Gary Oldman

Gary Oldman as Sgt. Jim Gordon. Batman Begins. 2005.

Gary Oldman is probably one of the most underrated actors in Hollywood.

Like Johhny Depp and Daniel Day-Lewis (both also in The Acting Hall of Fame), Oldman loves going for those weird eccentric roles. He doesn't mind playing minor roles, or even cameos. Gary Oldman is the ultimate team player. Even if he is a better actor than all the other actors in the film combined, he will never hog the spotlight. He doesn't need to.

Director Christopher Nolan should be credited for his excellent casting choice. The no-nonsense yet totally nice guy-demeanor of Sgt. Jim Gordon was captured perfectly by Oldman. But the best part was that Oldman's facial hair made him invisible. A friend of mine never knew it was Gary Oldman until the end credits. I wouldn't have noticed him too, had I not known the fact beforehand. And even if you did know beforehand that Oldman would play Gordon, you'd forget about it as soon as Gary Oldman appears onscreen. Gary Oldman ceases to be Gary Oldman and becomes Jim Gordon.

Perhaps it would be best if we ended this with a quote from Christopher Nolan himself.

With a great actor like Oldman, it really doesn’t faze him to be looking at nothing but a bunch of grips and electricians. He’s able to ignore the green screen and tap into the psychological reality of the situation.

*some info and pic from DGA Quarterly

Sean Penn

Sean Penn as Matthew Poncelet. Dead Man Walking. 1995.

This year, 2009, Sean Penn is nominated again with a Best Actor Academy Award for Milk.

His first Oscar was given for his performance in the 2003 film Mystic River. But everyone keeps saying that he should've gotten an Oscar two years earlier for I Am Sam (but as Robert Downey, Jr. said in Tropic Thunder, Sean Penn went full retard for the role, and came home empty-handed).

But the truth is, he should've gotten an Oscar way back in 1995, for this role:

That's Matthew Poncelet, convicted killer on death row, in the Tim Robbins picture Dead Man Walking. Penn's portrayal of Harvey Milk, like his portrayal in I Am Sam, still contains traces of the real Sean Penn, like his distinct voice. But in Dead Man Walking, there is no trace of Sean Penn. Matthew Poncelet may look like Sean Penn, but the similarity ends there. Once he opens his mouth, he becomes the character altogether.

Penn's portrayal as a death row convict is so convincing that I was actually both afraid and awestruck at the same time. Afraid because I realized that somewhere in the far reaches of the United States, there still exist humans like Poncelet, cold-blooded evil racists who could kill someone without even batting an eyelash. And awestruck because even stone-cold killers can break down in tears when faced with death.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is not an infallible institution. Their choices are not divine in nature. They are merely opinions of the majority of them. Watch the Oscar nominees for Best Actor in 1995 again, and I guarantee you'll be shaking your head and wondering how in the world Nicolas Cage went home with the Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas when Sean Penn was clearly the best actor for that year.

Johnny Depp

Johnny Depp as Raoul Duke. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. 1998.

Who can deny the acting prowess of John Christopher Depp II?

The original eighties fans will know him forever as the poster boy who made panties drop in 21 Jump Street. All the fans who came after will know him as that guy who likes to take on weird roles. And when I say weird, I mean weird.

His weirdest role to date would probably be that infamous pirate "Captain" Jack Sparrow, immortalized by Depp with the pirate accent and the drunk swagger. But Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas came much, much earlier, and if you want to see an offbeat, eccentric Johnny Depp, it's Raoul Duke, not Jack Sparrow, that you should watch.

Here Depp plays the sportswriter Raoul Duke, who is actually notorious writer Hunter S. Thompson's alter-ego. Now I personally know nothing of Johnny Depp's drug use, but as a musician, I'm pretty sure he's done pot a couple of times. But in this movie, Duke is actually someone who ingests drugs in huge quantities, and the effects of each and every drug he consumes, spanning the whole gamut of the uppers-downers spectrum, is portrayed accurately by Depp. The opening scene itself is like an anti-drug video clip showing the harmful effects of LSD, and yet the thing is, it's all acting. It's all brilliant acting.

One doesn't have to be a method actor to prepare for a role. Every actor has their own style. What Depp did for this role was to visit the real Hunter S. Thompson, and ended up living in Hunter's basement for four months. This was where Depp fleshed out the role, paying attention to Hunter's mannerisms and habits. He also went through the original manuscript of Fear and Loathing, as well as the notebooks Hunter kept during the original trip. He even traded cars with Hunter, shaved his head, and changed his wardrobe to match Hunter's.

Now, Hunter S. Thompson is a huge man, and one of the first actors considered to play him was Jack Nicholson, who was more or less the same size as the real Hunter S. Thompson. But due to some studio mishaps, the project never got off the ground. When Hunter first met Johnny Depp, his first thought was that, "This actor couldn't possibly play me. He's too small." But once Depp got inside his head and dissected his psyche, transforming it into his very own, Hunter became convinced that nobody else could play him the way Johnny Depp did. And for Depp's performance alone, this film is worth watching.