dog Day Afternoon was based on a true story that occurred in 1972 in New York City where a gay man and his accomplice robbed a bank in order to pay for his lover’s sex change operation. One of the taglines for the film read: “The robbery should have taken 10 minutes. 4 hours later, the bank was like a circus sideshow. 8 hours later, it was the hottest thing on live T.V. 12 hours later, it was all history. And it's all true.”

Sal (John Cazale) and Sonny

            The story takes place on one of the hottest days of the summer of 1972 in the Bronx. The hot temperature outside is an important element of the story that affects everything that happens in the film, including Al Pacino’s frantic performance as Sonny. The film opens with a robbery at a bank in the Bronx being performed by Sonny and his accomplice Sal (John Cazale). When we first meet Sonny he seems threatening and on-edge, like he’s willing to kill anyone at any moment. But once the robbery turns bad and Sonny realizes that he can’t escape the way he initially wanted, we begin to see the true nature of his character. Although, Sonny and his accomplice Sal take everyone in the bank as hostages, the hostages soon sympathize with Sonny’s cause. Sonny is doing this so he can pay for his lover’s sex change operation.

            Sidney Lumet commented on the controversial nature of Pacino’s character saying, “Al was terribly nervous about doing Dog Day Afternoon. I don't think any major American star had played not only a gay guy but a gay guy who's in love with a man getting an operation to be a woman! The night before we started rehearsals his hands were shaking. He was ready to quit. I was nervous that this thing would be showing in Brooklyn on a Saturday night and some guy would shout ''Fag!'' at the screen. The only way to prevent that was to be so true to these characters that everybody couldn't help but get swept up in the movie. I think it's Al's best performance.” (link)

            Pacino was not only worried about taking the role of Sonny because he was gay, but also because he knew the role would be a mental and physical challenge. Pacino had also just finished filming The Godfather Part II when he was offered the role in Dog Day Afternoon, and he told director Sidney Lumet near the start of production that he couldn't play it. Pacino was physically exhausted and depressed after The Godfather Part II shoot. He’s also a method actor and he wasn’t looking forward to the thought of working himself up to a state of near hysteria every day. Lumet unhappily accepted the actor's decision and dispatched the script to Dustin Hoffman. Pacino changed his mind when he heard that his rival was in the mix for the role. (link)

              Throughout the entire movie Sonny is sweating and appears very nervous. Which is completely appropriate given the situation he’s involved in that includes: the media, the New York City police, the FBI, and the people on the streets watching this unbelievable circus show. Pacino constantly appears frantic and is worried that he’s going to get his head blown off at any minute. The movie was written by Franklin Pierce who won an Oscar for his script, but a lot of the dialogue was improvised. Lumet who normally doesn’t like improvisation in his films felt Dog Day Afternoon would greatly benefit from improvisation and it would give the movie a more naturalistic feel so the audience would sense that this story really did happen. The most crucial improvisation that happened on the film was the famous scene where Pacino goes outside and starts yelling, “Attica! Attica! Attica!” The line refers to the Attica prison riot that happened in New York City in 1971. The line was number 86 on AFI’s (American Film Institute) list of greatest quotes from American film. It became a rallying cry for people referring to police brutality.

            Al Pacino’s character was one of the first main gay characters to ever appear in a mainstream film. One of the most delicate aspects of Pacino’s performance in the movie is how he conveys that aspect of the character. He’s never flamboyant or gives any obvious mannerisms to show that the character he’s playing is a homosexual, but rather he bases his character on passion and love. Leon Sherman (Chris Sarandon), on the other hand, is the complete opposite from Sonny in that he’s very flamboyantly gay and who believes that he’s a woman in a man’s body. The contrast between the two gives the viewer greater context into the nature of Sonny and their relationship. In one of the most crucial scenes of the movie Sonny calls his lover Leon on the phone from the bank. It’s a 10-minute long scene that stays almost completely on Pacino, and it’s one of the most captivating moments in the film. This scene demonstrates Pacino’s extraordinary abilities as an actor, and like Heath Ledger would do 30 years later, his performance promoted understanding of a gay character.

            While the movie as a whole is well-paced and is consistently engaging and exciting, it’s really Pacino’s performance that drives the whole movie. Throughout the entire movie Pacino has to keep up a constant energy of hysteria, paranoia, passion and drive. The audience may get exhausted just watching Pacino keeping up this constant high energy level, but never once does Pacino’s performance feel over-the-top, it feels incredibly authentic. Reportedly, halfway thru the production of the movie Pacino collapsed from exhaustion and had to be hospitalized a short time. After he completed the film, Pacino took a much deserved break off from working on movies and concentrated on his stage work for a few years.

            Al Pacino has the most impressive run of films and performances of any actor. It started early in his career in 1972 with The Godfather, followed by Scarecrow, Serpico, The Godfather Part II and culminating with Dog Day Afternoon in 1975. It’s seems inconceivable to me that an actor can keep turning out great performance one after another for five films straight without getting burned out. But Pacino accomplished just that and he gave his most impressive performance at the end of that remarkable run with Dog Day Afternoon. Pacino was nominated for an Oscar for best actor for his performance, but lost out to Jack Nicholson for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.  After seven Oscar acting nominations, Pacino would finally win best actor in 1992 for A Scent of a Woman. It has since been embraced by pop culture that his win was more for his earlier work in which he should have won for. Al Pacino is one of the greatest actors to ever live, and never has his passion for acting translated to a better screen performance than his performance as Sonny Wortzik in Dog Day Afternoon.

Denzel Washington as Malcolm X in Malcolm X

          Playing a real-life, famous, historical figure is always a daunting task for an actor. (Almost everybody that sees the movie will already have some preconceived notion and maybe knowledge of how the real-life person behaved and how they should be acted.) A biographical film, or bio-pics, puts the actor out on the line more than any other type of movie, because their acting will be immediately noticed. There have been a lot of celebrated performances, over the years, of actors playing real-life people and, usually, if their performance is great it results in Oscar recognition. Some of my personal favorite performances of actors playing real-life figures are Ben Kingsley as Gandhi, Anthony Hopkins as President Richard Nixon, Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes, Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote and, of course, Denzel Washington as Malcolm X.

Real Malcolm X (left) Denzel Washington-Malcolm X (right)

            Director Spike Lee’s 1992 film Malcolm X is an over-three-hour epic movie that covers the entire life of the civil rights advocate Malcolm X. Malcolm X was born named Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska in 1925. In flashbacks to his childhood we see Malcolm learning from his father about the issues of racism, black pride and how the black people will eventually have to fight back against all the injustices that have been done to them over the years. By age 13, Malcolm’s father had died and his mother was committed to a mental hospital. Malcolm then lived in a series of foster homes and started becoming involved in criminal activities in Boston and New York. When he was 21, Malcolm was sentenced to serve eight to ten years in prison for robbing a white family’s home.  

Malcolm X with Shorty (Director Spike Lee)

            While in prison Malcolm meets Baines (Albert Hall) who helps Malcolm recover from his cocaine addiction and teaches him about the Nation of Islam. After an apparition of Elijah Muhammad appears in his prison cell and says to Malcolm, “I bring to you a sense of your worth” Malcolm is then converted. Malcolm becomes a leader and spokesman for the Nation of Islam, after his parole in 1952. When Malcolm Little is converted to Islam he drops his last name Little, denouncing it as his slave name, and replaces it with X.  

For the next several years, Malcolm becomes a prominent member of the Nation of Islam and is friends with Elijah Muhammad (Al Freeman, Jr.), the Nation of Islam’s leader. At this time Malcolm meets Betty X (Angela Bassett) and they get married and start a family. Malcolm and Elijah begin to have some disagreements; Malcolm doesn’t like the hypocrisy he finds in Elijah. Malcolm X is then suspended for 90 days from the Nation of Islam after he makes some rude statements about the JFK assassination, saying, “the chickens came home to roost.” Eventually, Malcolm X completely withdraws from the Nation of Islam and states that he wishes to speak his own thoughts. He starts his own Muslim Mosque and takes on a pilgrimage to Mecca, in which every Muslim man is obligated to do in their lifetime. By the time he returns to the United States he is a changed man again with far more moderate political views but still wants to fight racism. He also agrees to work with other Civil Rights leader like Martin Luther King Jr. to help achieve this. Previously, Malcolm was someone who criticized King’s nonviolence stance against racism. This upsets Elijah Muhammad who begins to try and bring Malcolm X down. Then on February 21, 1965, Malcolm X is gunned down at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan by a few black men who were Muhammad loyalists. (link) 

Malcolm X lived an extraordinary life and he went through many transitions in his life. The man who was cast to help try and bring this extraordinary man to life was Denzel Washington. An interesting thing to note is that Denzel Washington had already played Malcolm X prior to when he was offered the film role. He played Malcolm X in the early 1980s in a play called, When The Chickens Come Home to Roost. His portrayal of Malcolm in that play was so inspiring and real, that friends of Malcolm X’s widow phoned her and said that you should see this kid playing your dead-husband. Washington said that he always knew in the back of his mind that, “When I did that play I said to myself, I'm going to do this movie one day. I know it.” When Washington was offered the role in Spike Lee’s epic film, he was well aware of the incredible challenge he’d set himself up for. He wanted so much to give a great performance as Malcolm X he devoted an entire year to researching him. Director Spike Lee commented saying, “Every day, Malcolm X just grows in stature. I mean, that performance... Denzel, Mr. Washington, stopped working on other stuff for a year before, to prepare for that film.” (link)

Denzel Washington’s extreme preparation process for Malcolm X was not unusual for him, in the sense that he always thoroughly researched his parts, but even he admits that his research went to the point of obsession for his role in this movie. He commented on that saying, “Everything I have done as an actor has been in preparation for this…I was doing so much work, I just sort of blended into the man as best I could, that was my desire. I had studied so much, I knew even what type of glasses he was wearing on a particular day.”(link)

Washington’s thorough preparation process paid off big-time in the end, as he gave one of the finest performances ever of a real-life figure. He received a best actor Oscar nomination for his role, but he unfairly lost out to Al Pacino for Scent of a Woman. The movie Malcolm X was based on An Autobiography of Malcolm X, which is known as one of the most insightful and greatest autobiographies ever to be written. Malcolm X's autobiography helped shed some light on who he really was as a man, but it became fully apparent to people what a complex person he was when people saw the embodiment of him by Denzel Washington.

Paul Newman as Fast Eddie Felson in The Hustler

            Paul Newman was the greatest movie star to ever live. In some ways, he was your stereotypical movie star in that he was classically handsome, charming, charismatic, and lived a rich, luxurious life. But unlike a lot of Hollywood stars he had true character. He was married to the same woman, fellow actress Joanne Woodward, for 50 years, and was one of Hollywood’s most charitable actors. He started the company Newman’s Own in which 100% of its profits goes to charity. So far it has raised over 300 million since its inception in 1982. (link) He also started the non–profit organization The Hole in the Wall Gang - a camp for terminally-ill children. (link)

While there’s no doubt about the fact that the real Paul Newman had character, he specialized in playing people that lacked character and are learning how to obtain it. Think of his most iconic roles in movies such as Hud, Cool Hand Luke, The Sting, Slap Shot, The Verdict, Nobody’s Fool, and, of course, The Hustler and you’ll see that’s true. He was an actor who liked to play people, and who audiences like to watch go from a rebel, misfit outsider to a person who acquires true moral integrity. He didn’t always succeed, as in Hud, as he did in most of his movies like The Hustler, but no matter what, the audience got to experience an authentic performance that was layered with complexity.

The Hustler was released in 1961, and was filmed in black and white. Its story follows Fast Eddie Felson (Paul Newman), a drifter who travels around the country going to pool halls hustling money. Fast Eddie (nicknamed that because he can beat you so fast at pool, and then turn around and lose just as fast) dreams of being the best pool player there ever was, and he goes to play the best: Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason). In their first epic pool match (of two), Fast Eddie begins by completely whipping Minnesota Fats earning over $18,000 dollars. Eddie earlier stated that his goal was to earn $10,000 dollars. But, as he says to his manager, his goal had always been to beat Minnesota Fats and “the game is not over till Fats says it is”. Fast Eddie continually shoots pool (for over 25 hours straight) and incessantly drinks bourbon, until he eventually gets drunk and loses all his money to Minnesota Fats.

 In that match Eddie met Bert Gordon (George C. Scott), the most ruthless manager and gambler around whose only concern is money. Gordon was the one who advised Minnesota Fats to keep playing Fast Eddie after he was ahead over $18,000 dollars, calling Eddie a “born loser”. After the match, Bert tells Fast Eddie what beat him. (This scene illustrates the way Bert manipulates Eddie into letting him become his manager.)

Bert Gordon (George C. Scott) and Eddie Felson

Bert: You got talent.

Eddie: So I got talent? So what beat me?

Bert: Character

Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert explains that, “Bert’s secret is that by character he doesn’t mean goodness, honesty, or other Boy Scout virtues. He means the snakelike ability to put winning above any other consideration, and to never tempt the odds.” (link) Fast Eddie, on the other hand, doesn’t subscribe to Bert’s money-oriented philosophy of character. 

Sarah Packard (Piper Laurie) and Eddie

In the movie, Eddie begins a relationship with the depressed, alcoholic, attractive woman named Sarah Packard (Piper Laurie). These two desperate people are seeking solace from their failed lives and they find comfort in being with one another. In a turning point in the movie, we witness Bert whisper something sinister into Sarah’s ear that greatly upsets her. The viewer recognizes that Bert is manipulating Sarah and trying to bring her down, but Eddie doesn’t realize it yet. Bert wants Sarah out of the picture so that Eddie can shoot pool without any distractions. Bert’s ruthlessness culminates with him seducing Sarah into having an affair with him. This completely degrades and destroys Sarah’s sense of character so much, she commits suicide.

Fast Eddie is devastated and responds to this is by challenging Minnesota Fats to another game of pool. Ebert correctly points out that, “The first meeting of Eddie and Fats was about pool. The second, as Bert correctly predicted, is about character.” At this point in the movie Eddie has acquired true character and he quickly beats Fats in their second match of pool. Fats, in admiration, admits that Eddie has indeed truly beaten him. In the end and at the most tragic cost, Eddie discovered what it took to be the best. 

Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason) vs. Fast Eddie

The role of Fast Eddie gave Paul Newman the chance to show his full range of emotion and talent. At this point in his career, Newman wasn’t yet thought of as a great actor and was considered to be just another Marlon Brando clone. Brando emerged as the master of the method-acting style in the 1950s, and Newman was a method actor. Method acting is a form of acting that pushes the actor to their limits in order to try and achieve as much realism in their performance as possible.

The first quality that we see in Fast Eddie is that he’s charming, and Newman easily conveys that facet of him with the help of his perfect, mischievous smile. In the early part of his career, Newman was frequently criticized for being too good looking and he couldn’t be taken seriously as an actor. Critics said that he too often relied on his good looks and his trademark beautiful blue eyes. But in The Hustler, his handsome appearance was an important feature of who Fast Eddie was, and his trademark blue eyes could not be seen in the movie as it was filmed in black and white.

Another important part of Fast Eddie is that he’s a drinker, and few actors can play drunk as convincingly as Newman. Eddie was also a person who could be stubborn, mean and cruel, and Newman never backed down and tried to soften him up. He played the character straight and allowed the audience to see him for all his strengths and faults.

The most crucial quality of Fast Eddie is his undeniable talent at shooting pool. Newman definitely appears as if he knows how to handle a pool stick. But more than that, Newman is able to convey the character’s drive to be the best there is and in one of movie’s best scenes we listen and watch Newman describe his undeniable talent. In this scene the viewer can’t help but be drawn to Eddie, despite his faults, and we’re fully mesmerized at what he’s conveying to us.

Newman is also able to express anguish as well as any actor. In a memorable scene from the movie, Fast Eddie gets caught hustling and his thumbs are broken. When this happens, all we see is Newman’s face and when we hear his anguished cry the viewer can’t help but wince and feel the pain along with him. In another critical scene, when Eddie discovers that Sarah has committed suicide. Newman’s reaction is devastating and heartbreaking to watch.

By the end of the movie when Eddie confronts Bert and has one final match against Minnesota Fats, Newman carries himself in a different way. He’s now a more direct and focused person, compared to before in their first match when his cockiness was a way of him hiding his insecurities. In the final scene of the movie, Newman gives one of the most passionate and emotionally wrenching speeches ever delivered on film.

For The Hustler, Newman received his second Oscar nomination for best actor but lost out to Gregory Peck for To Kill a Mockingbird. Throughout his long career, Newman would receive a total of 9 Oscar acting nominations and he won once, for best actor, for The Color of Money. In Color he reprised his role of Fast Eddie Felson, twenty-five years after The Hustler. While his performance in The Color of Money was great, many took it, including myself, as belated amends for his performance in The Hustler.

Newman specialized in playing anti-heroes even though he himself was not as flawed as the people he performed. In The Hustler, Fast Eddie Felson doesn’t acquire character until after his girlfriend commits suicide and he knows what’s truly important in life. While Paul Newman, on the other hand, demonstrated his character in the way he lived his life every day. Including in his acting, where Newman created some of our most memorable film characters such as Fast Eddie Felson.

Tom Cruise as Frank T.J. Mackey in Magnolia

              When a role is specifically written for an actor, the results usually turn out to be something great. This is because the writer will write to that actor’s particular strengths which help the actor create a character that is memorable and can be easily inhabited. That’s exactly what happened when writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson (PTA) wrote the character of Frank T.J. Mackey knowing Tom Cruise wanted to work with him. Tom Cruise was a fan of PTA’s prior movie Boogie Nights and was interested in meeting the director. The two met while Tom Cruise was filming Eyes Wide Shut and Paul Thomas Anderson visited him on the set.  The two got talking and got along with each other. They then agreed to try to work together. PTA wanted Tom Cruise to have a “goldmine for an actor to work with” and wrote the part of Frank T.J. Mackey for him.

Ross Jeffries

Frank T.J. Mackey was inspired by Ross Jeffries, who was a motivational speaker whose topic was “How to Pick Up Women”. Frank T.J. Mackey, the character, was also a motivational speaker who taught seminars to men about how to pick up women. Mackey was an extreme chauvinist who talked in obscene language and constantly degraded women. Cruise was skeptical at first in taking the role, but then realized it was a great part and he was perfectly suited to play it. 

Tom Cruise is, first and foremost, a great movie star. Cruise is a great movie star because prior to 2005 (when he jumped on Oprah’s couch and ranted about Scientology) almost everyone loved his movie star image and his face could sell movie tickets. He’s also a really strong actor who excels at playing cocky men who end up learning a lesson in life that helps make him become a better person. Think of his characters from movies like Top Gun, Rain Man, Born on the Fourth of July, A Few Good Men, Jerry Maguire and the list goes on. Cruise is definitely an actor who has type-casted himself in these types of role. He essentially plays a little bit different version of the Tom Cruise character in almost every one of his movies. PTA recognized that fact and wrote a character that essentially is the Tom Cruise character but to the utmost extreme, and gave the character a twist in that it delves into his painful past that may give cause to his extreme behavior.

I don’t know of a better case of casting an actor that already brings so much to the part by the nature of who that actor is. Everyone knows what to expect when they see a Tom Cruise movie, but they weren’t expecting the irony of the movie star playing up his playboy image. Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan said, “Mackey gives Cruise the chance to cut loose by doing amusing riffs on his charismatic superstar image. It's great fun, expertly written and performed, and all the more enjoyable because the self-parody element is unexpected”. (link)

But there was a lot more to Cruise’s performance than just playing up his movie star image, he had to perform in some of the most emotionally complex scenes of his career. There are two big scenes in the movie when Cruise has to be extremely vulnerable. The first occurs when Mackey is being interviewed by a female reporter and is questioned about his family history. The interviewer catches Mackey in a lie and Mackey stays silent for the rest of the interview. The camera stays on a close-up of Cruise’s face throughout the scene and we witness, on his face. his inability to confront the truth about his family. When asked by the interviewer what he’s doing, Cruise coldly replies, “I’m quietly judging you.”

 The second big scene that demonstrates Cruises’ impressive acting chops happens near the end of the film when Mackey confronts his dying father on his deathbed. By this point we have learned that Frank T.J. Mackey’s real name is actually Jack Partridge and his father is Earl Partridge. We learned that Earl left his wife and son when his wife became deathly ill with cancer and his son had to take care of his dying mother while she waited for her husband’s phone call. This type of scene, where the long-lost son  visits his father on his deathbed, is a scene we have seen in countless other movies, but in Magnolia the scene doesn’t play out exactly the way we expect it to.

When Mackey first sees his father (who appears incapacitated because of the morphine he just took) he still holds him in the utmost contempt and doesn’t forgive him for leaving him and his mother when she got cancer. Mackey tries to hold back his emotion saying, “I'm not gonna cry for you…You can just fucking die you fuck, and I hope it hurts.” But Mackey does break down and begins uncontrollably crying and reveals his true feelings to himself and his father. The next time we see Mackey he’s crying even more profusely, pleading to his dying father, “Don't go away, you fucking asshole!”

The most amazing aspect about Cruise’s acting in this scene is the major transition his character goes through during this one scene. When the scene starts we are watching the same character we’ve seen throughout the rest of the movie; he’s angry, holding back his emotions and lashing out at people. But halfway thru the scene Cruise’s acting changes, he clenches his hands and lets loose all the buried emotion he’s been holding back for so long. Suddenly, we feel tremendous sympathy for this otherwise despicable character. While it’s not verbalized in the scene, one can sense what Cruise felt about his dying father all along: which was he loved him and envied him in a strange way. In a sense Frank T.J. Mackey became his father, a person who degrades women. While one might think, given his past history, that Mackey would become the exact opposite of his father. But Mackey ended up taking all his hatred of his father, buried that down deep inside him until he, hopelessly, became him. It’s one of the most touching and heartbreaking scenes I’ve ever seen on film.   

Cruise receiving Golden Globe

For this part, Tom Cruise received the Golden Globe award for best supporting actor and received his third Oscar nomination. He was expected to win, come Oscar night, for best supporting actor. But lost out to Michael Caine for The Cider House Rules. Tom Cruise will best be remembered for being one of America’s biggest movie stars in 1980s and 90s, before he went “crazy” in the 2000s. But his gifts as an actor should not be overshadowed - as his performance as Frank T.J. Mackey was a performance that truly could not have been delivered by any other actor - and in my opinion is one of the greatest film performances of all time.

Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho

Congratulations Christian Bale for your recent Oscar win for Best Supporting Actor in The Fighter! For some strange reason award accolades have escaped you until this past year. Bale has delivered an abundance of great performances throughout his long career. His career began at the age of 13 with one of the best juvenile (18 & under)  performances ever in Spielberg’s little seen gem Empire of the Sun, which was released in 1987. In the 1990s, Bale appeared mostly in musicals, romantic dramas, and coming-of-age stories in movies such as Newsies, Little Women, and All the Little Animals. Although Bale was successful at playing these young, naive character roles, he hadn’t yet achieved any sort of notoriety or much acclaim as an actor. At least none that matched the reception he received after his debut performance in Empire of the Sun. In 2000 that all changed for Bale, when he got the role of his career playing Patrick Bateman in the adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ controversial bestseller novel American Psycho.

The story of American Psycho takes place in the mid-1980s in New York, and it follows the character of Patrick Bateman, a Wall Street yuppie who also happens to be a serial killer. The movie and the book it’s based on can be described as a psycho thriller with elements of black comedy, satire, and horror woven into it. The character of Patrick Bateman appears to be your typical ideal male of the 1980s; he’s handsome, in impeccable shape, rich and incredibly materialistic. He’s also a complete narcissist who's mentally unraveling at the seams. He's unable to control his violent urges, so he ends up killing lots of people in the most brutal ways. It’s an extremely tricky role for an actor to play, because you don’t want to glamorize the character and make him someone you'd admire or care about. While Christian Bale looks strapping and built as Bateman; he acts very despicable, his social ineptitude is laughable, and he's a complete dork. The movie and Bale’s performance never asks you to envy this horrendous character, it does the opposite in fact, it helps to make you despise everything that Patrick Bateman stands for.

Bale in The Machinist

Christian Bale is known as an extreme method actor, meaning that he’ll do almost anything if it will help him portray his characters. Bale has had to fluctuate between losing and gaining unhealthy amounts of weight for his roles. He holds the record for the biggest weight loss ever by an actor - at 63lbs for his role in The Machinist. Bale, who is from Wales, also has an uncanny ability to speak authentically in a different accent. He has employed a different accent for almost every one of his characters. For American Psycho, Bale had to get in the best shape of his life and speak in an affluent New York accent, which he does flawlessly. He also likes to stay in character whenever he's on the set filming.
          Christian Bale has built up a reputation as one of the most dedicated, committed and respected actors working today. While his dedication to his craft of acting is usually inspiring, the ugly side of his acting methods came out in 2009 when his infamous three-minute f-bomb filled rant on the set of Terminator Salvation was leaked online. Bale said, "I completely mixed up fact and fiction, I'm half John Connor (the character he was portraying at the time), I'm half Christian there." (link)

It’s hard to categorize what kind of performance Bale delivers in American Psycho, because there are so many different layers to it. He easily embodies the stoic playboy persona that Patrick Bateman appears to be. But when Bateman turns violent in the film, you suddenly see the true nature of this character and Bale is frighteningly convincing with his transitions. Whenever Bateman is about to kill a person he’ll play a song from one of his favorite musical artists including Huey Lewis & The News and Whitney Houston. During these scenes, Bale talks in the most poignant emotional way, as if he’s saying the most profound things ever about the music. Then he’ll instantly turn to a violent sociopath. We then understand that this is Patrick Bateman’s murder ritual to help get him excited, and Bale’s performance is so soulful and energetic that we can’t help but be amused and disturbed at the same time. 

Film critic Roger Ebert remarked in his review of the movie that, "Christian Bale is heroic in the way he allows the character to leap joyfully into despicability; there is no instinct for self-preservation here, and that is one mark of a good actor.” (link)            

There’s also an unmistakable comic aspect to the performance. Throughout the film we see Patrick Bateman having a hard time relating to those around him, even though, on the surface he appears to be just like everyone else. There are scenes when Bale seems so remote and unaware of how to act in social situations that we almost feel bad for his character, that is if he wasn’t a serial killer. The fact that Bale doesn’t ever let the audience look at his character with sympathy, allows us to view him as the pathetic person  he truly is. In one of the movie’s most hilarious scenes, all of the co-workers at Bateman’s Wall Street firm are comparing their business cards. In this scene, we witness how intense Bateman gets during male competition games. Bale’s intense demeanor combined with his overly concerned and passionate voice over during this scene, make it very comical. This is where we truly begin to realize that his character isn’t all there mentally, he even later kills one of his colleagues because he had a better business card than him.

In the third act of the film, Patrick Bateman gets closer and closer to getting caught by the police and he starts to unravel. The line between what’s real and what’s coming from inside Bateman’s head is completely blurred by this point in the movie. This is when Bale’s performance goes all out. In the confession scene, Bateman calls his lawyer on the phone and leaves him a message where he admits to every awful thing he can remember doing. (“I just had to kill a lot of people!”) In this scene the camera stays on a close-up of Bale’s face throughout. This scene exemplifies the extraordinary abilities of Bale’s acting; his character is completely hysterical at this point and is crying profusely throughout the entire scene. In this scene we see the character go through many emotions of panic, sadness, remorsefulness, disgust and relief. The director of the film, Mary Harron, in her commentary track says, “I don’t know of a screen performance where more emotions flicker past in mere moments. If Bale’s performance was just manic energy, it would be a Jim Carrey performance, but what’s remarkable about it are the subtleties of it.”

After we witness his confession where Bateman admitted everything to his lawyer, the audience expects the movie is coming to a close and Bateman will be caught. But that’s not what happens.

            After this scene, Bale has to continue keeping up the character’s manic energy because Bateman still manages not to be caught. When Patrick Bateman confronts his lawyer about the message he left on his machine, his lawyer is baffled and says he doesn’t believe him. At this moment, Bale goes back to his normal stoic Patrick Bateman persona and we understand that the character will never receive punishment for his crimes. The movie ends up with a close-up on Bale’s face; the last shot is the camera zooming into his blank emotionless eyes. We understand this scene because of the voice-over, “my punishment continues to elude me... there is no catharsis”, but we feel the true impact and message of it through Bale’s performance.

            Christian Bale’s performance in American Psycho is one of my favorite acting performances in all of movies. Patrick Bateman is one of the most loathsome characters ever to be portrayed on film, and Bale’s performance brought out all the aspects of the character. He was able to project the handsome, narcissistic facade that men may aspire to be, but he also portrayed the character’s pathetic nature and allowed you to laugh at him. It takes guts to play a character that has no redeeming qualities. When the movie was released in 2000, it received a mixed reaction from both critics and audiences at the time. Now the film is highly-regarded, and is recognized as Christian Bale’s star making and possibly best performance. His performance in this movie was the reason director Christopher Nolan cast him in what has become his most well known role as Bruce Wayne / Batman.

When director Mary Harron was originally looking for actors to cast as Patrick Bateman, she had a hard time finding an actor who didn’t want to discuss the psychological nature of the character. Christian Bale was the first actor that she met that said there really was no psychological basis for this character. Patrick Bateman is a representation of the worst of the male ego. Recognizing that idea was what got Bale the job; being able to portray all the layers of that idea within this vile character is what made the performance and Christian Bale legendary.

Johnny Depp as Ed Wood in Ed Wood

It has been said that acting is all about making choices. The choices an actor makes will determine how well they perform their respective character. Johnny Depp is an actor who is known for making bold and risky choices in every role he takes, and that's what has made him one of the most exciting and popular actors working today. Depp has said that he draws his inspiration from images, people or other fictional characters to help base his characters. Some of his inspirations include the Rolling Stone rocker Keith Richards, in whom Depp said he based his most famous character, Captain Jack Sparrow. His performance as Ichabod Crane from Sleepy Hollow was said to be based partly on Angela Lansbury, because Depp thought Ichabod was a character who was very much in touch with his feminine side. In Edward Scissorhands, Depp perceived the character as behaving like a puppy, to help convey Edward’s fragile but lovable nature. Throughout his career Depp has excelled at playing these quirky outsider characters; characters that are often strange and don’t seem to belong in the world they live.

In Ed Wood, Johnny Depp plays a character that is an outsider of Hollywood, who desperately wants to get into the business of making his own films but has trouble finding studios to finance them. Depp’s real-life character, Edward D. Wood Jr., has famously been proclaimed as the Worst Film Director ever, but like every director he didn’t set out to make a bad film. He had a passion for film making that was almost unrivaled; it’s just that his passion blinded him to the fact that he really had no knowledge or talent as a director.

To help him portray this real-life person of Ed Wood, one might think that Depp would draw his insight from what he could learn about the real person (as he did for his roles in Donnie Brasco, Blow & Public Enemies), but there wasn’t a lot of material about the real Ed Wood. So Depp thought of three characteristics from three different sources that helped him develop his character of Ed Wood. These inspirations that Depp drew from have no connection to the real 1950's Hollywood hack director he’s portraying, but combined together they formed his character. His inspirations for the character were: the blind optimism of President Ronald Reagan, the smile of the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz, and the voice of Casey Kasem – a popular American radio host.

The character of Ed Wood is one of the most optimistic people you’ll ever meet. After every first-take that he directed he would call cut and say it was “perfect!”, even if there were unintentional mistakes. In one of the movie’s funniest moments, Ed calls up the head of Warner Bros. Studio and asked what he thought of his first movie. We hear, “Worst movie you ever saw? Well my next one will be better!” Depp’s performance in this scene is hilarious because of his deadpan delivery. President Ronald Reagan was known for having a sort of “blind optimism” that prevented him from ever really seeing the problems of our country at the time; he’d only focus on the positive, just like Ed Wood.

The character of Ed Wood carries a very distinguishing overdrawn smile on his face throughout the movie, which makes him look like a puppet.  Depp’s inspiration for that aspect of the character came from the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz, who always tried to maintain the biggest smile on his face throughout his ups and downs. For Ed Wood’s unique high-pitch voice, Depp listened to Casey Kasem, who was a popular American radio host and did numerous cartoon voices. Ed Wood’s voice is almost completely unrecognizable from Depp’s own voice; and it helps maintain the character’s relentlessly upbeat attitude throughout the movie.

If another actor would have portrayed Ed Wood, they most likely would have worried about making the character realistic and bringing many different layers to the performance. Johnny Depp’s performance as Ed Wood is certainly not realistic, and he’s also completely one-note throughout the entire movie. Only an actor as courageous as Depp would have taken these risks. Depp says he took the approach he did with his character because, “Even if you’re playing a sort of heightened character and living inside of a heightened reality, you can apply your own truths to the character. But it certainly is more fun. I’ll tell you what’s more fun. It’s just being able to try something that maybe hasn’t been beaten to death. To try and do something a little bit different- What’s the risk? The risk is you fall flat on your face or make an ass of yourself and get fired.”(link)

Johnny Depp certainly didn’t fall flat on his face with his performance as Ed Wood, and his unique one-note performance made Ed Wood one of the most endearing characters in all of movies. Depp, like a lot of Hollywood actors, is a good looking man, but unlike most actors he never exploits his looks for his character. Depp does the opposite, he’ll go out the way to make himself uglier for his character. He certainly did that with Ed Wood with his high-pitch voice and his freaky smile throughout the movie. Also, the character of Ed Wood is a transvestite who loves to dress up in woman’s clothing and has particular fetish for Angora sweaters. Whenever his character appears in woman’s clothing, Depp’s performance is notably calmer and you can tell that his character really is most comfortable wearing woman’s clothing.

I'm always looking forward to the next Johnny Depp performance. He’s willing to take risky choices and draw inspiration from unconventional sources. He's created some of the most memorable film characters ever, including my favorite, Ed Wood. 

James Dean as Jim Stark in Rebel Without A Cause

While there had been other teenage characters and performances in movies before Rebel Without a Cause was released in 1955, they’ve mostly been forgotten, and James Dean’s performance is now affectionately known as the first real teenager performance. Also, like most actors that play teenagers today, James Dean was older than his 17 year-old character; he was 24 when he played this part. The movie was released only a month after Dean’s death from a fatal car crash. His part in Rebel became his most iconic role, as he was the voice of the frustrated middle class American youth at that time and for the years to come. Out of the three movies that Dean starred in before his death, Rebel was the only one he didn’t receive an Oscar nomination. Rebel Without A Cause may not represent Dean’s best performance, but it’s certainly his most iconic and influential. Almost every actor that has portrayed a teenager since James Dean, good or bad, has borrowed traits from his performance, whether they’re conscious of it or not.

Today’s modern audiences, when they watch Rebel Without a Cause, feel the movie is outdated and Dean’s performance is over-the-top. While both of those things may be true, I feel that the movie and Dean’s performance are stylized in such an interesting and bizarre way that it’s still completely captivating to watch over 55 years later. 
           The first introduction we get to Jim Stark (James Dean) in the film is when his parents are bailing him out of the local police station. In this first scene, Jim is shown cowering and appears to be in great distress over the fact that his parents are arguing. He then erupts with an anguished shout proclaiming, “You’re tearing me apart! You say one thing, he says another, and everybody changes back again!” Dean is doing so much as an actor in this scene, that almost by definition it can be characterized as over-acting. Although, after one has seen the film all the way through, his emotional outburst has significant subtext behind it. This extreme acting moment in the film turned out to be completely right for the material. 

Dean was an actor who was always very deliberate with his acting choices, and he knew that his extreme intensity during that scene could take some people out of the moment. It was a risky choice on Dean’s part that ended up paying off beautifully in the film. His introduction scene also gave a voice to teen angst that hadn’t really ever been seen before in film. Up until that moment, teenagers were rarely seen as being complex tortured individuals, and if they were troublemakers it was because of their economic status. However in Rebel the teenagers were from normal middle class families and were acting, seemingly, out of meaningless teenage rebellion.

Dean’s character was not only tortured and rebellious, he also was shown as being sensitive, thoughtful, and romantic. Through Dean’s performance the movie examines themes of masculinity, how is a man supposed to act? In one of the film’s most startling moments, Jim grabs his father, who’s wearing a pink bathrobe, and throws him across the room. Jim’s father is a man who has let his wife make all the decisions, and his son no longer respects him. Jim is shown as being reckless and unafraid of confrontation, he will not back down from a knife fight or a chicken car race. He’s also shown as being caring and responsible in the way he takes the character of Plato (Sal Mineo) under his wings. Dean’s character is also a hopeless romantic who falls in love with the beautiful, but troubled girl, Judy (Natalie Wood). Jim Stark was a fully-realized psychologically compelling character that acted out because he was unable to communicate with his parents and other adults. James Dean was able to play this character so well because he could directly relate to his own life.

James Travers, film critic for the website filmsdefrance.com, explains, “The actor lost his mother when he was aged nine and his father subsequently abandoned him, handing over the responsibility of parenthood to an aunt and uncle.  It is hard to say how much of his own personal experiences Dean manages to bring to the part, but his performance is extraordinary in its realism, intensity and pathos. The iconic image of James Dean as a rough boy with a tender interior is fashioned largely on his portrayal of the likeable teenage rebel in this film.” (link)

James Dean and Robert Pattinson

Nowadays, when teenagers are seen in movies and television  they’re usually portrayed as being complicated, drama-filled individuals. This kind of in-depth melodramatic teen performance was first given by James Dean, and his performance is still held in the highest regard. Almost every good looking young actor that has come around since Dean has been compared to him at some point in their career. Consider Twilight actor Robert Pattinson, who also bears a striking resemblance to Dean. A lot of critics have criticized Pattinson’s acting style, for they feel he’s doing an unflattering impression of James Dean. Pattinson said this, about constantly being compared to Dean, “I don't think that's a bad thing at all, quite the opposite in fact. I think James Dean was one of the most influential people to young guys, especially actors, definitely in the last fifty years...I’m not ashamed to say, ‘yeah, I am very much influenced by him’ and to be even in the same ball park as him is amazing.” (link)

Dean’s performance in Rebel has almost become the catalyst in which critics will measure and compare other teenage actor’s performances; which is completely unfair because few actors have the talent and passion Dean had with his acting.

Marlon Brando and James Dean

If one gives the kind of emotionally charged, vulnerable, and stylized performance like Dean’s in Rebel Without a Cause they should expect to receive some criticism. A few critics view Dean as a Marlon Brando imitator, who was Dean's favorite actor, and say that  Dean relied on mostly unnecessary histrionic tactics in his acting. He was known for sometimes going a little overboard in his acting methods, and he did use the same method acting style that Marlon Brando popularized a few years earlier in On the Waterfront. The method acting style is supposed to help an actor achieve the most realistic performance possible. It's where the actor will do just about anything to absorb themselves in their role, and some will draw on their own real life experiences to achieve the emotionality of the character. Marlon Brando revolutionized this type of acting for adult actors; James Dean did the same thing for younger actors.

James Dean will forever be an American Icon, in large part due to his tragic death that now represents the “live fast, die young” mentality that appeals to our disillusioned youth. Dean achieved his icon status mostly though because he was one of the most passionate and fearless actors there ever was. If he had lived a long life, James Dean's reputation as one of the greatest actors to ever live would only have continued to grow.