October 5, 2005

After a couple of "Most Underrated Actors & Actresses" pieces got MCN headlines that wondered what decade the lists were written in, I was challenged by a friendly editor to offer up my lists. And so…

The first great challenge of making such lists is trying to figure out what is "underrated." On the MSN list posted yesterday, none of the women on their lost have really been underrated. Maybe Gillian Anderson a little, as "a TV actress." Some of them have fallen away from the mainstream, like Barbara Hershey and Diane Venora… but that happens to a lot of actresses as time passes. On the actors list, there is Alec Baldwin, who was recently Oscar nominated, Jeff Daniels, who is being touted for this year, and Jeffrey Wright, who is beloved by the hip room, but without big commercial credentials.

It feels kind of like an "actors we really liked and miss seeing very much on the big screen these days" list.

But what is the best criteria for this list? For instance, Eddie Murphy is very underrated commercially. But can a $20 million actor really be "underrated?"

Viola Davis, who I first saw act on April 28, 2002 on an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, soon thereafter followed that head turning performance with that fall's sublime triple serving of supporting roles in Far From Heaven, Antwone Fisher, and Solaris. She's done little television work since then and will be seen twice in the next few months, in Jim Sheridan's Get Rich Or Die Tryin' and an HDNet film called All Fall Down (which I think may be her first film lead). To me, she is one of the finest actresses in the game, though we are really just getting to know her at 40 after a Tony winning stage career.

Ms. Davis is unknown, but is she underrated?

How about Samantha Morton, who is one of the greatest actresses of her generation at just 28 years of age, already twice Oscar nominated. Yet, her name will draw a blank for most people, her face perhaps a little more familiar, and spectacular performances in Movern Callar, Jesus' Son, and Enduring Love all but unseen. She's even done a bloody Lassie movie… and of course, no American pick-up as of yet.

I sure as hell don't underrate Ms. Morton nor do most cinephiles. But she also lost the job on The Brothers Grimm - disaster or not - because she was not considered a big enough name or beautiful enough face by the Weinsteins. She was replaced by the beautiful and professional, but hardly generation-leading, Lena Headey.

That brings up Gary Oldman, whose career careened out of control after he had the lead in A Beautiful Mind stripped away from him when Russell Crowe came free, and was so possessed by the need to be more famous so that episode would not be repeated that he exposed his worst demons to DreamWorks on The Contender, destroying his relationship with everyone involved and essentially being blackballed for years afterwards. He was already shooting his role in Hannibal when that went wrong… and would not appear in a studio release for three years after, until he took a small role in the third Harry Potter film. That lead to another small role in Batman Begins. And next, another small role in a WB film (which they will share with Paramount), as Melvin Belli for David Fincher in Zodiac.

Ask most people and they will tell you that they have strong feelings about Oldman, whether they love him or hate him. But no Oscars. And far more awards attention for writing and directing Nil By Mouth than for any of his well known movie acting.

Another Brit who zoomed into view, at least for the indie world, is Emily Mortimer, whose fully nude body critiquing scene in Lovely & Amazing had many touting her for Oscar that year. But since then, her films have been less than stellar and her daring willingness to bare all has been taken advantage of by directors who misused or underutilized her. Be clear, Ms. Mortimer, whose genetic heritage includes one of England's most beloved and prolific writers, is no one's bimbo. She got Oscar buzz again last year for playing a troubled mother in Dear Frankie, but the film never caught fire. And this year, she will show up in the Match Point in a role that will probably start to define the quickly-gotten-to second act of her movie career. And don't be surprised if she turns up as a working screenwriter before too long. Again, don't think she is just another actor who thinks she can do it all. Before she started acting, she wrote a weekly column for a major London paper (I think it was The Independent, but I'm not 100% sure).

And what of Emily's husband and the father of her child, Alessandro Nivola? He is best known for his roles with a British accent - in I Want You, Mansfield Park, Love's Labours Lost, and Laurel Canyon - though unlike his wife, who is well known for playing Americans, is not British at all. He's currently shooting a sequel to another U.K. role in a film called Goal! in which he is in a supporting role and which is owned by Disney, but not yet scheduled to ever get a U.S. release. Mr. Nivola also was in memorable roles like the geeky brother of Nic Cage in Face/Off, an adventurer in Jurassic Park III, Reese Witherspoon's criminal lover in Best Laid Plans (written by Ted Griffin), and the southerner returning unhappily to his roots in this year's Junebug (where he is now a couple with Embeth Davidtz, who played his sister in Mansfield Park six years ago).

It was just six months ago that I was mocked on my own blog for repeating my argument that Rachel McAdams was the next Julia Roberts/Sandra Bullock level female star. That changed, as every writer and their pet monkey are now touting her. There are two young comediennes who are never going to be as big as that, but may well be legendary, beloved actors for many years to come - Judy Greer and Ginnifer Goodwin.

The first time I met Judy Greer she had paid her own way to Sundance to promote herself in the hot-chicks high school comedy Jawbreaker. The next year, her role as the muse to some of Hollywood's hottest, hippest directors was launched as she played reporter/sexual plaything to George Clooney in Three Kings for David O. Russell. Soon after, she was an object of lust for Mike Nichols' disastrous What Planet Are You From?. She was a depressed geek for Nancy Meyers opposite Mel Gibson in What Women Want and the funny sidekick to J-Lo in The Wedding Planner. Spike Jonze tapped her as the object of Nic Cage/Charlie Kaufman's unfulfilled lust in Adaptation. Shyamalan tapped her to be dramatic in The Village, Cameron Crowe gave her a dramatic comedy role in Elizabethtown and she just finished shooting American Dreamz for Chris Weitz. Is she underrated? I would say she's been kind of unlucky. Great directors, but many of the films just haven't flown. Still, I have yet to see Judy in a film where she didn't shine. Even in a bad film that I recently saw at a fest, filled with good actors who were not so great with the improv tone of the film, she stood out as the only performance that really rang true. It is unlikely that the thinking man's sex symbol will become one of the world's major movie stars. But she can well become the next Frances McDormand, capable of weaving magic in any filmic surrounding.

And what about Frances McDormand? She's thrice been Oscar nominated, winning for playing Marge in Fargo, co-directed by her husband, Joel Coen. That is relevant since she married Coen in the year of the release of his and her first film, Blood Simple. She was young and pretty, but a bit of a cipher as an actress. She turned up again in a smaller role in Raising Arizona. She really came into her own in a very dramatic and Oscar nominated role in Mississippi Burning in 1988. But her career was further marked with odd landmarks for the next eight years until Fargo. Primal Fear, Lone Star and Paradise Road further cemented her place, even as Madeleine shook it. Then Wonder Boys… another Oscar nod for Almost Famous… The Man Who Wasn't There. Great work. Yet perhaps her finest work, as a loving, but destructively self-involved mother/lover/artist/businesswoman in Laurel Canyon, went unacknowledged by the Academy and pretty much every other major group but the Indie Spirits, where she lost to Charlize Theron's Monster performance. She offered a great dramatic turn in City By The Sea and stole every scene in Something's Gotta Give.

She's had a lot of nice attention, but I'll be damned if she is still not well underrated, not given status as one of the 10 top actresses in the film world today… not given opportunities as a lead in major studio movies.

I'm not sure it's time to put Ginnifer Goodwin on this list. She has made four movies and stolen the show twice (I haven't seen one of the four). In Walk The Line, she holds her own against what may be the Oscar winner this year, Joaquin Phoenix's Johnny Cash, a performance that blows Jamie Foxx's Ray Charles impersonation all to acting oblivion. She just took a role in an HBO comedy series as one of Bill Paxton's three wives - Chloe Sevigny and Jeanne Tripplehorn are the other two - and who knows how that will go? She not well enough known to be underrated…. still just unknown.

But what about Joaquin Phoenix? The guy was Oscar nominated for Gladiator and won a BFCA Critics' Choice Award for Quills and he may win the Oscar this year, but after a kid career in films like SpaceCamp and Parenthood, he emerged as a young adult in To Die For and has never quite gotten the respect he deserved since. Inventing The Abbotts, U Turn, Return To Paradise, Clay Pigeons, 8MM, The Yards, Quills, Buffalo Soldiers… cult movies all… all meant to be more than that… 8 in 4 years… and only Gladiator making it all alright. Being Mel Gibson's weird brother in Signs worked for him. But The Village didn't go anywhere and Ladder 49 did business, but not great business. Walk The Line is really his breakout movie. It is a real movie star role. But you haven't seen it yet. And so, he's still underrated.

Really, Reese Witherspoon belongs on this list, though it seems almost perverse. She is one of the top five box office actresses in the business today. That's a fact (and probably a bit of an understatement). But still, a lot of people are not believers. She's starred in 14 films since she broke out in Freeway nine years ago. She was still pretty much unknown when she stole every scene she graced in Pleasantville. She was high end in Cruel Intentions. And then she gave one of the great performances of the last quarter century in Election. It just gets better and better. Daring, crazy, smart, sexy and truly original. After the barely released Best Laid Plans a few pregnancy-forced small roles, and then Legally Blonde made her a superstar. But that bright, sunny blonde also cut into her rep as an actress, especially when repeated in Sweet Home Alabama, LB2, and Just Like Heaven. Even The Importance of Being Earnest and Vanity Fair didn't help. She was a major star, but she was terribly underrated by a lot of people. An Oscar nomination and maybe a win for Walk The Line will change all that. But for now…

So far, this list is dominated by women. A more significant change to that will have to wait for tomorrow's Part II, but I'll give you one more actor before I go today.

I am sorely tempted to name Will Smith, but calling the biggest star in the film universe right now "underrated" seems silly. The fact is that people don't appreciate just how good he is the way they appreciated Hanks a few years back. But I'll hold fire.

On the flip side, Heath Ledger seems destined to get his first Oscar nomination this year, but his career has not really demanded better rating up until now. I was a fan of Two Hands, which brought him to America and his charming movie-star-to-be performance in 10 Things I Hate About You. But it's been a bit of a career choice mess since then. He is terrific in Lords of Dogtown and again in Brokeback Mountain. But people haven't overlooked his skills very much until now, when he's finally giving us a chance to see them.

No, I'll go with Mark Ruffalo. Five years ago at Sundance, I compared his high-profile debut in You Can Count On Me with the arrival of the young Marlon Brando. He doesn't have Brando's overwhelming physicality (thin or fat), but he has the intensity, the soft demeanor, and the ability to say it all with silence in his eyes. Still, he's been a sidekick to a lot of higher profile actors in mostly mediocre projects since. Redford & Gandolfini in The Last Castle… Cage in Windtalkers… Paltrow in A View From The Top… Meg Ryan in In the Cut… Jennifer Garner in 30 Going On 30… Cruise in Collateral… Witherspoon in Just Like Heaven. The two really interesting opportunities he's had in this time were as a philandering husband and father in We Don't Live Here Anymore and as a brain washer in Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind. One did no business and one was a fourth or fifth lead. And both of this holiday season's films - Rumor Has It and All The King's Men - look like more of the same for Ruffalo. Perhaps his second Ken Lonergan film, Margaret, currently in production, will be his next great role. But until then, he is not just a fine working actor… he is greatness waiting to happen.

That's 10 for today… 10 more coming tomorrow.

E-ME.