JCC An Actor’s Best Role Ever

Disagree. This is Patrick Stewarts best role.

 

Counter arguments...







Just to name a few.

And we cannot forget to mix in his truly phenomenal voice acting work over the decades.

The truly great actors will always lead to tremendous debate on this subject.

Other actors I'd have difficultly nailing down to one truly great role:

Daniel Day-Lewis

Al Pacino

Robert De Niro

Denzel Washington

Alec Guinness

James Earl Jones

------------

Yesterday, as I was working through some of these picks, I started to differentiate 3 categories.

1) Iconic roles...roles that are acclaimed and famous because of that actor.

2) Fitting roles---roles the actor was so suited to, it is almost not even acting.

3) The role they seemed to enjoy the most.

For Patrick Stewart...I think you get some of that with Professor X and Captain Picard.

Professor X is probably the most fitting role for Stewart.
Hairline aside, his temperament, gravitas, and talent were as if the character was created to be Patrick Stewart.

Captain Picard is probably his most iconic role. There was nothing but a name before this man came to LA, took this role, and turned it into a pop culture titan...on par with anything in the history of the franchise, or the genre as a whole.

What was his favorite? The role he seemed to have the most fun at? His Shakespeare stuff has always been top notch. His Ahab in Moby Dick was every bit that of Peck's from the generation before. He did a memorable Scrooge. I think he is absolutely hysterical in some of his voice work like American Dad, etc, when he gets to be completely irreverent. Hard to say.

Sometimes, the categories cross over, which is usually when you know you have a "best role" candidate.

But the great actors...all the roles can be great.

 

You can't change my mind



Ditto

 

Probably the most "impressive" role he ever had.

Proved he could act.
I remember reading somewhere his dad forced the studio to put him in this movie, otherwise he would not do Home Alone 2.

Ultimately the movie wasn't very successful, but he was good in it. His dad's meddling probably torpedoed his career trajectory, somewhat.

 

Nah, his best role was in LA Story when he played the Maitre d at L'Idiot:

 

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was absolutely at his acting best in Airplane!

 

This one is my favorite.

But it easily could've been:

or


Eddie is Eddie, really.

Heck...


All great.

 

“Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

 

Frankly I don't care whether or not the movie was successful or not. If this film happened to be on TV while I was browsing through my cable channels, I would put it on. That's more than I can say for either of his Home Alone films. I don't think I've seen HA or HA2 in about 30 years.

 

Albert Finney as Scrooge.

 

@Ahsoka's Tano Blasphemy! We go to the Home Alone "house" every year, typically the day before Thanksgiving as the way to kick off our holiday season. Even my kids love those movies and they don't like much unless it was made about 5 minutes ago.

 

Another actor who was just born to play a role is, of course:

 

oh c'mon, Alistair Sim .

also Albert Finney's had much better roles , Arthur Seaton for one.

 

Getting a little more obscure now...

But there in lies a question.

Can multiple actors have the same character be their best role?

I'd argue it is totally possible.

There could be a fight over which portrayal is better, but that is a completely different discussion.

 

.

 

McKellen in Richard III (the movie) blows his Gandalf out of the water, IMO.

This.

Pitt’s best are Inglorious Basterds and Tree of Life. Especially the latter. I’ll die on that tree.

 

William Shatner in Airplane 2



"Irony can be petty ironic sometimes."

And on a personal level, even though time marches on, I will never get over macho grande. Those wounds run pretty deep.

 

Don't forget Mushu from Mulan.

 

For Shatner it's TJ Hooker. c'mon it's not even close.

 

Jessica Walter as Lucille Bluth
Martin Sheen as President Josiah Bartlett
John Mahoney as Martin Crane
Richard Schiff as Tobey Ziegler
Paul Giamatti as John Adams
Tim Robinson as Carmine Laguzio

 

I agree with this