Moving up the rankings
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday July 11, 2009
The actors unafraid to punch above their weight TOM HANKSHanks's early hits (Splash, Bachelor Party and Big) showcased the young actor's comic chops. Sleepless In Seattle revealed a sensitive side. But it took Jonathan Demme's 1993 drama Philadelphia - in which Hanks plays a lawyer with AIDS (pictured) - to show he had some heft. It took a while for his fans to adjust. After Hanks spent 45 minutes discussing his craft with James Lipton on The Actors Studio in 1994, the highlight of the Q&A session was a fan who gushed that Turner & Hooch was the best work he'd ever done. That was before Saving Private Ryan, Apollo 13 and his heaviest role to date: playing assassin Michael Sullivan in the dark, Sam Mendes-directed Prohibition-era drama Road To Perdition.JIM CARREYRubbery facial expressions and extreme physical comedy are the hallmarks of Carrey's early career. In Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994) he played a gumshoe who, at one point, talked out of his backside. The Mask, Dumb & Dumber and The Cable Guy followed in quick succession. Director Peter Weir's decision to cast him in The Truman Show was a leap of faith but it paid off handsomely (although Carrey was overlooked by the Academy). Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind and the Andy Kaufman biopic Man On The Moon allowed him room to expand his range even further. After winning a Golden Globe for the latter, Carrey quipped: "It's gonna be so hard to talk out of my ass after this but I'll manage."MEG RYANRyan is charming, bookish but daffy, a hopeless romantic waiting to be rescued. After roles in Top Gun, When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless In Seattle and French Kiss, You've Got Mail boosted Ryan's profile and purse into the stratosphere. She strayed from type as Jim Morrison's girlfriend in The Doors, played a drunk in When A Man Loves A Woman but her public resisted her move towards meatier roles. The action-thriller Proof Of Life (2000) tanked (her very public affair with co-star Russell Crowe, which ended her marriage to Dennis Quaid, was a publicist's nightmare), her starring role in Jane Campion's bleak erotic whodunit In The Cut and some odd-looking facial enhancement seems to have ended her reign as the rom-com queen. We like it when comedians play straight but can we take it when good girls act bad?ANGELINA JOLIEA former model who appeared in music videos for Meat Loaf and Lenny Kravitz, among others, Jolie broke through in a series of wet-lipped action roles (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider; car thief "Sway" Wayland in Gone In 60 Seconds) but she played them with a cocked eyebrow that suggested ironic detachment from the special effects mayhem around her. Her supporting role in 1999's Girl, Interrupted was the real indicator of her talent. She scored a best supporting actress Oscar in 2000 having all but blown the film's star, Winona Ryder, off the screen. Powerful performances followed in Michael Winterbottom's A Mighty Heart ("a febrile portrait of a brave woman strung to breaking-point," according to the Herald's Sandra Hall) and Clint Eastwood's Changeling (pictured) confirmed her as a serious dramatic actress but, like the similarly lustrous Elizabeth Taylor before her, everything she accomplishes onscreen is dwarfed by her continuing role in the soap opera of her life.WILL SMITHThe Fresh Prince could have made a comfortable career as a PG-rated rapper and action star (Men In Black, Bad Boys) but there were early indications - 1993's Six Degrees Of Separation - that Smith had untapped potential as a dramatic lead. His portrayal of a mystic caddie in Bagger Vance was a hole in one (even if the film turned out to be a double bogey) but it was his powerful presence in the Muhammad Ali biopic Ali (pictured) that alerted critics to the arrival of a true heavyweight. He is the only lead actor in history to have eight consecutive films open at No. 1 at the US box office.ADAM SANDLERThe Saturday Night Live graduate has plumbed the depths as a screen comedian (the appalling Little Nicky, for example). Little wonder that his performance as the temperamental novelty goods salesman Barry Egan in Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love caught critics and audiences by surprise. Many of Sandler's characters have had anger-management issues (Happy Gilmore played golf like a contact sport; Bobby Boucher in The Waterboy could tackle men twice his size when angry) but in Punch-Drunk Love, Sandler's performance was ferocious and convincing. "The similarity between Sandler and the bumbling Jerry Lewis is obvious," wrote the Herald's Paul Byrnes, "but Sandler makes his bumblers more real."
© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald
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