Favorite Actors/Actresses in Supporting Roles

I sometimes enjoy an actor in a supporting role as much as the lead, even to the point where I think they steal the scene from the lead actor.

Who are some of your favorite actors or actresses in a supporting role who you feel have really shined?

Actors
George Sanders – All About Eve
Jack Buchanan – Bandwagon
Danny Kaye – White Christmas
Erik Rhodes – Top Hat
Eric Blore – Top Hat
Jules Munshin – On the Town and Take Me Out to The Ball Game
Basil Rathbone – The Adventures of Robin Hood
Cuba Gooding Jr. – Jerry Maguire
Rob Brown – Finding Forrester
Mandy Patinkin – The Princess Bride
Eddie Murphy – Skrek and Bowfinger
Kevin Kline – A Fish Called Wanda
Harvey Korman – High Anxiety
Johnny Depp – Chocolat
Greg Wise – Sense and Sensibility *gulp*
Jude Law – The Talented Mr. Ripley

Actresses
Jean Hagen – Singin' in the Rain
Marjorie Main – Meet Me in St. Louis
Rosalind Russell – The Women
Mary Boland – Pride and Prejudice and The Women
Ginger Rogers – Stage Door
Kay Kendall – Les Girls
Margaret Hamilton – The Wizard of Oz
Ann Miller–Easter Parade
Vera-Ellen – White Christmas
Ethal Merman – It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World
Carol Kane – Scrooged
Leslie Ann Warren – Victor/Victoria
Kathy Bates – The Waterboy
Elaine Hendrix – The Parent Trap
Judi Dench – The Shipping News
Jennifer Connelly - A Beautiful Mind
Catherine Zeta–Jones – Chicago

There are more I’d like to list, but my time is limited at the moment.

PERSONAL FAVOURITES

MALE

01. Claude Rains in Casablanca
02. Arthur Kennedy in Lawrence Of Arabia
03. John Huston in Chinatown
04. Jude Law in The Talented Mr. Ripley
05. Joe Pesci in GoodFellas
06. John C. Reilly in Magnolia
07. Robert De Niro in The Godfather Part II
08. Sterling Hayden in Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb
09. Eric Stoltz in Pulp Fiction
10. John Malkovich in Being John Malkovich

And not to mention Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List; Benicio Del Toro in Traffic and Anthony Quinn in Lawrence Of Arabia seems almost evil to me...


FEMALE

01. Gwenyth Paltrow in The Talented Mr. Ripley
02. Melora Walters in Magnolia
03. Emily Watson in Gosford Park
04. Nicole Kidman in Eyes Wide Shut
05. Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction
06. Frances McDormand in Almost Famous
07. Helena Bonham Carter in Fight Club
08. Cathy Moriarty in Raging Bull
09. Catherine Zeta-Jones in Traffic
10. Sally Kellerman in M*A*S*H

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www.esotericrabbit.com

Not even going to try and rank 'em, just gonna free form it...

John Huston in Chinatown
Orson Welles in The Third Man
Bill Murray in Rushmore and Tootsie
Albert Brooks in Broadcast News
David Morse in Dancer in the Dark
Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast
Peter Falk in Wings of Desire
Mark Ruffalo in You Can Count On Me
Claude Rains in Casablanca and Notorious
John Cazale in The Godfather Part II
Jack Black in High Fidelity and Orange County
John Turturro in Miller's Crossing, The Big Lebowski and To Live & Die in L.A.
Jason Robards in All the President's Men, Once Upon A Time in the West and Parenthood
Brian Keith in The Wind & the Lion
Benicio Del Toro in Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas
Martin Landau in Ed Wood and Tucker: The Man & His Dream
Kevin Spacey in SE7EN and Glengarry Glen Ross
Max Von Sydow in Three Days of the Condor
Martin Blasam in A Thousand Clowns
Wilford Brimley in Absence of Malice
Donald O'Connor in Singin' in the Rain
Robert Downey Jr. in Wonder Boys and Short Cuts
George Kennedy in Cool Hand Luke and Thunderbolt & Lightfoot
Sessue Hayakwa in The Bridge on the River Kwai
James Coburn in The Americanization of Emily
James Mason in North by Northwest
John Mahoney in Say Anything...
Christopher Walken in Biloxi Blues
Gary Oldman in Leon: The Professional
Jean Reno in la femme Nikita
Robert Shaw in Jaws and The Sting
Paul Dooley in Breaking Away
John Hurt in Heaven's Gate
Mandy Patnikin in The Princess Bride
Ralph Finnes in Schindler's List
Sean Penn in Carlito's Way and Fast Times at Ridegmont High
George C. Scott in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Bruce Dern in Coming Home and After Dark, My Sweet
Rip Torn in Cross Creek and Defending Your Life
John Lithgow in The World According to Garp, Terms of Endearment and Blow Out
John Vernon in Animal House


Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver
Nicole Kidman in Eyes Wide Shut
Lili Tomlin in Nashville
Nastassja Kinski in Paris, Texas
Karen Black in Five Easy Pieces
Ann-Margret in Carnal Knowledge
Madeline Kahn in What's Up, Doc?, Paper Moon and Blazing Saddles
Cloris Leachman in The Last Picture Show and Young Frankenstein
Ellen Burstyn in The Last Picture Show and The King of Marvin Gardens
Sandy Dennis in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Mary Tyler Moore in Ordinary People
Shelley Winters in A Place in the Sun and Lolita
Frances McDormand in Mississippi Burning, Almost Famous and Wonder Boys
Ruth Gordon in Rosemary's Baby and Every Which Way But Loose
Meryl Streep in Kramer vs. Kramer, The Deer Hunter and Adaptation
Elizabeth McGovern in Ragtime and Once Upon A Time in America
Candice Bergen in Starting Over
Glenn Close in The World According to Garp and Cookie's Fortune
Sigourney Weaver in Working Girl and The Ice Storm



And on and on and on....

__________________
"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

Ditto on Cazale/Godfather Pt. II. Nice call.

Thanks for your lists Silver and Holden. I'm going to try and revive this thread...here's a few more favorites.



Actors
Viggo Mortensen~ Lord of the Ring Series, A Perfect Murder, A Walk on the Moon
Martin Landau~ Ed Wood
John C. Reilly~ Chicago
Giuseppe Battiston~ Bread and Tulips
Alan Rickman~ Sense and Sensibilty, Harry Potter Series, Galaxy Quest
Jeremy Northam~ Emma, Gosford Park, The Net
Stanley Tucci~ The Impostors
Tony Shalhoub~ Big Night, The Impostors, Spy Kids Series
Alfred Molina~ Chocolat, The Impostors
Billy Zane~ Titanic
Benno Fόrmann~ The Princess and the Warrior
Monty Woolley~ The Man who Came to Dinner
Peter Lorre~ The Maltese Falcon
Claude Rains~ Casablanca, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Mr. Skeffington
Ronald Colman~ Talk of the Town, Random Harvest
Alan Hale~ It Happened One Night, The Adventures of Robin Hood

Actresses
Juliette Binoche~ The English Patient
Kate Winslet~ Sense and Sensibility
Renee Zellweger~ Jerry Maguire
Toni Collette~ About a Boy, Emma
Olympia Dukakis~ Moonstruck
Michelle Pfeiffer~ Dangerous Liaisons
Cloris Leachman~ Young Frankenstein, High Anxiety
Margaret Dumont~ A Day at the Races, A Night at the Opera
Maureen O'Sullivan~ Pride and Prejudice
Jean Simmons~ Spartacus, The Big Country
Angela Lansbury~ The Harvey Girls, Gaslight
Virginia O'Brien~ The Harvey Girls
Glynis Johns~ Mary Poppins
Hermione Gingold~ Gigi
Eleanor Parker~ The Sound of Music

I think Robert De Niro in Brazil is hilarious.

__________________
The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.