Johnny Depp is talented and can always be counted on for an interesting performance, but how many times has he played an average real-life modern-day human being as opposed to Sissorhands, Ichabod Crane, Cry Baby, that off-the wall law officer in Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Sweeny Todd, or Jack Sparrow? Depp plays weird really well, but can he play real people? The one film I can recall him playing a sorta-average person was the one when he was a book dealer in The Ninth Gate, and he played that character as dull.
Daniel Day-Lewis certainly does take on his role, as does Depp. But Lewis gets into the authentic feel of a character like Hawkeye or a turn of the century oil man whereas Depp is more apt to play his character as a 9-year-old girl or as an aging rock star. Lewis is more in the mold of Paul Muni who really could disappear into a role, much to the studio’s dismay because they wanted movie stars, not actors.
Viggo Mortensen, as someone else suggested, has been good in different (yet mostly action) roles, but I haven’t seen him in that many movies, so he’s hard to judge at this point.
Russell Crowe really nailed the essence of the darkhorse boxing champion in Cinderella Man and he was good in Mystery, Alaska, but in Gladiator and Master and Commander, I was very aware that I was watching Russell Crowe, not an unique character.
Tortuga said: “Morgan Freeman - his performances know no age, or color. An absolute classic and a class act.” I agree that Freeman goes beyond color in that he plays characters who could be black, white, or Asian. The only other black actor I know of who can make the character’s color disappear is Bill Cosby, who has done primarily TV. The one thing (I won’t call it a fault) about Freeman however is that nearly all the characters he plays are just so laid back and unruffled most of the time, although they can express anger at times. Still the primary image is this likeable, easy going guy (even when he’s playing a thief or killer), so I wonder if every character is like that or is Freeman just playing Freeman time after time?
I like John Cusak, primarily for his role in Pointe Blank, a very funny film. But I haven’t noticed much variety in the few of his films I’ve seen. Probably need to see more before judging him.
Kevin Spacey is one of the best actors working today who has convincingly played aliens, cops, beleaguered head of households, and the most realistic cripple since Lon Chaney.
Now one guy I always enjoy watching is Kevin Kline because he brings different nuances to each role. Consider the western gunman in Silverado, the goofy ex-CIA agent in A Fish Called Wanda, the presidential stand-in in Dave, the closet-homosexual teacher of In & Out, Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (there aren’t that many Hollywood Stars capable of doing Shakespeare well), and the openly gay Cole Porter in De-Lovely.
It seems to me that Tom Selleck is not appreciated for the way he can stretch his acting ability. Best known for his TV comedy-drama Magnum, P.I., Selleck has also played tough cowboys (including a really good remake of Monte Walsh in a role created by Lee Marvin), the homosexual newsman in In & Out, different comedic roles in Three Men and a Baby and Mr. Baseball.
Two other extremely versatile actors: Richard Dreyfuss and Dustin Hoffman. Hoffman can do more to make a role come to life than any actor living today—check out the spread of different characters he portrayed so well in Midnight Cowboy, The Graduate, Rain-Man and Tootsie. Not an overlapping characteristic among the bunch.
However, the most versatile actor ever in the sense of mastering uniquely different roles has to be Lon Chaney, man of a thousand faces. And I’m not just talking makeup. Take a look at Chaney’s portrayal of Sgt. O'Hara in Tell It to the Marines (1927). That performance was so good that the Marine Corps named him an Honorary Marine, an honor rarely bestowed by the corps (John Wayne's Sgt. Ryker never earned it). The Marine publication Leatherneck Magazine reported at the time, “ . . . few of us who observed Chaney's portrayal of his role were not carried away to the memory of some sergeant we had known whose behavior matched that of the actor in every minute detail ..."
Not even the great Paul Muni was that good, but still was at least second-place: Check him out in Juarez where he looks exactly like photos of the Mexican leader, the original Scarface (which I still think is head and shoulders better than the remake), Angel on my Shoulder and I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
One of the movie greats that we think we always know on screen but who I still maintain did some great stretches is James Cagney. Look at his breakthrough tough-guy role when he hits an actress in the face with a grapefruit in Public Enemy (which The New York Herald Tribune described at the time as "the most ruthless, unsentimental appraisal of the meanness of a petty killer the cinema has yet devised"), and yet he capped another tough-guy role with a gut-wrenching cowardly death scene in Angels with Dirty Faces. He wins an Oscar as song-and-dance man George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy (not his only singing-dancing role), plays a very laid-back, philosophical Joe in William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life, does the tyrannical petty martinet Captain Morton in Mr. Roberts, and caps his career with a frantic comedy with long stretches of snappy dialogue in One, Two, Three prior to his retirement. Although he often seemed to be typecast in gangster roles, that didn’t keep him from creating one of the most memorable villains in film, Cody Jarrett in White Heat and changed what could have been a B-movie into a cult hit. I’ve heard that many of the key elements to that character (the headaches, the scene of Cody sitting on his mother’s lap, the scene where he kicks the chair on which Virginia Mayo was standing, causing her to fall on the sofa, and the scene where Jarrett goes berserk in the prison message after hearing of his mother’s death) were either suggested or improvised by Cagney.
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