Stuart's top 50 actors - 50 to 31

Yes, so as promised here’s some of my favourite actors. I put them in a
sort of an order; couldn’t really help myself. I am an indie man
after all. Though my kitchen is in disarray, my pole of thespians is
ordered and neat…

..though it must be said that this is a random, impulsive and very subjective
business! I actually started off by writing down a list of a hundred,
then I realised that was going to take me too long to shuffle around.
Also, when you get to about 80, you start thinking, ‘I like this
guy, but a big favourite? Really?’

I’m talking about the people that you like to be in the company of. The
ones you enjoy spending time with when you’re hiding from your
partner, you’re fed up with workmates, your pals have gone off for
the weekend. These are my private heroes of celluloid.

Not the ‘greatest’ actors perhaps, some of them.  Not that accolade,
I claim for them. Some would fall apart on a theatre stage. Some
mumble, some just look good.

I must say also that there is the obvious relationship between the fave
films and actors. Would a person be in one’s list if they didn’t
just happen to fall in with the cool director, during the hippest of
movements, when the actor was just the right age? Probably not. But
let’s put the selection of films down to actor themselves, and give
them the credit for knowing..

50 – Paul Giametti

love everything he does. Course, we worked with him on ‘Storytelling’
in 2001, so we’re like, ol’ buds.

49 – Kate Winslet

Winslet’s been turning in great performances since heavenly creatures in ’94.
Loved her in Eternal Sunshine and The Reader. One of my fave leading
ladies.

48 – Jim Broadbent

British perennial, quietly involved in great work since the late 70s. Films
as genius and varied as Life Is Sweet, Bullets Over Broadway and
Topsy Turvy…

47 – Elliot Gould

http://youtu.be/jaJ6REx-RWc

Some stay Stevie has an aspect of the Gould. I couldn’t say who was
cooler. I’d recommend him in M*A*S*H or another Altman film, The
Long Goodbye.

46 – Natalie Portman

Would you deny me a modern day heroine?

45 – Matthew Broderick

http://youtu.be/RLJ3zcdPtl8

I think we all know that I’m nominating Broderick for two particular
roles in the ‘80s, but who particularly cares?

44 Spike Lee

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koRKdhiF1Tw&feature=fvwrel

Spike Lee directed films, and he’s in them too. I rate him and
his movies highly. My two faves are truly seminal Do The
Right Thing and She’s Gotta Have It

43 – Marlon Brando

Brando nearly never made it on my list, but it would be churlish to leave
him out.

42 – Ewan Mcgregor

Ach, you’ve got to love a bit of the McGregor. He’s good in nearly
everything, even if everything he’s in isn’t always that good..
Shallow Grave’s a good one though.

41 – Audrey Hepburn

My own opinion of the Hepburn is divided, but I watched Roman
Holiday again the other day and she is really very good and very pretty. And
that’s enough to get you on this list!

40 – Tom Courtenay

To me Courtney’s like the English ‘Antoin Doinel’, the character
played by Jean-Pierre Léaud in the Truffaut films. Only different.
Cos he was ‘Billy Liar’ too.

39 – Jean Seberg

I have watched a number of films with Seberg in, you know. She’s in
Airport! I nearly fell off the chair when she popped up in that. She was an ok
Joan of Arc, she’s tres jolie in Bonjour Tristesse, she’s good in Lilith with
Warren Beatty, but she’s a legend for just one movie.

38 – Gregory Peck

I think I may have mentioned that I decided to watch two of the
‘greatest’ movies made recently, both of which I avoided because
I didn’t think I’d like them. It turns out that one was amazing,
tender, with a flawless central performance, and the other was a bit
of a drag to get through.

Let me just say the former was ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ with the
flawless Mr Peck.

37 – Terry Thomas

He was never a leading man really, but Terry Thomas makes me smile
anytime he appears on the screen. Appeared in his best films in the
50’s, Private’s Progress, The Green Man, I’m Alright Jack, though
School For Scoundrels is from 1960.

36 – James Dean

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3EJuGAke5E

Rebel Without A Cause is a great favourite of mine and Stevie’s, in fact we were going to
show it at Hollywood Forever, but it had already been shown of course. Wonder what films Dean would have made if he’d survived..

35 – Anna Karina

Anna Karina – Une femme est une femme (Godard… by Tushratta

French icon of the 60’s new wave. (Was in fact Danish) Watch her in Vivre
Sa Vie, Pierrot La Fou, Bande a part, and my favourite of hers, the fabulous Une
Femme Est Une Femme (with Belmondo and Brialy)

34 – Leonardo Di Caprio

Di Caprio’s a good leading man, plus he’s got that thing, or at
least, he had it for a while, that kind of dreamy James Deanish thing
that even Pitt or Depp didn’t have (imo). The crucial thing is,
though, that he’s continued to be good in very watchable movies
Catch Me If You Can, Revolutionary Road, and
especially The Aviator..though this scene seems a bit creepy out of context..

33 – Martin Donovan/Adrienne Shelley

http://youtu.be/Omc-LerO92c

I used to think that the only star of a Hal Hartley film was Hal
Hartley. The actors just seemed to be not acting, but reading. But
they don’t act so well that you start to love them. In the early
nineties, I existed in these small rooms of Hartley as much as I
existed in real life.

32 – James Spader

Spader through the ages is a great turn. And the girls love him too, at
least the girls I hang out with. Whether he’s the sleazeball richy
in Pretty In Pink, the repressed lawyer in Secretary,
or the intellectual wanderer of Sex, Lies and Videotape.

31 – Jeanne Moreau

http://youtu.be/oPWTJsO89-M

“France’s greatest actress”! it says so in the trailer..