Who is your favorite Actor/Actress of all time & Why?

Lets see who is your fav Actor/Actress of all time

Probably Michelle Pfeiffer, partly just for this performance alone:

I really enjoy Henry Fonda. Great actor

John Cazale
Jean Gabin
Hannah Schygulla
Meryl Streep
Cate Blanchett
Burt Lancaster

I'd have to say Clint Eastwood. I like most of what he's acted in.

I'd have to say Charles Laughton, with Edward G. Robinson being a fairly close second.

In every role from Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), up through Witness for the Prosecution (1957), and into the 1960s, he never had a bad performance despite the extremely wide variety of the characters he played. He still gets my undivided attention in movies I've seen several times.

Nice choice, I haven't seen Michelle Pfeiffer in all that much but loved her in Grease 2. If you're a fan of hers, check out that movie.

Fonda has great acting instincts and knows when to play it 'small' which is very effective. I need to see more of his films.

I'm not familiar with John Cazale or Hannah Schygulla and I'm indifferent to Meryl Streep...but the others that you mentioned are favorites of mine. Burt Lancaster is the opposite of Henry Fonda and plays his roles with scene chewing gusto and it works wonders! Cate Blanchett always superb and it's always good to see Jean Gabin in something.

I like Clint too maybe even as a director more so. Last night I watched his Flags of Our Fathers and realized just how good of a director he is.

Laughton owns the screen when he's on, one of my favorites. Lots of respect for Eddie G. too. My favorite Robinson performance is Soylent Green, he plays his scenes of a man who remembers a past world that's much better than the one he finds himself in with so much painful longing. One of the most touching performances I've seen.

Oh, I didn't post any of my favorites. Gosh there's too many actors and actress that I like. So just a few.

I find Vivien Leigh captivating when ever she's on the screen.
Big fan of Susan Hayward and Gloria Grahame.

Check this out:
Citizen's Top 62, 1930s Actors & Actresses

John Cazale had such a great run during the 70’s. It such a shame cancer claimed him before he ever received proper accolades for his roles.
His supporting roles were often overshadowed by the major players in his films, but his characters were often the anchor to these films.

Sig

Citizen what were you doing in the Eighties and the Nineties? She seemed like the go to bombshell in those decades. Her beauty and her acting chops were so impressive.
I remember her first in Sweet Liberty the Alan Alda movie. I was so blown away by her. I am like this is a big star. I loved her in The Fabulous Baker Boys which is a favorite movie of mine.

I guess my favorites are Bette Davis and Cary Grant. They have been in so many films that I have seen many times and always find watchable.

Gary Oldman. He's got range and real chops. Oldman and DDL inhabit roles so completely and intensely that you sometimes forget that the actor is on screen. They are the character. Sometimes you have to remind yourself that it's Gary Oldman, because he will look, act, and speak so very differently on screen that you forget that its him. And he is in some of my favorite films, so that's a bonus too.

Tatsuya Nakadai.

Yes, there are many other legends of cinema, including Toshiro Mifune, Setsuko Hara, and the Bergman actors, but let's be honest: Even if they were impressive at first, they became monotonous once you got their method of acting. But Tatsuya not only had brilliant performances from the very start of his acting career but he also never ever got static. The chaos in his eyes in Ran or The Sword of Doom was palpable. He gazed into the distance with madness in his eyes. His major debut Black River had him play one of the greatest ******* characters in the history of film. But what he showed in The Human Condition was especially incredible.

His roles in countless films were amazing. He even made Mifune lose his luster whenever he appeared in Kurosawa's Yojimbo, Sanjuro, and High and Low. He starred in films by giants such as Kobayashi, Kurosawa, Gosha, Naruse, and Okamoto. He also starred in the Hong Kong adaptation of the anime Wicked City and kissed Michelle Reis. Well, he kissed Setsuko Hara, too, in Daughters, Wives and a Mother. I really don't know any other actor who'd kiss two amazing beauties 30 years apart.

Nakadai never gave a bad performance. He was always flawless. Every one of his performances was well thought out. He had the idea of how the character should be portrayed in every film. And he portrayed them all brilliantly. Apparently, the directors didn't have to do much.

__________________
Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.

Joaquin Phoenix, obviously.

I think he's really gifted and really versatile. He has a way of making me engage with movies like no other actor can. Of course, it doesn't hurt that he's usually pretty easy on the eyes.

__________________

Dating, relationships and looking for hot chicks... I didn't watch a lot of movies during that time.

Two of my all time favorites. One of these days I'm going to watch all of their filmography. Do you have a favorite movie or two from Bette Davis and Cary Grant?

I agree with you about EGR in Soylent Green, his final film role.

One of his memorable scenes that wowed me is his "methods of suicide" monologue in Double Indemnity. A tour de force:

The Letter and The Little Foxes are two of Bette Davis' best.
Holiday is one you don't see around much. It is funny and Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn jump around like kids which they are it was made in the late thirties. Suspicion is a wonderful thriller with Joan Fontaine. It is a Hitchcock film. Hitchcock seemed to love using Cary Grant

Tilda Swinton. Great actress with a very impressive diction. Acted in quite bizarre movies too, as well as some typical ones. Distinctly vocal on various subjects while talking to the journalists, also.

__________________
Back to the 80s!

Harry Dean Stanton
Doesn't give a crap, acting is a job, doesn't want to impress

Dustin Hoffman
Pure class good acting, every role he's good

Philip Seymour Hoffman
Captivating, interesting without ever trying to

Dale Dickey
Authentic, a controlled mess, no one does what she does

Brit Marling
Pure femininity, like a soft breeze, a rose, very smart

Jena Malone
Art and integrity, delivers emotion very well

Well, I'll have to go with someone less classic. Tom Hanks. Maybe just because I get the sense he's not only a good actor but a good person. And scenes in a few of his admittedly lesser movies have been the source of a couple of anecdotes I've related when making a point in a business meeting. In Nothing in Common, there's that moment when he's giving a presentation and one of the listeners pressing him on adding a point he feels is a bad idea. The character's response, that he'd walk away ... wouldn't have anything to do with a bad idea ... is something I fall back on (Hanks/Hollywood as a bigger authority than me). Then in That Thing You Do, that moment when the band has fallen apart and he informs the final member in the room, the drummer, that they are now officially in breach of contract. To reassure him, he says something like: "Don't worry. No one's going to jail." In meetings where I've had to talk to a team member after they've goofed up, I've rearranged that into the icebreaker: "Don't worry. No one's losing their job today." I just really enjoy the way he seems so confident on the screen, and pattern his approach often.

__________________
Scarecrow: I haven't got a brain ... only straw. Dorothy: How can you talk if you haven't got a brain? Scarecrow: I don't know. But some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't they? Dorothy: Yes, I guess you're right.