Underrated Actors

Actors who rarely get enough credit for how good they are. I'd say:

Woody Harrelson: Woody's problem is he'll always be remembered for two roles - Cheers and White Men Can't Jump. A sitcom and a comedy. That detracts away from how good he is in serious roles. He can play an excellent villain as well.

Samuel L Jackson: I blame it on people equating him with yelling and always saying "Muthafucka!". He's not taken seriously enough sometimes. Make no mistake, SLJ is a brilliant actor.

Paul Giamatti: Maybe cause he's short and ugly. That really doesn't gain you points in Hollywood. But he's an excellent actor.

Brendan Gleeson: I guess cause he's old, fat, and ugly. That's gonna get you underrated. Gleeson is top-notch.

Others?

 

Woody Harrelson and Brendan Gleeson were the first to spring to mind. Absolutely fantastic actors. Tom Hiddleson is another mention. That boy can act! Incredible. Overlooked at the moment because he's best known for his portrayal of Loki in the Marvel films.

 

I don't think Samuel l Jackson is a particularly strong actor. He's a great movie star and a decent actor but not a great one. He's rated just about right.

 

You can't honestly watch a movie like Pulp Fiction, A Time to Kill, The Negotiator, or Jackie Brown, and say that he's not a great actor.

Even in Shaft he was great. The combination of Sam, Christian Bale, and Jeffrey Wright made Shaft an excellent movie.

A "decent" actor to me is Ben Affleck. Ben's not a totally horrible actor, but he's not a particularly strong one either. That's not SLJ. Sam is excellent.

Sam's problem is the brotha literally CANNOT turn down any script. But his talent is undeniable.

 

We will have to agree to disagree on Samuel L Jackson. I'm a big fan of his and I'm compelled to watch every film he's in, but I don't see I'm as being a strong actor, certainly not on the level of others already mentioned and certainly not in the class of other very strong black actors such as Whitaker, Freeman, Fishburn and Washington.

Brendan Gleeson however, much better actor that people give him credit for. He's been great in every role I've watched him in: braveheart, Troy even that Tom cruise film Edge of tomorrow.

 

Jacksons best performance, imo, was Unbreakable.

 

See, I forgot to even list that one. Just another to add to the list.

He's an first-class actor.

Put it this way - there's PLENTY of clowns that have won for Best Actor that aren't as good as SLJ.

 

Sam Jackson OBLITERATES Forrest Whitaker as an actor. If ever there was an overrated actor, it's Forrest Whitaker. And he's better than Fishburne as well.

So outta that list of brothas, the only two better than Sam are Denzel, and Morgan.

Denzel is obviously the GOAT black actor, so putting Sam behind him is no shame.

Talking strictly black actors, yeah, IMO Sam is third best of all time.

 

X I cannot agree with you at all. At all. Top 3 all time black actor? Come on man.

 

I think my old buddy Idris is a stronger actor than Jackson for one thing, also Djimon Hounsou, Don Cheadle, and a few others that skip mind for now. I have Jackson on the same level as a guy like Ving Rhames who is also decent.

 

Is rate a young Carl weathers over Jackson too

 

I forgot about Cheadle.

You can make a case for Cheadle over Sam, but it's not a concrete case.

I'm maintaining what I said.... Denzel is the GOAT, and Morgan is 2nd. After that, you can argue between Sam and Cheadle.

Idris? Won't lie, he has the POTENTIAL to take top 3 one day. He was brilliant in The Wire and Luther. But give him more time...

Ving Rhames? Ummmm..... no. Rhames is a solid actor, but in Jackson's league.

 

I hope this a fuckin joke.

I think you must be too in love with the character of Apollo Creed, my friend.

Carl fuckin Weathers??? ACTION JACKSON better than Sam Jackson? LMAO! Please!

 

Apollo Creed and his role in predator. Forget action Jackson. Carl Weathers performances in those films trumps anything Jackson has done to date.

Like I said , Jackson is a great movie star, but you have to be able to distinguish between been a great film star and being a great actor. They are not always the same thing. Jackson is good at what he does. Bruce Willis as another example of someone that is a great movie star but not a particularly top notch actor.

 

Are you DRUNK?

Predator is NOT a movie that's good because of its acting...

Put Carl Weathers in Pulp Fiction, A Time to Kill, or Unbreakable, and see how much WORSE off those movies would be.

Carl Weathers can't hold a candle to Sam.

 

Only one we're on the same page about is Elba.

Elba's one of the most talented actors in the world, period. White or black.

I don't think anybody's ever gonna take the black throne from Denzel, but Idris with right amount of roles to showcase his great talent could one day rise to #2.

 

Different actors for different roles, it's not as simple as saying put Carl weathers in those roles and see. Different type of actors. Dustin Hoffman was a better actor than Christopher Reeve but put Dustin instead of reeve in Superman and those films are not as good, .

Weathers at his best was clearly superior to Jackson. Especially the first four Rocky films.

 

I'm not saying Sam L Jackson is Mr T or something, obviously he's a decent actor, but he's no where near a top 3 all time black actor. He barely makes the top 10

 

Exactly. And in this scenario, Weathers is Christopher Reeve and Jackson is Hoffman.

Rocky is ALLLLLLLL the Hell Weathers has. And yes, Apollo Creed was a great character. But Sho'nuff was a great character too. Was Julius Carry better than Jackson too?

I can't BELIEVE you would even bring up Predator.

 

Are you really comparing Julius carry to Carl weathers? Lol

Anyway if you can't see that weathers was a good actor I don't know what to tell you

 

Michael Wincott
Mark Strong
Ben Mendelsohn

 

Aaron Eckart. Very underrated

 

Samuel L. Jackson used to be a great actor, but he just likes to keep busy apparently so you only get the real good performances time to time from him. He just "phones it in", so to say, a lot of times.

But he's excellent when he does movies with Tarantino. In the 90s he was one of my favorite actors:

Jungle Fever
Pulp Fiction
187
Jackie Brown
Hard Eight
A Time to Kill
Eve's Bayou

He's great...I had no idea until after The Wire ended that he is British. Never would have guessed it from watching Stringer.

 

Yeah, and I forgot to list 187 as well. Another great SLJ performance.

 

Carl Weathers? C'mon Sly, you must be trolling.

 

So wait, you're trying to tell me that his performances as Apollo Creed were weak? Sure he didn't have the body of work of a guy like Jackson but I'm speaking about the acting ability he displayed in his brief " prime". The reason Apollo creed was such a good character was because of weathers' performances.

 

Sly, Apollo Creed was a FUN character. He had a lot of charisma, but he's no great character in terms of depth or anything. You're overrating THE SHIT outta Apollo.

Jackson in Pulp Fiction ALONE destroys Weathers career.

 

X you're missing the point with Apollo. He wasn't just charisma. He was in the first Rocky: no depth there I agree. But he showed depth in Rocky 2,3 and 4.... Especially 3.

Anyway, having said all that, I'll concede the Jackson point where weathers is concerned because Jackson had shown more consistency, but Jackson is certainly not ahead of guys like Whitaker and especially not Fishburn.

 

Benicio Del Toro..obviously...mostly due to picking powerful roles but not HOLLYWOODsy enough..(Che, Escobar, Sicario, etc)

Tim Robbins...

 

I'll deep dive with my list of mostly Television character actor types:

Walter Goggins
Bobby Cannavale
Titus Welliver
Timothy Olyphant
Dayton Callie
Shea Whigham
Kelly MacDonald

Younger actors I don't hear mentioned at all even though they seem to be doing pretty well for themselves so far - Brenton Thwaites and Olivia Cooke (both from "The Signal"))

Lastly - Wonder if Michael Shannon is still considered "under-rated", even though I don't think he's ever come close to sniffing any acting awards as far as I can recall