100 best supporting performances of all time according to baumer (will start again today..for sure!)

[4815162342]

1 hour ago, franfar said:

That was a great film.

 

Huston also had a great performance in Chinatown

 

Different Huston.

[baumer]

1 hour ago, The Stingray said:

Benicio del Toro has been killing supporting roles for years.

 

Licence to Kill, The Usual Suspects, Traffic, The Pledge etc.
 

 

I said he'll flip you. Flip you for real. Can you get in the back. Hello.

[The Stingray]

5 minutes ago, baumer said:

 

I said he'll flip you. Flip you for real. Can you get in the back. Hello.

[4815162342]

10 minutes ago, baumer said:

 

I said he'll flip you. Flip you for real. Can you get in the back. Hello.

 

Is that the one with the ...uh hooker with uh... dysentery?

[baumer]

I had this guy's finger up my asshole tonight.

Is it Friday already?

Jump in lover boy. Ill love ya.

[baumer]

Marlon Brando- Colonel Kurtz (Apocalypse Now 1979)

 

I lost all respect for Marlon Brando when I was old enough to read up on his unprofessional antics on this set.  This is a man who took one million dollars, in advance to do the film.  He was supposed to have read Heart of Darkness, the novel which the film was based on.  He didn't and when he showed up on set, he was drunk much of the time, was 85 pounds over weight, threatened to quit numerous times and behaved like a brutish DIVA for the entire time he was there.  And this was for a man who directed him to his second Oscar, with the Godfather.  Brando was a mean and nasty man and treated people like shit for much of his later years.  Frank Oz was another director who had a lot of disparaging things to say about him as well.  

 

And yet, for all of his diva behaviour on set, he still gave one of the most brilliant performances of his career and of the 70's with his turn as Colonel Walter Kurtz.  He was only filmed in dark shadows because of his enormous girth and somehow this added to the brilliance of the interpretation.  Brando might have been a real tool to work with, but even when he was drunk, uninterested in working and even incoherent at times, the man could still act like few could.  

 

Here's a quote from an article recounting Brando's inappropriate attitude:

 

When Brando arrived, he shocked everybody – he was enormous, maybe 300 pounds. "You couldn't see around him," says Frederickson. This gave Coppola palpitations, as he had envisioned Kurtz as a lean and hungry warrior. Also, what the hell was he going to wear? There was no Green Beret uniform on earth big enough!

Worse, Brando hadn't learnt his lines or done any preparation whatsoever for the role. "Francis had to literally start from scratch with him," says Doug Claybourne. "He had to bring him up to speed on what the thing was about and who the character was." According to his co-star Dennis Hopper, the production was shut down for a week while Coppola read Brando the script out loud. "Nine-hundred people, the cast and crew, just sat and waited!"

One day, suddenly, Brando shaved all his hair off and arrived at the idea of improvising his scenes and letting Coppola's camera capture whatever came out of his mouth. Self-conscious about his killer-whale appearance, Brando also stipulated that he dress in black and for the most part be filmed in shadow. Coppola agreed to steer his camera away from his enormous belly.

 

 

 

[baumer]

Christopher Walken- Nick (The Deer Hunter 1978)

 

Like Apocalypse Now, this was one of the most difficult shoots of the 70's, going over budget and over schedule.  It seems like this was a common theme for the 70's.  The Deer Hunter is famous for its controversial Russian Roulette Scene.  It caused so much controversy that Robert DeNiro didn't even attend the Oscar ceremony in 1979 because he was afraid of the scrutiny he would face because of the film.  Christopher Walken did attend and took home best supporting actor for his portrayal of Nick Chevoteravich, a Russian American who went to Vietnam to fight for the US.  

 

The 70's was a time for a lot of method acting and this shoot had plenty of it.  In the now famous Russian Roulette scene (for those of you who haven't seen it, two American prisoners of war, DeNiro, Walken, are forced to take a gun with several bullets in the chamber empty, and put the gun to their head and pull the trigger.  They basically had a 50/50 chance of living and dying) everything was done for real.  The slaps to the face were real, the actors insisted on this to give it a feel of authenticity.  The slaps became some annoying and bothersome to both DeNiro and Walken that they grew agitated and learned to hate their Vietnamese co-stars.  DeNiro and Walken even insisted on the gun having one live bullet in the chamber.  Always knowing of course where the bullet was IRL, nevertheless, the feeling of having a real bullet in the chamber gave both DeNiro and Walken a sense of unease and panic.  It was said that a lot of the emotion and anger and tears you see in this scene were not faked.

 

To give himself the look of a P.O.W. Walken went on a strict diet of water, rice and bananas.  This gave him the hollow and withdrawn look Walken envisioned his character to have.

 

This was Walken's first nomination and only win for an Oscar in his career.

 

 

[baumer]

Robert DeNiro- Don Corleone (The Godfather Part II 1974)

 

Robert DeNiro had auditioned to be in the Godfather.  He lost out to Al Pacino but director Francis For Coppola never forgot his terrific audition and he offered the part to DeNiro without even asking Brando to take on the role.  DeNiro had massive shoes to fill as he was playing a younger version of a now iconic character and a character where the actor previously won an Academy Award for the role.  Not only did he do well, but he became the first male to win an Oscar for a role that was primarily in a language other than English (Sofie Lauren was the first ever to win one in 1965 for Matrimonio all'Italiana)

 

Robert De Niro spent four months learning to speak the Sicilian dialect in order to play Vito Corleone. Nearly all the dialogue that his character speaks in the film was in Sicilian.  He also lived in Sicily for three months prior to filming.  

 

This is the film that sent De Niro into super stardom.  He made a name for himself in Scorsese's Mean Streets but after winning the academy award for best supporting actor, his life changed.  The Godfather saga, namely the two 1970's films, launched many iconic careers.  It can be argued that Al Pacino benefited the most from his turn in the Godfather, but De Niro isn't far behind.  Both of course have had distinguished careers, and they began with The Godfather saga.

 

 

[baumer]

John Belushi- John "Bluto" Blutarsky (Animal House 1978)

 

Here's the first of many comedic performances to make my list.  In my opinion, comedic roles are vastly under rated in Hollywood.  Acting isn't just about crying and having internal turmoil and living w with disease.  Comedy is not easy to pull off.  I'm not a comedic person so I have no idea how to pull off a funny performance but I've read that comedy is all about timing.  To pull of a performance like this one, John Belushi had to have impeccable timing.  To convince an audience that someone could be this daft, this dense and this stupid, takes an iconic performance.  I'd argue that Belushi's "Was it over when the German's bombed Pearl Harbor" speech is one of the funnier monologues of all time.   But that's just me.  

 

John Belushi's performance in the cafeteria scene was entirely improvised. When he began piling food on his tray, director John Landis urged the camera operator to "stay with him." The infamous "I'm a zit" gag was also improvised, and the reaction from the cast is completely genuine.

 

John Belushi was a notorious partier but both he and director John Landis recognized the need for sobriety.  The Delta House actors partied together every night, but Landis kept John Belushi separated from them by lodging him and his wife, in a house miles from the set. Belushi did host a few parties at the house, but stayed clean because he saw the film as a great career opportunity.

 

Belushi also became fiercely loyal to his co-starts, so much so that when the cast--minus Belushi, who was still working on SNL had to prepare for their roles--and despite being warned against mixing with the students--the cast of the Deltas accepted an invitation from some girls to a real frat party at the University of Oregon's SAE house. The real fraternity members treated them with hostility and a brawl ensued, started by James Widdoes when he threw a cup of beer at some drunk football players. Widdoes ended up losing a few teeth and Bruce McGill received a black eye. When Belushi returned to the set and learned of the fight, he had to be physically restrained from seeking revenge.

 

Animal House was so successful that it practically created the high school/College comedy and Belushi's performance so iconic that there were a litany of ersatz copycats.  No one could do what Belushi did and if he hadn't died in 1982, he more than likely would have been one of the biggest comedic stars of all time.

 

 

[baumer]

This concludes the 70's.  I realize there's a lot more terrific performances from the 70's that are not included here, but there's various reasons for that.  The main reason is that I either haven't seen many of the films with terrific supporting performances in them or I have seen them but a very long time ago.  I seem to recall Harvey Keitel being good in Mean Streets but I only saw that once as a teenager.  Roy Scheider was also good in The French Connection but again I haven't seen that in about 30 years so I remember little about it.  If you go through some of the best supporting nominees from the 70's, I haven't seen a lot of them in 30-35 years.  And some I just flat out don't agree with.  

 

You could probably nominate every performance from the Godfather but I'm comfortable with the ones mentioned.  

 

So onto the 80's

[baumer]

John Gielgud- Hobson (Arthur 1981)

 

Sir John Gielgud was a fine distinguished actor with more than 120 film credits to his resume.  He was in classics like Gandhi, Chariots of Fire and The Elephant Man.  He was nominated for his first Oscar in 1965 for the 1964 film, Becket. It wouldn't be until 1981 that the role of a life time and perhaps the one is remembered most for, would garner him his first and only Oscar.  In the film Arthur, Gielgud played Hobson, the manservant of Arthur Bach, a young, insouciant, millionaire playboy who was determined to drink his fortune away.  As I have mentioned numerous times, I don't have a great knowledge of the minutae of film prior to the 70's, but this wise-cracking, insulting and acerbic but witty butler had to be one of the first of it's kind.  Gielgud gives what I consider one of the funniest performances of all time.  He delivers his lines with such equanimity that if you didn't know it was a movie, you'd swear you were watching a real life servant.

 

John Gielgud turned down the role of Hobson several times, finally accepting it only because the salary he was offered was too good to pass up.  

 

Arthur, thanks in large part to Gielgud and of course, Dudley Moore, went on to gross 96 million dollars, which was the 4th highest grossing film of 1981.  

 

It's unfortunate that he wasn't there to accept his award at the Oscars in 1982 as it would have been interesting to see what his thoughts were on the role.   

 

This is one of the funniest performances of all time, in my opinion.

 

 

[baumer]

Sean Penn- Jeff Spicolli (Fast Times at Ridgemont High 1982)

 

Sean Penn is considered by many to be one of the greatest actors of his generation.  He has been nominated 5 times and won an Oscar twice.  There's a natural intensity to him and it comes off brilliantly in films like Casualties of War and Mystic River.  But he didn't start out with the brooding angry tone he is famous for.  In 1982, he won the role of stoner Jeff Spicolli, in Amy Heckerling's debut film, Fast Times at Ridgemont High.  Penn got noticed in the ensemble film Taps but he got famous the next year with Fast Times.  

 

The film is a story based on Cameron Crowe's novel as he went back to high school as an adult, posing as a student.  The characters in the film are fictionalized in many ways but there is many elements of truth to them as well.  The two characters that Crowe says were most accurate were Mark Ratner and Jeff Spicolli.  

 

Penn was so into his character, that to achieve what he needed, he insisted that even during breaks in filming, the cast and crew not call him Sean, but by his film moniker, Spicolli.  He even had the name on his dressing changed to Spicolli.  

 

Sean Penn had to fly back to LA, in between another job in Chicago. Because Cameron Crowe wrote the lines the day of the shoot, they used cue cards offscreen to help Penn. The cue cards of the infamous lines 'Those guys are fags!' hang to this day on the walls of Cameron's home.

 

One of the key relationships in the film was the one between Spicolli and his history teacher, Mr. Hand, played by respected actor Ray Walston.  Sean Penn improvised during his takes and tried to find ways to aggravate Walston, even off camera. He also did things to get genuinely startled reactions from the extras who played his classmates through unexpected improvisations.

 

Spicolli's dream sequence was actually written and filmed after the film was wrapped. After beginning the editing process, Amy Heckerling, Art Linson and Irving Azoff realized how great Spicoli had been acted by Sean Penn, and that they needed to beef up Penn's role in the film.

 

IMO, it's one of the best performances in a high school film.  Spicolli became legendary to my generation and his antics and lines were often repeated by me and my friends.  It's certainly a film worth finding if you have not seen it.

 

 

[franfar]

1 hour ago, baumer said:

Sean Penn- Jeff Spicolli (Fast Times at Ridgemont High 1982)

 

Sean Penn is considered by many to be one of the greatest actors of his generation.  He has been nominated 5 times and won an Oscar twice.  There's a natural intensity to him and it comes off brilliantly in films like Casualties of War and Mystic River.  But he didn't start out with the brooding angry tone he is famous for.  In 1982, he won the role of stoner Jeff Spicolli, in Amy Heckerling's debut film, Fast Times at Ridgemont High.  Penn got noticed in the ensemble film Taps but he got famous the next year with Fast Times.  

 

The film is a story based on Cameron Crowe's novel as he went back to high school as an adult, posing as a student.  The characters in the film are fictionalized in many ways but there is many elements of truth to them as well.  The two characters that Crowe says were most accurate were Mark Ratner and Jeff Spicolli.  

 

Penn was so into his character, that to achieve what he needed, he insisted that even during breaks in filming, the cast and crew not call him Sean, but by his film moniker, Spicolli.  He even had the name on his dressing changed to Spicolli.  

 

Sean Penn had to fly back to LA, in between another job in Chicago. Because Cameron Crowe wrote the lines the day of the shoot, they used cue cards offscreen to help Penn. The cue cards of the infamous lines 'Those guys are fags!' hang to this day on the walls of Cameron's home.

 

One of the key relationships in the film was the one between Spicolli and his history teacher, Mr. Hand, played by respected actor Ray Walston.  Sean Penn improvised during his takes and tried to find ways to aggravate Walston, even off camera. He also did things to get genuinely startled reactions from the extras who played his classmates through unexpected improvisations.

 

Spicolli's dream sequence was actually written and filmed after the film was wrapped. After beginning the editing process, Amy Heckerling, Art Linson and Irving Azoff realized how great Spicoli had been acted by Sean Penn, and that they needed to beef up Penn's role in the film.

 

IMO, it's one of the best performances in a high school film.  Spicolli became legendary to my generation and his antics and lines were often repeated by me and my friends.  It's certainly a film worth finding if you have not seen it.

 

 

He looks a bit like Ryan Lochte 

[baumer]

Ill start this up again today.

[baumer]

Ed Harris- John Glenn (The Right Stuff 1983)

 

The 1983 movie, The Right Stuff has been praised by some of the industries biggest name directors. Quentin Tarantino called it a hip epic.  Christopher Nolan has called it an almost perfect movie and Michael Bay took a lot of inspiration from the Right Stuff for many of his films, especially Armageddon.  And yet the film, while nominated for best picture and best supporting actor in a supporting role for Sam Shepherd, never really got around to recognizing the rest of the cast, namely Ed Harris, who gave a stunning performance playing astronaut John Glenn.  

 

When Harris first read for the part, he was unhappy with his first reading and asked for a second one.  He immediately got the part after that second reading.

 

I read for Phil Kaufman and wasn't very happy about how it went. Walking out, I hit the wall pretty hard. Phil saw me do that and said, “Oh, the guy's got spunk.”

 

According to producer Robert Chartoff, " Ed Harris walked into the office, and we looked at him and couldn’t believe that such a person existed. He was not only a wonderful actor but looked so much like John Glenn. And of course we looked at each other and said, “Oh my God, this is the guy we want.” I said to Phil, “Please, don’t let this guy get hit by a car. At least, not until after the picture is made.”

 

Harris prepared for his role so intensely that according to him, he even knew what all the gauges did on the capsule.  "I knew that capsule inside and out. I knew what all the gauges were and everything. You’re just using your imagination. Like a kid, you know, climbing under a bunch of blankets pretending you’re going to the moon."

 

The Right Stuff is one of Ed Harris' best performances.  He wasn't nominated for an oscar and has been since, 4 times.  But this might be his best performance. 

 

 

 

[baumer]

Wyatt Knight- Porky's (1981)

 

As I mentioned earlier, there will definitely be some selections here that might baffle some of you but I hold comedy in very high regard.  Porky's is a classic for a reason.  Porky's got the attention it did because it was a sex-filled, boob infested, raunchy comedy.  You have scenes like the shower scene with Pauly the Penis and the sketch artist discussion scene and then you have funny lines like, (Wendy Williams asking over the loud speaker at her diner where she works, "Phone call for Mike Hunt.  Is Mike Hunt in the restaurant?  Has anyone seen Mike Hunt?" Porky's has stood the test of time and films like American Pie and the litany of other copy cats that came out after it, have Porky's to thank for a lot of their ideas.  But the one thing that is rarely mentioned about Porky's is that it got some terrific comedic performances from the cast.  Wyatt Knight, as Tommy Turner, the leader of the group, turns in the most straight and narrow performance.  He's the glue that holds everyone together.  Although to be fair, he does have a scene where he sticks his dick through a glory hole in the girls locker room and has it grabbed by Ms. Balbricker, so take that for what it's worth.  But, while PeeWee, played by Dan Monahan, has the biggest laughs, it's Tommy (Knight) that comes off as the most real.  He listens to problems, plots revenge, snickers behind your back and to your face and he does it all while being someone you can relate to even though the film is raunchy as they come.  Sadly, Knight contracted cancer and at the age of 56, he committed suicide to ease the physical and emotional pain he was experiencing.  Cancer sucks, and this is just one more example.  But for two films (the third was nothing like the other two), Wyatt Knight, as Tommy Turner, entertained the hell out of me and millions of others.   

 

  

[Kalo]

Fantastic write ups so far! agree with most of them so far!

[baumer]

I will start this up again tomorrow. I just wanted to let spaghetti and panda get their award show going and completed. Now that it's done I will spend some time on this. For all of you who have read so far thank you for doing so.

[baumer]

I will get back to this again today.

[baumer]

Robert Englund: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

 

Unlike other horror icons, Fred Krueger is totally dependent on who plays him.  It can be argued that certain actors who played Jason were better than others.  In fact, I believe that Ted White and and Richard Brooker are the two best Jason's and that the man known for Jason, Kane Hodder, is the worst of the bunch.  But I digress. Freddy Krueger was brought to life by an actor who was primarily known as Willie, the good alien in the terrific mini series, V, in the 80's.  Juxtapose the two performances and the two characters and they are about as diametric as the come.  Willie was a shy and mousey character.  He didn't feel like he belonged in either world and he certainly didn't agree with what his race of beings were doing to the Earth.  Fred Krueger was a child molester who came to haunt you in your dreams and sliced you open with his home made finger knives.  Robert Englund had this to say about Freddy.

 

"Freddy Krueger is a great politically incorrect villain, the logo character of a franchise spawned by a low-budget movie, made by some reasonably artistic people who came up with a gimmick. And it is a great gimmick - the idea that a bogey man, a revenge-motif serial killer could manifest himself in the subconscious of the children of the people that did him wrong. Freddy likes it, he is having fun doing it. He is unapologetic about that. You have a punk-rock nihilistic villain."

 

Englund is a classically trained actor and yet his most famous role, the one that made him rich and famous, is that of a finger knives wielding homicidal maniac.  You can't make this stuff up.