Saga Who gives the best performance?

Ah yes, performances in the Star Wars saga, always a topic of intense debate.

There are many standout roles and performances in the saga, but for me, there's only one who is heads and tails ahead of everyone else: Mark Hamill. Luke Skywalker's growth across the OT is perhaps one of its most underrated elements. Most other films' archetypal hero protagonist is a mere stand in for the audience, whose arc is predictable from the first scene onward, but there's one key thing that separate Hamill: the reaction shots. Every single time the film cuts to Mark for a reaction, you can instantly read everything going on in his face at any given moment, and across the OT, he communicates a multitude of emotions without saying anything. That's really the key to acting: reacting. Everything is a reaction to an outside stimulus, and in every moment, whether it's obvious or not, Hamill delivers.

Indeed, the best moment of all might be the ending of TFA, which has every reason to be a joyous and cathartic scene, and with a single look, Hamill suddenly makes it wrenchingly conflicted.

 

You can debate who gives the best performance, but Mark Hamill certainly gives the most underrated one. It's a crime that his work isn't as highly touted as it should be. He also has the most challenging task, since Luke develops the most over the course of the OT, going from good-hearted yet naive kid, to brave yet impulsive warrior, to thoughtful yet haunted Jedi. Also, more than his co-stars, he has to act alongside creatures and droids and blue screen effects and make them all look believable, which he does. And I certainly agree when it comes to that shot from TFA. Whatever problems I might've had with the movie, his few moments on screen made me want to see Episode VIII as soon as possible, if not sooner.

 

Yeah, it's worth pointing out that he spends most of ESB acting opposite non-human faces: R2, Yoda, Vader. Not an easy thing to pull off.

 

Ian McDiarmid as Darth Sidious is the best in my opinion!

 

I've always found Hayden Chistensen's performance very effective.

He was very good at capturing Anakin's awkward, stilted nature, and his anger in the Mustafar scenes is excellent.

Temuera Morrison's performance as Jango is pretty great too. I love the palpable tension in the room during his conversation with Obi-Wan, and his double role as Cody shows off his nicer side.

 

Performance wise? I would say Peter Cushing.

 

Ian McDiarmid, Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor.

 

Liam Neeson did a great job in conveying Qui-Gin to be this wise, natural dude. Andy Serkis did great in making this mysterious character out of Snoke. My brother would most certainly agree with this, for Ewan put so much emotion and civility to Obi-Wan to nicely counter Hayden's purposefully brash Anakin. Jimmy Smits is incredible in showing a politician of the people- and I've always felt for him in the final act of ROTS. Vader's entire presence (credit Prowse and Jones) is incredible, down to his final ironically very weak and human death. But I have to give the hat to McDiarmind- he fully convined me the Emperor was pure evil, and he masterfully wove together the dual roles of a Secret Sith and Popular Politician. His manifesto after Windu dies and when he puts on the hood is one of my favorite scenes in SW, because Ian makes Palpatine seem as if something just exploded his disguise right off of his body, so his true evil can show forth.

 

Felicity Jones, Ian McDiarmid, Mark Hamill, Ewan McGregor, Peter Cushing, Diego Luna, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Mads Mikkelsen, James Earl Jones, and Ben Mendelsohn. It's one of them.

If I had to choose, I couldn't decide between Ridley, Luna, Jones, Hamill, Jones, or McDiarmid.

 

Toughie.... but R2-D2!

Heh.... Personally I think the most remarkable performance is Daisy Ridley. She really surprised me. JEJ in the OT is also amazingly good. I'm a big fan of Hamill, but he has never been near the top of my list, until maybe the end of TFA. He had more in that look than I could have imagined possible. We'll see what he manages under Rian's direction in VIII.

 

I have always been a big fan of Ian McDiarmid's performance in Episode III, he was exceptional both as a manipulative chancellor and as an evil sith lord.

 

Christopher Lee, Liam Neeson, Hayden (especially in III), Mark (especially in V), Temuera, Ewan, and Diego Luna are definitely some of my favs.

 

Adam Driver

 

Ian McDiarmid in ROTJ. Reason:

 

In terms of acting and fitting their role: Neeson, McDiarmid, Hamill, Mikkelsen, McGregor

Accounting for volume of work and range displayed in the films: McDiarmid & Hamill

 

Maybe not necessarily the best but I appreciate how Ewan McGregor did a very good job of playing Alec Guiness playing Obi-Wan Kenobi. Obviously the character was at a different point in his lifetime but it wasn't only the voice and the mannerisms but it genuinely did feel like the same Kenobi we'd seen in ANH was the one who walked away into the desert at the end of ROTS, which is impressive.

Also seconding that Hammill deserves way more credit than he normally seems to get.

 

Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, James Earl Jones, Harrison Ford, Ewan McGregor, and Ian McDiarmid are the first that come to mind. If we're counting Rogue One, Mads Mikkelsen and Ben Mendelsohn, and Diego Luna were the standouts from that one.

 

As I've said many times it's really him and Hayden that give THE performances of Star Wars as they should since they are the two central characters around which everything revolves.

What more of course is that HC performance and story it tells now imbues the character of Vader in IV-VI.

There are excellent performances all around. Lucas' abilities to cast people both in front and behind the camera is startlingly good.

 

I'm going by movie.

TPM: Liam Neeson followed by Portman.
AOTC: Natalie Portman
ROTS: I can't decide between Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, or Ian McDiarmid.
RO: Diego Luna or Mads Mikkelsen
ANH: While I prefer Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan, I'll give it to Alec Guinness. Following by Peter Cushing.
ESB: Frank Oz
ROTJ: Mark Hamill
TFA: Daisy Ridley

 

Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley for me. (Episode VII is my favorite Star Wars movie)

 

In no particular order, the Best Acting Performances are given by:

Ewan McGregor, Alec Guinness, Felicity Jones, Mark Hamill, Mads Mikkelsen, David Prowse, James Earl Jones, Ian McDiarmid, Domhnall Gleeson, Diego Luna, Peter Cushing, Forest Whitaker, Adam Driver and Ben Mendelsohn.

 

TPM: Liam Neeson
AOTC: Ewan Mcregor
ROTS: Ian Mcdiarmid
ANH: Alec Guiness
ESB: Frank Oz or Harrison Ford
ROTJ: Mark Hamill
TFA: Adam Driver
R1: Diego Luna

 

I think Hamill has a good argument... people talk about Harrison Ford (and to be fair, he was quite a bit better than Hamill in the original Star Wars IMO... both Hamill and Fisher struggled some in that film)..... but I felt Hamill was much better than Ford in ROTJ. And Hamill had a lot more variety to cover than Ford. Ford was basically the same guy more or less for 3 films.... ANH Luke and ROTJ Luke are almost completely different characters. I think it's fair to say that Hamill grew a lot over the OT... he was noticeably better in TESB and then improved again in ROTJ (Hamill honestly kind of carries ROTJ to some degree).

Frank Oz and Hamill definitely deserve a ton of credit for making scenes involving a person and a muppet performing on a fake swamp set into some of the best and most memorable sequences in film history. I mean think about that for a minute... in concept it sounds pretty stupid right? A guy hanging out in the swamp talking to a muppet..... but it was (and still is) movie magic.

James Earl Jones should probably get quite a bit of credit as well........ probably the most famous voice work in film history period. Some of his enunciation and cadence is just perfectly menacing.... Having a cool sounding voice isn't the only reason he sounds great at Darth Vader.

In recent films some of the actors playing major roles that stood out to me where felicity jones, diego luna and Adam Driver. (Ben Mendelsohn was quite good also... I pretty much thought all the Rogue One actors were good)

Smaller part standouts: Cushing, Donnie Yen, Oscar Issac, for some reasons Jimmy Smits always just works for me as Bail Organa (both in the PT And RO)

I think Ewan McGregor and Ian McDiarmid deserve a TON of credit for their performances in the prequels. Ewan was one of the only main actors would could consistent deliver dialogue effectively regardless of quality (Ian certainly falls into that category as well). ROTS probably doesn't work at all without McDiarmid (also thought Ian was very good in ROTJ).

I really enjoyed many of the British imperials in the OT (Piett, Veers, etc)

And of course we can't forget the people behind Ackbar and RADDUS

Tudyk was great as K2SO


I love me some Billy Dee Williams.... ."Hey Chewbacca... you still hanging out with this loser?"

 

Revisiting this thread, doing it top 5 by film:

TPM
1. Liam Neeson
2. Ian McDiarmid
3. Ray Park
4. Natalie Portman
5. Pernilla August

AOTC
1. Christopher Lee
2. Samuel L. Jackson
3. Ewan McGregor
4. Frank Oz
5. Ian McDiarmid

ROTS
1. Ian McDiarmid
2. Hayden Christensen
3. Ewan McGregor
4. Samuel L. Jackson
5. Frank Oz

RO
1. Forest Whitaker
2. Ben Mendehlson
3. Guy Henrie
4. Alan Tudyk
5. Donnie Yen

ANH
1. Peter Cushing
2. Alec Guiness
3. Harrison Ford
4. James Earl Jones
5. Carrie Fisher

ESB
1. James Earl Jones
2. Frank Oz
3. Mark Hamill
4. Billy Dee Williams
5. Harrison Ford

ROTJ
1. Mark Hamill
2. James Earl Jones
3. Ian McDiarmid
4. Billy Dee Williams
5. Erik Bauserfeld

TFA
1. Harrison Ford
2. Daisy Ridley
3. Adam Driver
4. Carrie Fisher
5. Andy Serkis