Favorite Early Role By A Well-Known Actor?
Favorite Early Role By A Well-Known Actor?
Cruel_Sandwich
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/30/05
#1Favorite Early Role By A Well-Known Actor?
Posted: 8/2/07 at 11:32pm
You know, when you're watching a movie from 20-30 years ago and see an actor who is well-known today but pops up in that film when they were first starting out.
I'd have to say Jeff Goldblum as Tricycle Man in NASHVILLE. Hilarious character.
Updated On: 8/2/07 at 11:32 PM
Cruel_Sandwich
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/30/05
#2re: Favorite Early Role By A Well-Known Actor?
Posted: 8/3/07 at 12:13amPhillip Seymour Hoffman as one of the only good things about PATCH ADAMS.
blueroses
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/18/04
#2re: Favorite Early Role By A Well-Known Actor?
Posted: 8/3/07 at 12:14amI loved Christopher Walken in The Dead Zone.
#3re: Favorite Early Role By A Well-Known Actor?
Posted: 8/3/07 at 1:26amJack Nicholson in Little Shop of Horrors
Those Blocked: SueStorm. N2N Nate. Good riddence to stupid! Rad-Z, shill begone!
#4re: Favorite Early Role By A Well-Known Actor?
Posted: 8/3/07 at 11:04am
Chris Sarandon in "Dog day Afternoon"
everyone in "the outsiders"
Viggo MOrtensen in "Crimson tide"
"I'm an American, Damnit!!! And if it's three things I don't believe in, it's quitting and math."
Updated On: 8/3/07 at 11:04 AM
#5re: Favorite Early Role By A Well-Known Actor?
Posted: 8/3/07 at 11:09am
Dennis Quaid in Breaking Away.
Edit: If we're counting TV, George Clooney on Facts of Life.
"It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are 20 gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg."
-- Thomas Jefferson
Updated On: 8/3/07 at 11:09 AM
#6re: Favorite Early Role By A Well-Known Actor?
Posted: 8/3/07 at 11:54am
I respectfully take issue with "Well-Known."
It's as though one would try to imply that any certain performer is somehow validated or placed above other performers simply for the fact that they have been exploited by popular media (mostly for being white and attractive -- unless they're a man, in which case they only have to be white).
What really defines "Well-Known," and what about it makes it a desirable category to be placed in? Does it have to do with climbing the Hollywood ladder by sleeping with the right people, marrying a man 25 years your senior and as a result being given an opportunity at "stardom" and popular awards recognition, having your personal life plastered all over trashy magazines and somehow as a result being envied by the mainstream public who are made to feel mediocre by the glamour of your exploitation?
(Just a thought. Didn't intend to threadjack. And please do not take this as an attack on you, Cruel, or anyone else in this thread. The title just got me thinking.)
"Winning a Tony this year is like winning Best Attendance in third grade: no one will care but the winner and their mom."
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"I have also met him in person, and I find him to be quite funny actually. Arrogant and often misinformed, but still funny."
-bjh2114 (on Michael Riedel)
#7re: Favorite Early Role By A Well-Known Actor?
Posted: 8/3/07 at 11:59ambrad pitt as the cowboy hitchhiker in "thelma & louise". oh to be a hairdryer.
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PED
#8re: Favorite Early Role By A Well-Known Actor?
Posted: 8/3/07 at 12:01pmI loved Cary Grant in "Arsenic and Old Lace." That was before superstardom turned him into a one-character actor who was mostly boring to watch.
"The art of Illusion is the art of love; and the art of love is the blood-red heart of the world." - Tony Kushner, "The Illusion"
#9re: Favorite Early Role By A Well-Known Actor?
Posted: 8/3/07 at 12:10pm
Christopher Walken in ANNIE HALL
Naomi Watts in MULHOLLAND DRIVE
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
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Dollypop
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/15/03
#10re: Favorite Early Role By A Well-Known Actor?
Posted: 8/3/07 at 12:17pmSandy Suncan playing the Miller's Wife in the musical THE CANTERBURY TALES.
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Funny Face
Broadway Star Joined: 7/6/06
#11re: Favorite Early Role By A Well-Known Actor?
Posted: 8/3/07 at 12:18pm
Marilyn in All About Eve
That was before superstardom turned him into a one-character actor who was mostly boring to watch.
Thank you! Besides the fact that he's hot, he is really over-rated and uninteresting to me in most of his movies.
Roscoe
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/15/03
#12re: Favorite Early Role By A Well-Known Actor?
Posted: 8/3/07 at 12:24pmSorry, folks, but I don't think that ARSENIC AND OLD LACE can be considered an early role of Cary Grant's. He'd already appeared in over 40 movies by time he made it, and what might be his best performance ever (in NOTORIOUS) was still to come.
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#13re: Favorite Early Role By A Well-Known Actor?
Posted: 8/3/07 at 12:25pm
Margot Kidder in Sisters
#14re: Favorite Early Role By A Well-Known Actor?
Posted: 8/3/07 at 1:32pm
John Cusack in STAND BY ME. It's not exactly the biggest role, but it certainly caught my eye and turned me into a massive fan for most of the '90s.
JohnBoy2
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/21/06
#15re: Favorite Early Role By A Well-Known Actor?
Posted: 8/3/07 at 1:56pmNot a movie, but my favorite would be Alec Baldwin as Joshua Rush, on Knots Landing. It remains my favorite thing he's ever done.
#16re: Favorite Early Role By A Well-Known Actor?
Posted: 8/3/07 at 2:33pm
John Malkovich in Dangerous Liasons
Jack Nicholson in The Witches of Eastwick and As Good As It Gets.
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cheezedoodle
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/15/05
#17re: Favorite Early Role By A Well-Known Actor?
Posted: 8/3/07 at 2:51pm
Susan Sarandon in Rocky Horror!
"Oh Link...your pork is ready..." - Edna Turnblad
Updated On: 8/3/07 at 02:51 PM
#18re: Favorite Early Role By A Well-Known Actor?
Posted: 8/3/07 at 2:53pmMarcia Cross on Melrose Place.
"you freakin freaks. get a ****in life. theres more to life than this stupid website." stage manager 2
#19re: Favorite Early Role By A Well-Known Actor?
Posted: 8/3/07 at 3:04pm
"John Malkovich in Dangerous Liasons
Jack Nicholson in The Witches of Eastwick and As Good As It Gets."
These are early roles? Malkovich had starred and costarred in a dozen films by 1988, and already had an oscar nomination.
By 1987, when WOE came out, Nicholson had been in the business since the late 50s! He already had two oscars by then...
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DG
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/2/05
#20re: Favorite Early Role By A Well-Known Actor?
Posted: 8/3/07 at 3:16pmI thought of Viggo, as well, but it was WITNESS that crossed my mind. When he came up the hill as the young Amish farmer to help with the barn-raising, I could NOT take my eyes off of him.
#21re: Favorite Early Role By A Well-Known Actor?
Posted: 8/3/07 at 3:20pm
"John Malkovich in Dangerous Liasons
Jack Nicholson in The Witches of Eastwick and As Good As It Gets."
WTF? Or how about Katherine Hepburn in On Golden Pond?
My vote would be Joan Cusack in Broadcast News. Her short scene nearly stole the entire film.
"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian
robbiej
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/20/03
#22re: Favorite Early Role By A Well-Known Actor?
Posted: 8/3/07 at 3:24pm
I'll do you one better, Matt.
Joan Cusack in SIXTEEN CANDLES as the girl with the headgear.
I could go even further back to MY BODYGUARD, but that performance defines the phrase "awkward phase."
"I'm so looking forward to a time when all the Reagan Democrats are dead."
Updated On: 8/3/07 at 03:24 PM
DG
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/2/05
#23re: Favorite Early Role By A Well-Known Actor?
Posted: 8/3/07 at 3:27pm
I would say Joan in SIXTEEN CANDLES, as well - she cracked me up - but then, that whole movie cracks me up.
Speaking of which - Michael Schoeffling - standing by the Porsche - *sigh*
#24re: Favorite Early Role By A Well-Known Actor?
Posted: 8/3/07 at 3:32pmJohnny Depp- Platoon.
"I'm an American, Damnit!!! And if it's three things I don't believe in, it's quitting and math."
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