Dangerous Liaisons – starring three overdue actors, directed by one overdue director.
Winning an Oscar is usually a combination of factors at play. It doesn’t have to do with the specific performance so much as it has to do with timing – not just individual timing, but the timing of the our collective. I say “our,” but throughout Oscar history, and even today, the Oscars have been driven by the choices of men, mostly white American heterosexual men. This, it should be emphasized, is changing. The British contingent in the Academy is bigger than it ever has been – and there are many more women voters now than there ever have been. I can’t prove this, as the AMPAS doesn’t release its membership info, but it would be a logical assumption based on how the face of Hollywood itself, and the Academy winners, have changed over the last ten years.
I wanted to create a list of actors, not separated into male and female categories, but to make it slightly more difficult than that. It would be so much easier to separate them, and perhaps at some point, I might do that. I’m interested more in the dynamic of male and female power in Hollywood. As mainstream Hollywood makes its money on the tastes of youngish boys, so does the casting choices of female leads become affected by those tastes. If you watch mainstream Hollywood films in the ’80s, you will find actresses who align more closely to an adult male’s tastes, rather than, say, a 13 year-old boy’s. And as we get closer and closer to the 2000s, the women get sexier and younger, even on the indie circuit. This is my own assumptions about the time in which we live. There are always exceptions.
But if your moment for Oscar passes you by, you may never have a chance later. Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep, Judi Dench and Imelda Staunton are all doing their best work a they age. But the majority of actresses, like Glenn Close and Michelle Pfeiffer, whose hot moment was a while back, there is still a big question mark as to their Oscar future (not that an Oscar should mean everything, or anything at all, really).
An actor’s career has highs and lows. Each has a moment where an Oscar seems most likely. Timing is everything. But even if you are as hot as can be, and you are getting the reviews of a lifetime, and even if history will remember you as one of the greats, you could still be taken down in the final moments by someone even more overdo, or someone who can’t be denied: Ben Kingsley in Gandhi, Meryl Streep in Sophie’s Choice, Helen Mirren in The Queen. Every so often, the right role is played brilliantly by the right actor at the right time and there simply isn’t anything that can be done.
Those who aren’t chosen are put into a separate pile, and either the right role comes along soon, or else it passes them right on by. Decades pass. Either they will get another chance at it, or they will have to be content with an honorary Oscar at some point. It doesn’t mean any more or any less than what it is: a trophy by their peers that says they had the right role at the right time. Well, it’s either that, or it’s “they liked me.”
I stayed away from one-offs, like Melanie Griffith, or Sally Kirkland, and tried to focus on actors who have turned in countless great performances, who always turn themselves inside out for a role. These would be in line with the Al Pacinos and Paul Newmans of the world before they won their obligatory Oscars many years too late. These aren’t the most promising, nor those who “deserve” to win, but rather, those whose win would be as acceptable as Jeff Bridges’ last year; no one is going to complain when you walk up to the podium and finally win. Moreover, there would be a standing ovation.
It is never easy making these kinds of list. The first five are sort of easy. As you begin to add names, you start wonder what constitutes an “overdue” actor? Is it that they have given countless great performances yet never have won? We’re talking not just good performances, mind you, GREAT performances. It probably shouldn’t be someone who has only given one great performance, but many, over decades. There are lots of names who pop up and you know immediately they will be a winner one day, like Clive Owen, Natalie Portman, Michelle Williams, Ryan Gosling, etc. But there are those whose moment to win has slipped by for whatever reason and they are still sitting there, with a lot of chips to cash in.
I also realize that my list is mostly white people. That’s my fault, and Hollywood’s fault. But it is what it is.
These names popped up on the list and then popped back off because there was a more worthy name. The hardest thing about this process was that, just when I thought I had it down, another name would pop back up and so I’d have to eject a lesser name. Judy Davis supplanted Imelda Staunton, for instance.
Brad Pitt, Viola Davis, Richard Gere, Leonardo DiCaprio, Debra Winger, Gary Oldman, David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh, John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson, John Travolta, Liam Neeson, Sigourney Weaver, either of the Arquette sisters, Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Harrison Ford, Robert Redford, Eddie Murphy, Clive Owen, Alfre Woodard, Ray Liotta….the list goes on.
Well, here is the much toiled-over list.
20. Kristin Scott Thomas
While there probably isn’t one film or one performance yet that screams Oscar win — well I guess the closest you get to that would be her work in I’ve Loved You for So Long, for which she was not even nominated. The film was weakened by a bad ending. Thomas is always good in everything she does — and yet there is something removed about her, and she doesn’t play the kinds of female characters who often win Oscars: those the male voters fall madly in love with by a wide margin. Unbelievably, she’s only been nominated once for The English Patient.
19. Edward Norton
Edward Norton’s cred seems to be dropping as his replacement, Ryan Gosling, continues to rise. Still, Norton has put in enough great performances to land him in the overdo category. Again, he just needs the right role at the right time. Norton was nominated for American History X (lead), and Primal Fear (supporting). Roberto Benigni won for Life is Beautiful. Having recently watched the god-awful Primal Fear, Norton was good in that but it doesn’t hold up in the same way a De Niro performance does – it appears gimmicky. He’s got permanent cult status having starred in Fight Club. His career could go either way. The Oscar is waiting should he ever take the swing. (See also Edward Norton’s clip from Primal Fear)
18. Alec Baldwin
Baldwin would top the list of those I thought would win an Oscar in the next five years. They’re just waiting to anoint Baldwin into the club. No matter what he does, he proves himself teflon. Likable, a great actor in everything he does, Baldwin is right in front of the line. But that doesn’t make him the most overdo. It just makes him the one they really want to give an Oscar to should the right role come along. Again, unbelievably, Baldwin has been nominated just once. For The Cooler. He’s great in The Cooler. He’s best in the little bursts he turns out as near-cameos – Notting Hill, Glengarry Glen Ross, etc. He might be hit and miss in some of his major leading roles, like The Edge (which I personally LOVE), and Prelude to a Kiss (again, I love this movie and his performance in it). And p.s. any excuse to post my favorite Glengarry clip.
17. Joan Allen
Joan Allen, again, has always been great. But her two best roles, I think, are in Nixon and in Rod Lurie’s The Contender, a film I’ve seen many times and always come away with nothing but awe for Allen’s restrained, flawless performance. It’s especially poignant when compared to her drunken Pat Nixon (“you should have burned them.”) She’s also wonderful in the Bourne films.
16. Laura Linney
Laura Linney is one of those actresses who is always, always, always ALWAYS good. She empties the tank every time. She is hardworking, versatile, funny … the list goes on. She also happens to be good pals with Mr Oscar himself, Clint Eastwood, which can’t hurt her Oscar cred on down the line. Linney is positioned to win should she ever get a role that takes her above and beyond what she’s already delivered, which is just magnificent. Unfortunately, clips of Linney are few and far between, so we’ll have to settle for Primal Fear. Her best work has been on John Adams for HBO, and in Kinsey, You Can Count on Me, The Savages – she’s also great in shit movies, like The Nannie Diaries. She’s been nominated three times, but probably came the closest to winning with either Kinsey (Cate Blanchett won for The Aviator), or You Can Count on Me (Julia Roberts won for Erin Brockovich).
15. Colin Firth
While it is probably premature to start saying Colin Firth is overdo. Firth has a hell of a career ahead of him, but of all the great roles he’s had already, he has only captured the attention of the Academy with A Single Man. Firth is good at the acting stuff, but not so great at the being a popular star stuff. He will, I suspect, be a lot like Kate Winslet until he finally wins. Firth is someone who is so versatile, he can do villains and love interests – he can be funny and serious – and he can even dress up in spandex and sing Abba.
14. Viggo Mortensen
Viggo Mortensen has kissed a lot of frogs. His best work was probably in Eastern Promises, but this an actor whose entire career is filled with great performances – he’s not even that bad in the god-awful thriller, A Perfect Murder. Mortensen is turning out to be the muse for David Cronenberg, and indeed, they have made beautiful music together: Eastern Promises,
13. Judy Davis
Oh, Judy Davis. How this woman hasn’t won an Oscar yet is, well, a matter of timing. She’s only been nominated twice – once for A Passage to India and Husbands and Wives (above). I’m sorry to say that Marisa Tomei beat her for the Oscar. Tomei also beat Miranda Richardson for Damages, Joan Plowright for Enchanted April, and Vanessa Redgrave for Howards End. Go figure.
12. John Malkovich
Malkovich is, I think, the most underrated and most deserving actor working today. It’s really as simple as that. He is almost always the best thing about any movie he’s in, and he gave two of his best performances in – Burn After Reading and In the Line of Fire. He was nominated for the latter, and he was also nominated, hilariously, for Places in the Heart. But not for Dangerous Liaisons, of course. John Malkovich seems like someone who has paid his dues and then some. All that’s missing is the right role, right time stuff, like Jeff Bridges last year.
11. Johnny Depp
Not only is Depp a popular actor with the general public, but he’s one of those who is almost always good, even if the material is less so. He is good despite his ridiculously good looks, and works against his beauty not unlike Montgomery Clift or James Dean. More than that, he’s an intelligent actor, who chooses interesting projects, and creates original characters with ease, or at least he makes it look easy. But Depp is always good so finding that one role at the right time is going to be tricky. He’ll probably have to gain or lose 30 pounds to do it.
10. Ralph Fiennes
Fiennes really should have won for Schindler’s List. Tommy Lee Jones beat him for The Fugitive. This shows that it’s often the actor himself, and the character he plays, that makes all of the difference. Voting for Fiennes meant voting for a truly horrible Nazi, not a charming Nazi like Christoph Waltz, but an evil one. Fiennes is also now more known for his work in Harry Potter than for anything else he’s ever done. He was nominated for The English Patient, but not for Quiz Show, or The Constant Gardener. Despite the odd “sex addict” news that follows him around, Fiennes is still a great actor underneath it all.
9. Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise and Christian Bale (who is not on the list but really deserves to be) have personality things to overcome before they can finally win. That is, unless they cannot be denied. Bale’s exposed tantrums and Cruise’s Scientology are their main stumbling blocks, but I think, of the two of them, Cruise has been around longer and is slightly more “overdo.” Cruise has had three Oscar nominations, and came close to winning with Magnolia (he should have won). Michael Caine won a sentimental make-up award for The Cider House Rules. Cruise was also nominated for Jerry Maguire and Born on the Fourth of July. He should have been nominated for Tropic Thunder, A Few Good Men, etc.
8. Ed Harris
Ed Harris is one of those well-liked, good actors that he’s taken for granted. He’s been nominated three times for supporting and once for Pollock in the leading role. He’s always good. That makes it difficult to suss out his star turns, but he’s fantastic in Glengarry Glen Ross, Jacknife, Sweet Dreams, Apollo 13 – the list goes on and on. If there is way to really win an Oscar, it is in the wanting. Ed Harris seems to have always been content to act. But he’s right up there with Jeff Bridges and will one day, very soon, collect on his long-standing greatness.
7. Annette Bening
Bening was the hottest things on two legs for a while there. Then she married Warren Beatty. Her career stumbled a bit because she was seen less as an actress first, and more as Mrs. Warren Beatty. She has been appreciated and respected, and nominated, ever since, four kids later. Bening is one of those who refuses to get any work done, and seems to have a lot of personal self-respect both as an actress and as a woman. She’s always been better at playing bitches, though she doesn’t seem to like playing them. The Grifters might be her best, but then again, she doesn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon and keeps turning in one great performance after another. She received raves for both Mother and Child and The Kids Are All Right. And with Kids she has a dog in the hunt this year. We’ll be keeping an eye on her progress. She’s just about ready to take it to the bank.
6. Julianne Moore
Beautiful, talented Julianne Moore is so overdo by now it’s almost a joke. Moore isn’t one of those popular actresses who get nominated just because voters like her, but she actually deserves it. Far From Heaven, Safe, Short Cuts, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, The Big Lebowski – one great performance after the next, and still finding time to star in craptacular blockbusters like Nine Months and The Lost World: Jurassic Park. It all might pass Moore by, because she is one who, like Ed Harris, is always good and therefore taken for granted. She will have to step it up in a big way to win (like gain 30 pounds and play a prostitute) but when it’s her time, no one else will have a chance. She also has a shot this year with The Kids are All Right, alongside Annette Bening.
5. Ian McKellen
When I first told one of my best friends that Ian McKellen was overdo he said, “but he’s gay.” My friend is also gay and has conditioned himself to always have a discouraging view of openly gay actors like McKellen. Whether he’s gay or not, he’s still long overdue for recognition, and it was magnified when he lost his Oscar bid for Gods & Monsters to Roberto Benigni. Jim Broadbent beat him for Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Broadbent was wonderful, but again, likeable actor, likable character. The character they play has so much to do with their winning.
4. Hal Holbrook
Hal Holbrook had a good chance to win his overdue Oscar for Into the Wild except for two big reasons. The first, the Academy did not like the movie, and that is, for the most part, an essential element. But two, he was up against Javier Bardem for No Country for Old Men. There was no chance anyone could beat Bardem. He probably should have won for Supporting for All The Presidents Men. He deserves to be honored by the Academy, whether it’s for a performance or an Honorary Oscar.
3. Michelle Pfeiffer
Michelle Pfeiffer came close to winning with The Fabulous Baker Boys. Everyone thought that because she sang her own songs that she would finally win. For a few years, like so many ont his list, it seemed like she was going to win, but then it all somehow vanished. She’s been nominated three times – Love Field, The Fabulous Baker Boys and Dangerous Liaisons. She was not nominated for Scarface, Married to the Mob, White Oleander, The Deep End of the Ocean, Dangerous Minds, Hairspray, or The Age of Innocence, all of which she deserved recognition for. That Pfeiffer has not yet won is a reflection on the Academy’s poor taste than it is on Pfeiffer’s work. While she often plays somewhat remote or cold-ish characters (which is why she hasn’t yet won; they love the warm fuzzies), she almost always brings something unique to the role. Where does she go from here?
2. Glenn Close
There are arguably two leading roles Glenn Close could have won for: Dangerous Liaisons (Jodie Foster won for The Accused, a sympathetic female), Fatal Attraction (Cher won for Moonstruck, another sympathetic, likable character). Close also received three supporting nods, but didn’t get one, unbelievably, for Reversal of Fortune. That film was nominated for three, including screenplay, director and actor (Jeremy Irons won). The other supporting actresses were: Whoopi Goldberg for Ghost (extremely likable, the winner), Mary McDonnell (extremely likable, second in line to win probably), Lorraine Bracco for Goodfellas (borderline), Annette Bening for The Grifters (totally deserves, and a major piece of ass on the scene), and finally, Diane Ladd with a sentimental nod for playing a villain in Wild at Heart. Glenn Close might not have beaten Goldberg, but I think she could have bumped Ladd or McDonnell for a nod.
After her heated run for Oscar during those years, Close’s career hadn’t really equalled the high of her Fatal Attraction years. But she’s proved herself again with the recently canceled Damages. Glenn Close is ready to cash in should the right role come along at the right time.
1. Peter O’Toole
The role I think O’Toole should have won for was My Favorite Year. But he was up against Ben Kingsley for Sexy Beast, I mean, Gandhi, and no one could have beaten him. It was and remains O’Toole’s absolute best. But this is a man who starred in Lawrence of Arabia, The Lion in Winter, and The Stunt Man, to name a few. And now he’s got his Honorary Oscar so his chances are dwindling.