Ever since seeing this bit in The Trip, (link below), I’ve become somewhat obsessed with spotting actors who do ‘a thing’. That is, a tic, an expression, a look, a trait, or a bit of business that he actor *always* does, whatever the part.
In The Trip they talk about Richard Gere’s habit of interrupting a line of dialogue with a stare off into the middle distance, and that’s a great spot. Off the top of my head there’s James Caan’s eyebrows in sad apology, Tom Cruise’s smile, Gene Hackman’s raspy, rat-a-tat conviction, the chewy thing De Niro does with his mouth, the fact that Peter Cushing is always doing something with his hands. I’m even tinkering with the idea that an actor *needs* ‘a thing’ in order to stand out; that without ‘a thing’ they can’t become a star, because it’s what implants them in the minds of agents, directors and the public. Having said that there are certain actors for whom I can’t identify ‘a thing’. Di Caprio, for instance, though maybe he does have one, and it’s just a bit more subliminal.
So over to you. I’d really like your thoughts on actors who do ‘a thing’ and what their ‘thing’ is. Maybe we could have an ongoing compendium of things?
http://www.videobash.com/video_show/steve-coogan-amp-rob-brydon-in-the-trip-richard-gere-1217212
Jack Klugman. Bangs tables and shouts. Guffaws in Italian eateries.
There is not a film starring Tom Cruise that does not include him running at top speed with his hands pumping like motor pistons.
Gratifyingly someone else has noticed this and compiled then for me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCZE4So6ioQ
And that’s a great point, because in The Outsiders, Cruise plays a character — and very good he is, too; he’s almost unrecognisable — but since Risky Business (grinning, running) he’s just been Cruise.
There’s a specific moment in Risky Business where he actually becomes Cruise. You can see it happen. His college plans have just fallen through, the crap is hitting the fan, his hooker girlfriend asks him how his entrance interview went and he dons his wayfarers and drops that shit eating grin like a celluloid A-bomb.
(Best photo I could find at short notice, ignore grandpa).
Cruise also does a thing where he narrows his eyes and sniffs, like he thinks maybe someone’s farted, but he’s not sure
He actually has about half a dozen things like this. Another is the moment he SUDDENLY GETS VERY ANGRY AND SHOUTY AND THEN FREEZES, READY FOR A FIGHT.
I watched Days of Thunder on Friday night (Fck da h8rs, it’s an awesome movie with a brilliant ensemble) and there a great example where he goes to convince his racing buddy to go back to hospital for a brain scan, and for no apparent reason suddenly whacks a pool table with a baseball bat and then points it at his mates like some kind of weird sword.
Love the Cruiser.
The things he does make it more satisfying when he does something un-Cruiserlike. e.g the little squeal he does in Edge Of Tomorrow.
Honestly, I could talk about Tom Cruise all day.
I’m up for it if you are.
I was seriously planning to write something about Days of Thunder today. So good. Randy Quaid. Robert Duvall. John C Reilly. Cruiser? Sign me up.
George Clooney: a look from beneath his knitted eyebrows.
But Brad Pitt?
Jeff Goldblum’s slow blink and raised index finger
Christopher Walken’s. Idio SYNCRATIC, talking style
Everything Al Pacino does is a thing
To me Al Pacino looks as if he’s just that second snorted a line of something that woke him the fuck up.
George Clooney: a look from beneath his eyebrows.
But Brad Pitt?
Brad Pitt. Enter scene, lean on something louchely, deliver line. In every single film. Once you notice it, you can’t un-notice it.
Also likes to be holding something like a sandwich or an apple, for the line rhythm and as a trick for getting his hands into the picture..
Julia Roberts – huge smile with a hint of tears in the eyes, to suggest a vulnerability which obligates the viewer to go protect her.
Meg Ryan – puzzled lip chewing. This has become a progressively tougher task over time as the collagen has mounted.
Are you suggesting that Tom is just cruising these days?!
You’re right. After seeing The Trip, it’s difficult to see actors at work in quite the same way. I wonder what their fellow thespians think of it all.
I was very amused by their theory that many great screen actors mumble a lot and are often almost unintelligible. Brando being the classic example.
Bruce Willis always does that very-slightly-raised-eyes, closed-mouth-pout thing
That’s a good one. On a related note, Alan Rickman was contractually obliged to always curl a lip.
I think one of the reasons Bruce Willis really excelled as an action hero was that he had the class to look perturbed at the carnage going on around him, which was something that the beefcakes just didn’t do. If you look at the classic image of Die Hard, he looks shit scared.
Christian Slater squints.
Travolta likes to raise his eyebrows and open his mouth, wordlessly.
Steve Martin has a withering look which recurs across most of his movies.
Travolta, too, has ‘the chuckle’, most evident during Summer Nights, but recurring ever since.
Michael Caine once said in an interview that he rarely blinks on screen. It’s true.
Owen Wilson says “wow”. A lot.
Shia LaBeouf says “no”.
Michael Madsen is another squinter. He’s a squinter and a drawler and a pause-to-squinter. In Kill Bill 2 his delivery of the line, “That woman deserves her revenge and we deserve to die,” complete with pauses and squints is absolute perfection.
Laurence Fishburne drives me mad with his. Very. Slow. TALKING. And. Strange. INFLECTIONS.
Adam Sandler does the half old man/half little baby voice that America loves so much. I kind of have a weird respect for Sandler.
It’s early days yet, but I have a strong suspicion that Adam Driver is running at least four different tics at once. The weird cadence he has cannot possibly be anything other than artificial, for openers.
Well, for us oldies there is Roger Moore and his eyebrows.
However this thread brings to mind the classic Dennis Pennis/Demmy Moore when he asks her whether there would be any circumstances in which she would not take her clothes off. Cruel, but funny.
And here it is. Dennis was one of Paul Kaye’s better efforts.
Sean Bean does that getting violently killed thing….
I saw Birdman at the weekend. That Michael Keaton is such a mass of tics he should really be de-loused.
I really like Keaton, but his problem is that so many of his tics are somebody elses. He’s like a greatest hits of tic.
He’s The Great Tic-tator.
Sorry.
Jack Nicholson’s career has consisted of a shit-eating grin, with bits of script delivery between.
And how could we all forget the classic Clint Eastwood “pull one corner of the lower lip down away from the upper” Not an easy trick when you’re on horseback and chewing on a cigar.
John Cusack, part annoyance, part constipation. And he always acts like he’s breaking the fourth wall. All the time. And that snippy delivery like he’s annoyed that his dog died when he was 8 and it’s the worlds fault. He should have been Batman at some point in his career.
Jenny Agutter.
Takes clothes off.
In her latest role, she’s broken the habit.
I’m a Midwives fan, so I get that joke!
See also Tara Fitzgerald, who even manages to get them off in a film about brass bands.
The ultimate goal of any actor is not to be seen to be ‘acting’. On that basis, can I nominate Mick Jagger as one of the greatest of all time?
He’s merely an amateur. For long service to the cause of non-acting, the only candidate surely has to be Keanu Reeves. His entire career consists of an impersonation of a length of 4 by 2.
A length of 4 by 2 that looks cute saying “woah!”
I first noticed it on Buffy The Vampire Slayer (Alyson Hannigan in particular), but a lot of young American actors do this stutter of hesitation “I.. I don’t think that’s a good idea”. It fitted the character of Willow as, in the beginning she was a timid person reluctant to speak her mind, but a lot of actors use it as a way to convince you they are thinking about what they are going to say rather than reading this scripted line for the nth time..
This is not a popular opinion….BUT, I find Julie Walters has a particular tone that she uses regardless of what role she is playing. As such I just see her as playing the same role over & over with little variation.
I understand I may be slagging off one of the nations treasures here. I’m not sure why, but for some reason this bugs me about her no end!
Along the same lines, Judi Dench. Whether she’s Queen Victoria or in that sitcom with Geoffrey Palmer that went on forever, she has the same slightly nasal voice and clipped way of speaking. I don’t understand why she is so highly regarded. On the other hand, Geoffrey Palmer has cornered the market in jowly grumpiness since he was in Reggie Perrin, and I don’t mind at all. Maybe because he isn’t seen as a national treasure.
I have to say that Judi Dench was phenomenal in, er, ‘Philomena’. Conveyed a lifetime of anguish with a flicker of her eyes.
David Caruso
He always wears sunglasses and when he is challenged in any way he takes them off with a flourish and holds them at his chest and sticks out his jaw. You just know that he’s going to get whoever it is he’s out to get.
I find the bloke unwatchable ever since I noticed that, “He’s doing it again!”
Bob Hoskins – slightly angered sigh, with a sneer. And/or burys his head into his shoulders.
Latterly, Phil Davis seems to have become typecast as a Psycho-Loony-Bloke. That is his “thing” – being an unhinged nutter.
Whatever the story, if he’s in the cast then he did it.
Johnny Gielgud’s noise. “Eeeeurrgh”.
And no matter whether he’s playing Tony Blair, Kenneth Williams or Attila the Hun, Michael Sheen always does that thing with his teeth.
I was going for the Bruce Willis look to camera but I’ll go for the Roger Moore eyebrow raise
That Joe Pesci grin, that is usually followed up with extreme violence.
Jack Lemmon doing that laugh when he’s half way thru delivering a line.
Jack Douglas: grunts, spasmodic twitch of the shoulders, frequently spills his pint.
Hnyaa!