Best Actor Last 100 Years?

[lollypop]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

Yes.

Strong. Confident. Capable of showing sadness. Repeat.

My point is this. If an actor (example only) Plays a crazy truck driver, then plays a crazy doctor, then a crazy school teacher, a crazy scientist, a crazy musician, a crazy cop, a crazy homeless person, a crazy political leader etc., is that range? No. He may be wearing a different uniform or suit, but he is always playing crazy.

Denzel needs to take a dip in the other end of the pool and play a role far removed from himself. Play someone thats pathetic, or frightened, or weak, or dance or sing or do comedy.

I think he is a great actor that needs to spread his wings. He gave a genius performance in Glory, but I avoid his films lately because I know I am going to see the same old character. For the record, I feel this way about a couple other actors too. They seem to take the easy road and do roles that are very COMFORTABLE because the characters are not far from the actors own personalty (not personal character though).

Daniel Day Lewis is an example of an actor with range. He has played everything from an absolute evil tyrant business man, to an absolute delicate powderpuff sissy, to a slaughtering gang member, to singing and dancing.

Hugh Jackman....from Wolverine to Tommy in the Fountain. RANGE.

Nicholson...from the Shining to About Scmidt. RANGE

Bale...The Machinest...American Psycho

Dustin Hoffman...Too many to list

Denzel has done more comedy in his career than Day-Lewis and Christian Bale combined. His debut film in 1981 (Carbon Copy) was a slapstick comedy. He played a Ghost in a comedy with Bob Hoskins called Heart Condition. He's done Shakespearian comedy (Much Ado About Nothing). And he did romantic comedy in in 1996 with The Preacher's Wife, where he played an Angel, opposite Whitney Houston (a remake of a Cary Grant comedy called The Bishops's Wife). I'd like to see Washington in another comedy, because he's pretty good at it. But he doesn't need to prove it. If people want to see him do comedy, the films are out there. Though I doubt it will matter how much comedy Denzel has done. If people want to find an excuse not to give him credit, they'll find it.

Washington has had a long, long career on stage and on film. At some point, he's covered pretty much everything. His range is incredible. For example, no A-list American leading man in the last 30 years, has done as much Shakespeare as Washington. He's done most of it on stage (Julius Ceasar, Othello, Richard III, Corialanus), but he did do Much Ado About Nothing on film, where he played a Spanish Prince, and handled Shakespearian laguage with ease (and he got better reviews for his performance from UK critics than Kenneth Branagh, considered by many to be the foremost Shakespearian actor of his generation).

Now Jack Nicholson can't do Shakespeare and isn't a classical (or classically trained) actor like Washington. Nicholson doesn't lack range, but he can't play King Lear. Denzel can. Being a classical actor requires serious range...if it didn't, every actor could manage it. Washington is one of the few American Hollywood film actors who can do it to a high standard.

Many great actors play to their strengths the majority of the time. I can't name a single "weakling" Marlon Brando played. He never drifted far from his screen persona traits. I can name many conflicted, sad, angushed, masculine characters Brando played, but most of the time, he was doing his Brando thing, occassionally with a funny voice.

Denzel didn't play a strong, confident character in The Taking Of Pelham 123. His character was mild mannered, humble and subservient. And often insecure. For him, it was an against type character turn. He didn't just phone in his cool, confident character from Inside Man.

Washington's South African character in Cry Freedom was gentle soft spoken and a pacifist. Almost the South African equivalent to Ghandi. To go from that to playing Carey Grant style romantic comedy figure in The Preacher's Wife to a Shapearian Prince in Much Ado About Nothing to a Corrupt Ghetto overlord "gangsta" cop in Training Day....to me, that requires RANGE, and then some. Washington's gift is that he makes it look really, really easy. Cry Freedom and Training Day are polar opposite characters. Which one of them is "Denzel"? No idea. Meryl Streep actually noted that when they worked together on The Manchurian Canidate. Streep said she found it amazing that Denzel could so so much, without the requisite "huffing and puffing" she saw in other actors.