October 7, 2005

THE UNDERRRATED, PT 2

The first part of this piece got a lot of mail from all kinds of directions. Of course, most people weren't particularly comfortable with the standards I used. In most cases, I just have to live with that. But I will try to get together, based on one person's complaints in particular, a list that focuses on virtual unknowns that you should know. It is a different thing than I am doing here.

For instance, I think that Amy Sedaris and Amy Adams both belong on an underrated list of some kind, but neither actress has really had the chance yet to be underrated, just underemployed. Alternately, Robin Tunney, who I profiled at Toronto, has kind of taken herself out of the game in recent years and has not had the right opportunities to be underrated lately.

In putting together Part 2, I came up with nine extra actors' names that I think are close to making it, but miss for various reasons. Is it really appropriate to say that Michael Keaton and Bruce Willis are underrated as actors, in spite of their commercial success? Are indie heroes Paul Giamatti and Peter Sarsgaard underrated because you could mention their names to most Americans and get blank looks, no matter how much acclaim each has earned? Javier Bardem may be the finest actor in the world today, but he hasn't made American films that can be argued to be overlooked. Comedy mavens Ryan Reynolds and Steve Zahn are given many opportunities, though neither gets enough credit for being as good as they really are. And then there is Terrence Howard, who is being Oscar-buzzed and is ready to step up… but he may well step up this year.

But enough about who didn't make it. Here we go with those who did (in alphabetical order)…

THE MEN

From Part 1 -
Alessandro Nivola
Gary Oldman
Joaquin Phoenix
Mark Ruffalo.

Clifton Collins, Jr. - Perhaps one reason for Cliff's slow roll was that he was billed as Clifton González González until seven years ago. It was soon after he changed his name to Clifton Collins, Jr. that he was in Traffic and managed to steal scenes from stars and Oscar winners alike as the villainous Francisco Flores. Seven films later, he's turning heads again in Capote as the sensitive, deadly Perry Smith. Young and ethnic is hard to overcome in this business, but Collins should have the chance to bring his remarkable combination of rage and vulnerability to the screen in bigger roles.

Chiwetel Ejiofor - He burst into the American indie consciousness with Stephen Fears' Dirty Pretty Things and hasn't stopped working since. But in part because this actor has chosen to be a relentless chameleon, he still hasn't gotten many people to pronounce, much less remember his name. But his work is unmistakable. He's been Keira Knightly's husband in a romantic comedy, a sexual dog in a Spike Lee joint, an acid-blooded killer in Four Brothers, and most recently a space-hopping government bounty hunter in Serenity. Next, we'll see him in drag in Kinky Boots. And every time out, he is great.

William Fichtner - Bill Fichtner, by remarkable coincidence, used to tend bar with another member of this group of underrated actors. Fichtner turned up on TV, on Grace Under Fire, before creeping us out in Steven Soderbergh's The Underneath, which was the start of a creep run in Reckless, Strange Days, and Michael Mann's Heat. His kinder, gentler performance in Contact as a blind genius got a lot of attention. He was a bad cop/religious fanatic in a creepy comedic turn in Go. (Go was loaded with still underrated actors, including Tim Olyphant, who is capable of untold greatness.) And then, he got into a big movie as a moody jerk in The Perfect Storm. Since then, he has dined on a lot of roles, but as often as not, his intensity gets his typed in characters like the evil Captain Knaur in The Longest Yard… good for the bank account, not so great for a great actor. And by the way, Fichtner shared space behind the bar here in L.A. with Mark Ruffalo while they both struggled as actors.

Jared Leto - It's hard to live down being Jordan Catalano. The ultimate crush on the ultimate teen girl series, My So Called Life, Leto started in a rating hole ten feet under sea level. But he has been busy with a shovel ever since. Steve James' Prefontaine and a small role in Terry Malick's The Thin Red Line were the first two big shovels full. He went blonde and got his face destroyed in Fight Club. He hit exposed soul in Requiem For A Dream. He got to work with Fincher in Panic Room and Oliver Stone in Alexander. He is currently on screen in a very underwritten role in Lord of War. And while it is still impossible to deny that he is still an ultimate crush for girls and at least 10% of boys, he has proven himself as a really serious actor who digs deeper than any other pretty boy in the game. Next up, he's a serial killer being chased by John Travolta in a true-life drama about The Lonely Hearts Killers for the director of one of the great underrated docs, Amargosa, Todd Robinson.

Eddie Murphy - Yeah, he's a $20 million guy. But he gets no respect… no respect, I tell you. And I would argue that he is one of the finest comic actors ever. Period. Exclamation point. He's been a part of some of the worst studio movies ever, including Best Defense, Harlem Nights, Beverly Hills Cop III, Showtime, I Spy, The Adventures of Pluto Nash and perhaps the worst, Holy Man. But there has not been a more electrifying comic debut on screen than 48 Hrs./Trading Places/Beverly Hills Cop since the studio system turned over in the late 60s. Who else could have done The Nutty Professor and given Sherman Klump such a kind, believable heart? Could anyone else have turned the trick in Bowfinger of twins Kit and Jiff Ramsey? Steve Martin was great in All of Me and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, but he only had to do one of the roles. And would Shrek have been Shrek without Donkey? Like many stars, Murphy has become more distant as he's been in the business longer, but he is still a cut above every other comic actor working in the business, in no small part because he really does do the work of an actor… and he's funny as hell as well.

Bill Nighy - You can find Nighy on film as early as 1979 in the Joan Collins vehicle, The Bitch, playing a delivery boy. But he didn't really pop in America cinemas until 1998's Still Crazy, playing an aging rock star in the very underrated film. But though the cult was started here, he still didn't really get rolling here until 2003 with a double dip of Underworld and Love Actually. Shaun of the Dead, Enduring Love, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, The Girl In The Café, and The Constant Gardener have all followed in the last two years, even as Nighy continued his very successful British stage career. He'll be protecting his locker as Davey Jones in The Pirates of the Caribbean sequel next year. But this is an actor who lights it up every time he is on screen. He is simply one of a kind and has an irrepressible charm and goofy grace. Someone needs to give him the chance to move on from being the Magic-era Tony Hopkins to the Hannibal-era Tony Hopkins because he is endlessly watchable and a hell of a good guy to boot.

THE WOMEN

From Part 1 -
Viola Davis
Judy Greer
Frances McDormand
Emily Mortimer
Samantha Morton
Reese Witherspoon

Joan Cusack - Joan Cusack has made a lot of movies. Her first impact was a Geek Girl #1 in Sixteen Candles. But it was in Broadcast News that she emerged as the ultimate movie sidekick, gifted at physical comedy, attractive enough to draw romantic attention but unusual looking enough to do a pratfall. Just a year later, she got her first Oscar nod for Working Girl. She would go on to be the significant other to Rick Moranis, Dustin Hoffman and Uncle Fester before she hooked up with a sexually confused Kevin Kline and got another Oscar nod for In-n-Out. But since hitting 35, her career has gotten tougher, even as it should have gotten easier. She's done a Toy Story, a Looney Tunes and a Muppets. She played second fiddle to Kate Hudson, Jack Black, and Julia Roberts. And she started playing mothers of teens in Ice Princess. Where are the great roles for this gem of a comedic actress? Two Oscar nods or not… underrated.

Radha Mitchell - She was young, blonde and beautiful when she turned up in the Sundance hit High Art seven years ago. But between choosing art house flicks and making missed like Pitch Black, she spent her late 20s floundering careerwise while getting her skills honed. She first reemerged as a grown-up woman in Tony Scott's Man on Fire. And while she didn't get a lot to play, what she had she made the most of. She lost J.M. Barrie to Kate Winslet's kids in Finding Neverland for Marc Forster and was both title names in Woody Allen's Melinda & Melinda. She's mixed things up in the last year, making a long gestating Ron Bass project Mozart & The Whale (which still has no domestic distribution) and the lead in horror/thriller Silent Hill for Sony's nascent Tri-Star division. She's just 32, still blonde, still beautiful and she can deliver the performances. She just needs the right opportunity.

Thandie Newton - She was the star and Nicole Kidman was the mean girl in 1991's Flirting. She spent the next six years making a mixed bag of films, caught up in a romantic relationship with the much older director of Flirting, John Duigan. As she finally gained her independent legs, she made a bad Bertolucci (Besieged) and a weak Demme (Beloved) before getting worldwide attention for being The Girl in Mission: Impossible II. She made another weak sister Demme film (The Truth About Charlie) that seemed unwilling to acknowledge her natural sensuality. But as a sexy Los Angeles woman force to face her own issues with race in Crash, she is one of Lions Gate's big hopes in this year's Academy Awards race. Now married, in her 30s, with a child of her own, the mature Thandie Newton is ready to become the star that she seemed sure to be all the way back when she was sharing a screen with Ms. Kidman.

Tilda Swinton - She made 13 films in the 6 years as a film actress before she broke through in America as Orlando. That "debut" was prophetic, as it marked Swinton as one of the most fearless, daring actresses of a generation. She played androgyny there, as she would 13 years later as the Archangel Gabriel in Constantine, in a dark, funny performance that is one of the few truly memorable things about that film. She played a nine-month pregnant woman whose husband was molesting her daughter in The War Zone and allowed herself to be photographed in a naked state that was more profound than just flesh… perhaps the only time it's been done in a high-profile film. She was a suburban Bay Area mom with a big problem in the very underrated McGehee/Siegel film, The Deep End. She gave us an uptight studio exec in Adaptation the same year she was an unwashed, vulnerable, as-unattractive-as-possible barge wife who seduces Ewan McGregor in Young Adam. And she plays a tough brunette nearly unrecognizably in Broken Flowers opposite Bill Murray. But her turn as Jadis The White Witch in The Narnia Chronicles is the hope for her to make it to Cate Blanchett status this winter. It's a different road, but when the dust settles, Swinton deserves legendary status and she just isn't there yet. It's time.

So that's it… for this year.

Let me know what you think. And I'll work on that list of virtual unknowns who I think might emerge. Meanwhile, go check out some of the earlier performances from some of these underrated actors. You won't be disappointed.

E-ME.