Who has stolen the most picture with the smallest part?
Now that we are all so Hollywood savvy, everyone should have at least one answer for this question.
My candidates:
Holly Hunter in Time Code
Steve Zahn in Out of Sight
Selma Blair in Cruel Intentions
Siobhan Fallon in Men in Black
Stealing a picture is a wonderful thing. It is the stuff of career advancement. Because as they say in acting, there are no small parts, just small actors. Potentially, anyone should be able to steal any picture with any role. All you need is a magnetic screen presence and searing talent. Read Holly Hunter.
On the other hand, if an actor does it too often, and he or she will never work in this town again. (And if anyone can think of someone who ruined their career chances in Hollywood this way, please, sing out!) Stealing pictures, it’s a crime that must be practiced with care and some subtlety.
Please, let me know who we can add to this list.
How about Brad Pitt in Thelma & Louise? What did he have, 10 minutes of screen time? Can you remember another scene from that movie (other than the final long drive on a short road)?
Definitely Steve Zahn in Out of Sight. It always amazed me that he hasn’t gone on to do anything worth anything since.
Also Brad Pitt in True Romance. 10 minutes in T&L, but only about 2 in TR!
Finally, Joan Cusack in Grosse Pointe Blank.
Blutto
OMG!!1! I thought I was the only one who’d frrrreaked over Zahn in Out of Sight. Glad to know there’s a passel of us.
My favorites are the ones that happen in the beginnings of careers (or the pre-takeoff time) when you can spot the star-to-be in you-were-there style. Fun! (Although as someone already observed, that didn’t pan out in Zahn’s case.)
My other picks:
+ Mickey Rourke in Body Heat (“You don’t want to light that in here.”)
+ Chris Rock in I’m Gonna Git You Sucka (“How much for just one rib?”)
+ Meryl Streep in Manhattan (although I saw her first in Holocaust, the miniseries–proportionately, a very tiny role)
And finally, thank you for the brain buster. I expect to get zero sleep tonight.
Bill Murray in Tootsie.
Madeline Kahn in Blazing Saddles.
Joan Cusack in Working Girl.
Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross
R. Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket (kinda has a lot of screen time, though)
J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson in the Spider-Man series
Don Cheadle in Devil with a Blue Dress On
Sharon Stone in Total Recall.
Steve Buscemi in Miller’s Crossing.
Steve Buscemi is Billy Madison
Brad Pitt True Romance
This may not be exactly what you’re shooting for, but Anthony Hopkins is only onscreen something like 17 minutes in Silence of the Lambs.
Emilio Estevez in MI1, which made so much PR out of the claim “this film is so big and expensive we can even kill Emilio Estevez off in the first couple of minutes” that audiences were left with the feeling that his early murder was the main event.
Also Salma Hayek in Dusk Till Dawn.
I find it interesting and sad that the oldest movie mentioned, if I am not mistaken, is Blazing Saddles. Collectively, the movies of the past -say, more than 25 years old- have much more substance than the recent.
Christopher Walken and his Daddy’s watch in Pulp Fiction.
Good grief people.
Gary Cooper in Wings
Were you born yesterday?
If you have not seen his one scene you have not seen the motion picture as it can be.
People, please…Bronson Pinchot and Damon Wayans define scene-stealing in Beverly Hills Cop.
Joan Cusack? Seriously? We’re not talking about “best scenery-chewer in a role she only got because her brother is a good actor”. Christ.
Oh, c’mon, she was great in In and Out.
I nominate David Bowie in The Last Temptation of Christ.
Claude Raines, “Casablanca”
Wilfrid Lawson as Alfred Doolittle in the 1938 “Pygmalion”
What % of the time is Marlon Brando on the screen in “Apocalypse Now?”
Dame Judi Dench in Shakespeare in Love. Obvious but true…someone had to say it.
Hugh Laurie in Sense and Sensibility
Sophie Thomson in Emma (1996)