Contrasting Performances

I nominate Henry Fonda, if only on the basis of both 12 Angry Men and Once Upon a Time in the West, where he plays vastly different characters very deftly.

__________________
Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

Good call! Fonda was a brilliantly versatile actor, and those are definitely two of his "most different" roles. Excellent choice.

Al Pacino.

From a relatable romantic-comedy lead in Author! Author!


To a volatile, power-hungry Cuban criminal in Scarface.


Only one year between these two performances (1982, 1983).

__________________

Both Pacino and Fonda are excellent choices.
Fonda almost always played sympathetic roles, but Frank in OUaTitW was the baddest of bad men.

As for Pacino, I hadn't realized Author! Author! and Scarface were released so close together.

Burt Lancaster
Elmer Gantry: The Man With a Thousand Teeth - "Love is the Morning and the Evening Star."


Sweet Smell of Success, J.J. Hunsecker: The Man With No Teeth - "Match me, Sidney."

__________________
It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

I can never envision Henry Fonda as an evil guy no matter how disturbing his pillow talk is in that kooky movie.

__________________
Louise Vale first woman to play Jane Eyre in the flickers.

I don't know why I hadn't thought of Burt Lancaster in this context. He was a great actor, and I've always thought he was underrated, especially when you see him in movies like Sweet Smell of Success, Elmer Gantry or The Birdman of Alcatraz.

Okay, we've talked about male actors some; now how about the wimmin?

One smacked me right in the face, so to speak, when I happened to catch Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day on cable the other night. Frances McDormand blew me away in that role, especially after I had seen her not so long ago in Burn After Reading (although I'm pretty sure Miss Pettigrew was filmed before Burn).

Still, for her to go from a ditzy mother and wife in Raising Arizona to a pregnant Minnesota sheriff in Fargo, to an overly protective mom in Almost Famous, to a down and out English governess in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, to a painfully insecure and oblivious gym employee in Burn After Reading, and making every role completely believable (to me, anyway) is just marvelous.


Fargo


Almost Famous


Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day


Burn After Reading

nicholson in chinatown then a year later one flew over the cuckoos nest both great performances just a year apart.

This is an excellent idea. How about...

Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove

-vs-

Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove

-vs-

Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove

All three are wonderful perfromances . All are opposed. It is really brilliant work.

__________________
"What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present." - T.S. Eliot

I was thinking of Gary Oldman but maybe the contrasts are a bit more spread out for him – I mean he's playing grotesques in Bram Stoker's Dracula and True Romance and – without prosthetics – in Léon. A big contrast to those characters would of course be George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy because he's so reined-in.

I've got a good one. Joseph Wiseman in Detective Story (1951) and Dr. No (1962).

I'm going to go with someone who I originally thought of as a one trick pony but I was wrong...let's look at Amy Adams:

There's the sweet-natured nurse in Catch Me if You Can:



Her animated Princess come to life in Enhchanted:



Mark Wahlberg's streetwise girlfriend in The Fighter:



The quiet nun in Doubt:




The sexy con artist in American Hustle:




The no-nonsense Lois Lane in Man of Steel:

For my money, Oldman is the 2nd greatest chameleon in the movies...he used to be #1, but I think he lost the title to Jared Leto, but # 2 is pretty damn good.