Moments of "Wow, Hell of an Actor"

[Frybird]

Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach in Watchmen. Even though I didn?t like the film as a whole, I?ve gotta commend Zack Snyder?s casting ? it was great across the board, apart for maybe Silk Spectre II and Ozymandias ? and I now can?t think of anyone else who could play that role as well as him. He even looks the part too!

You should see him in Little Children, where he plays a convicted child molester who served his time in prison and is both harassed and feared as he returns to his neighborhood. What's great about it is that on one hand he is definitely a creep and a bit of a psychopath, but at the same time you see him struggle to keep clean and start a new life while everyone around him hates and harasses him in a way that makes you feel sorry for him anyway.
Not many can pull off such a conflicted and conflicting character, and Haley is amazing.

Oh, and while we're talking about Alan Moore Comic Adaptions, Hugo Weaving in V for Vendetta is perhaps my favorite Comic-Book-Character Performance of all time, even though [or perhaps because] you never see his face wich is mostly hidden behind a static, grinning mask and he still manages to put an impressive amount of emotion and character into his performance.

And while he has been mentioned, he hasn't been mentioned enough: Michael Shannon!
He's currently my favorite Actor around and i pretty much like him in everything he does (yes, including Pearl Harbor and Man of Steel, despite the quality of those too...although i was kinda sad that he didn't get to "ham it up" more in latter).
But perhaps his greatest performance yet is in "Take Shelter" as a mild-mannered blue collar dad who starts to have visions of an apocalyptic disaster and slowly goes insane...not in the "murderous psychopath" kind of way, but the heart-breaking "angry and scared and broken and confused" kind of way, wich all pours out in one scene at a community gathering for wich alone he'd deserved to win all of the awards that year.

 

[OneCatch]

Robert Di Nero in Mary Shelly's Frankenstien - wow, just wow. Your emotions really do sway throughout the entire film and he has you loving him one minute, hating him the next, fearing him another, then wanting to protect him the other! Superb and the hut scene is gut-wrenching.

Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller in the stage version of Frankenstein were a ridiculously good pairing.

http://ntlive.nationaltheatre.org.uk/productions/16546-frankenstein

They alternate the roles of Frankenstein and the Creature on different night which is impressive in itself, but because of the themes of the story it really adds to it.

The obvious choice here is Daniel Day Lewis. The guy's transformations are just otherworldly. A bit of Lincoln came on the other night and my girlfriend commented that he was so good that his routine excellence was getting boring.

Beat me to it. I was going to say There Will Be Blood and Day-Lewis, though Paul Dano is fantastic in that film as well. The Milkshake bit is the scene that everyone remembers (and it is a great scene), but the performances of the two of them ramping up throughout the film are what makes the ending so effective.
Though I think my favourite scene in that film is where Day-Lewis reminisces with his brother about 'hating most people'. It's a tonal diversion from the rest, but still manages to explore the film's themes thoroughly in about 3 minutes in spite of that.

 

[Aerduin]

Dennis Hopper vs Christopher Walken in True Romance pure awesomeness triple distilled.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach in Watchmen. Even though I didn?t like the film as a whole, I?ve gotta commend Zack Snyder?s casting ? it was great across the board, apart for maybe Silk Spectre II and Ozymandias ? and I now can?t think of anyone else who could play that role as well as him. He even looks the part too!

You should see him in Little Children, where he plays a convicted child molester who served his time in prison and is both harassed and feared as he returns to his neighborhood. What's great about it is that on one hand he is definitely a creep and a bit of a psychopath, but at the same time you see him struggle to keep clean and start a new life while everyone around him hates and harasses him in a way that makes you feel sorry for him anyway.
Not many can pull off such a conflicted and conflicting character, and Haley is amazing.

Oh, and while we're talking about Alan Moore Comic Adaptions, Hugo Weaving in V for Vendetta is perhaps my favorite Comic-Book-Character Performance of all time, even though [or perhaps because] you never see his face wich is mostly hidden behind a static, grinning mask and he still manages to put an impressive amount of emotion and character into his performance.

Yeah, I've been meaning to watch Little Children, both featuring Jackie Earle Haley and Patrick Wilson, who played Nite Owl II. And indeed, I loved Hugo Weaving's performance as V too. I haven't read the comic book, and despite numerous people saying it wasn't faithful enough to the source material, part of the reason why I liked the film was Weaving's V.

 

[Johnny Impact]

The moment I realized Gary Oldman had been Zorg in The Fifth Element, Gordon in Batman, the creepiest Dracula ever in -- crap, what is the director's name? -- anyway, the corrupt policeman in The Professional, and lots of others. Each unique, each well done. The man's got range.

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

Daniel Day-Lewis.

/thread

Sean Bean

Fuck yeah, Sean Bean is awesome.

Too bad he pretty much never makes it to the end of the movie..

OT: Watching The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) in some of his more dramatic work can be surprising. The dude's ripped and does action/comedy pretty consistently, but he has way more chops than I expected.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

Oh, and I forgot to mention Malcolm McDowell's performance as Alex in A Clockwork Orange. It's funny how I found myself feeling sympathy for such a sadistic bastard.