Who is your favourite actor of all time and why

Mines Jimmy Stewart. He was always himself but its possible to suspend disbelief and believe in his character portrayal. I love his mixture of vulnerability, gentle humour, with inner strength. His characters are loveable and even after 70 years his films are beloved by all.

 He is my favourite leading man of all time. There is none more at ease or easier to watch in a film than Jimmy Stewart.

Have rarely thought about it, but Stewart is a great choice.

Though his repertoire is mixed, I love Antonio Banderas in the Desperado role.  I never get tired of watching that performance: sheer perfection.  You get flashes of it in other roles.  Casting his voice as Puss in Boots in Shrek II was brilliant.

Mandy Patinkin as Inigo Montoya - I guess I just have a man-crush thing for the sophisticated Spanish swashbuckler archetype.  

Orson Welles?   

Well, he's at least the one I find most fascinating.

It seems I have to give Desperado another chance. I've only seen about three minutes of it, the part where those guys with the guitar case machine guns appear and put on their show. I still can't understand how a scene like that could be part of a good film, but perhaps I'm being unfair

you have to start at the beginning. :-)

Their appearance is built up with references to being bad-ass last resorts that will tear the town apart.  So the last thing you expect is guitar case machine guns: a sort of sly comedy touch that works really well in context. The dreaded, mythical mariachis make their entrance.

The whole movie is an expertly crafted action comedy that has to be watched like a concert performance from beginning to end.

I'll keep that in mind when I get a chance to see it

It's style more than substance, a bunch of character actors doing their thing very well. For some reason the critics all wanted to see Robert Redford or something; just accept that it's an entertainment movie, not a movie trying to say something, not trying to reveal the depths of the human heart. Take it for what it is and enjoy the ride.

And just to make sure you know, it's a choreographed splatterfest: Rodriguez and Torrentino are mutual friends and admirers for a reason. Normally I wouldn't go in for this kind of thing, but when it's done this well...

I don't see the need for me to answer this

Oh, but we're all so deathly curious!   

Weeeeeeeeell..........................

I always liked Peter O'Toole, Id watch any film he was in. And Alistair Sim ! How natural he seemed when acting, Peter Ustinov was another, And for the ladies ? Margaret Rutherford & beautiful Audrey Hepburn. I cant pick just ONE ! its impossible !

Hmm...it's hard to narrow it down (I don't watch many older films so people like Stewart or Cary Grant don't do anything for me) but I guess either:

Gary Oldman, Daniel Day Lewis or Guy Pearce, all terrific actors (with patchy filmographies admittedly) with amazing range and energy, always a pleasure to watch.

Christopher Lee and Robert Deniro though both amazing or terrible actors given the material, I simply admire (Deniro has a rather good back catalogue as well)

I watched Goodfellas last night, thought Robert De Niro was really good in that.

Jack Nicholson and George C. Scott are also really good.

Bluebottle wrote:Orson Welles?   

Well, he's at least the one I find most fascinating.

  

Great.   

I would recomend you check out that interview by the way.

You probably don't remember my old signature, here it is:

Orson Welles wrote:It sort of happens. It sort of happens. Movies are terribly easy to make, it's much harder to put on a play. What's hard to do is to make a very good movie. A good movie is even easy to make. Because if you have a good cameraman, if you have a cast that happens to be right, if you have a story that is even vaguely interesting. That is the artform that works in our day and age. It would be very hard to write a great play in blank verse today, but I think it was pretty easy in Elizabethan days to write a good verse play. Not a great one but a good one. And it's damn near impossible now because it's nothing to do with our culture. But somehow a good movie gets itself made even by a lot of second rate people A very good one is of course another thing.

That, among other interesting things, is from that interview.

I don't think I've watched one Robert De Niro film I didn't like, and Goodfellas is a great one I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Tom Hanks - he's the cliché answer to this question, but to paraphrase Bilbo: It's a good answer, and none the worse for having been used before

Oh, I love Tom Hanks!

But I didn't get to see Saving Mr. Banks, yet!

Tough to say. I guess it depends on the genre.

Soon as I saw this Thread I thought James STEWART. Not sure why. I loved him in Harvey. Only saw it once but have been telling myself for years to watch that movie again.  (My fear is, I might be disappointed seeing it again after all these years).

Judy Garland is my favorite female - though only really saw her in Oz. (She could have worn Silver shoes and still been believable, that's how great she was).

What gets me about Judy Garland is the incredible transformation from the sweet and innocent little girl from Kansas into the Jaded whiskey voiced Judy Garland of her later years. Not unlike what I think our Norc is going through.   

The title of this thread is one of those slightly-pompous sounding challenges that asks you to re-evaluate the whole idea of what makes good movie characters and shuffle your brain around in a laborious attempt to pull out a single name and face from the hundreds you've seen.
Many of the entries in this thread are the ones that, unintentionally, can have the affect of embarrassing any future commentators from submitting their own, possibly less substantial, choices: noone wants to follow up an Orson Welles or Judy Garland with a Brad Pitt!

Aaaanyway, how about a tentative top-five?

1. Simon Pegg, just for charisma really, and adorable comedy.
2. ...Leonardo DiCaprio - I mean, c'mon, he's just so easy to watch, in anything (except Titanic)
3. David Tennant - 'Cause he can't HELP but be likeable!
4. Joseph Gordon-Levitt/Ryan Gosling/Adrien Brody - Unlike lots of other actors their age, they've been in great movies, have been able to avoid terrible movies (except Ryan Gosling that is), and have only appeared in a couple bad movies.
5. Werner Herzog in his Documentaries - The most interesting, or rather, weirdest film director ever!     

That being said, all the other actors suggested so far have been great. Daniel-Day Lewis and Gary Oldman are particular favourites of mine, especially Oldman.

Yeah, there are too many actors whose work I enjoy that it's impossible to pick only one.

bungobaggins wrote:Yeah, there are too many actors whose work I enjoy that it's impossible to pick only one.

Cop-out!