How about Robert Duvall’s “The Apostle”? Probably my personal favorite. A great movie.
Tarantino in Desperado… :O
Keitel would’ve been so different in Eyes Wide Shut in that role. Kubrick had a good reason for recasting I assume. Pollack brings a humanity to everything he does. A guy we’d want to hang out with, or one of your dad’s “coolest” friends. Makes Ziegler more of an enigma as a character. Far more interesting as a result.
>>Orson Welles in Casino Royale (or perhaps Orson Welles in Moby Dick)<<
>>Hello? Orson Welles in The Third Man.<<
Or Orson in THE LONG, HOT SUMMER or in CATCH 22 or in, hell, damn near anything.
And John Huston as first runner-up. In fact I prefer his acting to his directing.
Cassavetes in The Dirty Dozen
I thought we were specifically excluding Cassavettes and Welles?
oops, excuse me. Then I say Erich von Stroheim in Sunset Blvd.
Ahh…good one.
OBVIOUSLY Roman Polanski in Brett Ratner’s Rush Hour 2
Ok, I´m going out on a limb here… David Cronenberg in Clive Barker’s Nightbreed. He´s got a really cool character to play and he does it really well. The movie is crap though, but I love the scenes with Cronenberg.
How could we leave out “Easy Rider”? Directed by Dennis Hopper?
He acted in his own though. Is that the topic?
No, I was doing the converse. Best film directed by an actor
Abel Ferrara’s brief role in Go Get Some Rosemary is really hilarious!
Pollack in Eyes Wide Shut, but also Pollack in Husbands and Wives. The man is a great actor.
Welles, Polanski, Huston, von Stroheim have delivered memorable performances in so many films, it would be hard to select one. De Sica was an actor before he was a director and really should come under the second heading (‘films directed by actors’) except that he became such a memorable director. One oculd probably say the same of Ida Lupino.
Pier Paolo Pasolini in Carlo Lizzani’s ‘Il Gobbo’ and ‘Requiescant’
Jean-Luc Godard in the film-within-the-film in Agnès Varda’s ‘Cléo de 5 à 7’
Eric Rohmer in Jacques Rivette’s ‘Out 1’
I am seconding Godard’s performance in Cleo from 5 to 7.
Mark Rydell was nasty in “The Long Goodbye”
Dennis Hopper “Blue Velvet”.
Anyone know who Eric Rohmer was in Paris nous appartient?
cassavetes in “mickey and nick”
cassavetes in “rosemary’s baby”
herzog in “julien donkey-boy”
margarette von trotta in “coup de grace”
jarmusch in “in the soup”
harmony korine in “good will hunting” (lol)
john huston in “chinatown”
dennis hopper in “blue velvet” (eh, thats kinda pushing it, but whatever)
cronenberg in “the brood”
tom noonan in “heat” and “monster squad”
btw, roman polanski was in rush hour 3, lol.
How about Jerry Lewis in THE KING OF COMEDY???!!!!
Someone mentioned Nicholas Ray appearing in a film directed by someone else, so I thought I’d mention a bit of movie trivia:
Ray appears in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE. Does anyone know where?
First one to get the right answer wins … nothing but fame on this site.
My real answers to the original post are mainly trivia cameo appearances:
Leni Riefenstahl in her “convincing” role as a non-Nazi in THE WONDERFUL, HORRIBLE LIFE OF LENI RIEFENSTAHL. (I know she acted those “mountain films” before becoming a director but she’s known principally as a director.
Peter Bogdanovich as the shrink in THE SOPRANOS.
Raoul Walsh (uncredited) as John Wilkes Booth in D. W. Griffith’s THE BIRTH OF A NATION.
V. I. Pudovkin as Nikola, a simpleton beggar, in Eisenstein’s IVAN THE TERRIBLE
V. I. Pudovkin as Nikolay in IVAN THE TERRIBLE, Part II
Ingmar Bergman (uncredited narrator) in A PASSION OF ANNA & CRIES AND WHISPERS
Sam Peckinpah as Charlie, the meter reader, in Don Siegel’s THE INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956)
Roger Corman in Jonathan Demme’s PHILADELPHIA and THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
OOOOHHHHH that reminds me of Pudovkin as the head low-life in Kuleshov’s The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks. Boris Barnet’s in it too, rampaging all over the place as the cowboy on the loose, but Pudovkin steals the show.
Shut up you fools. HAROLD RAMIS IN ORANGE COUNTY.
But seriously, von Strohiem in The Grand Illusion I think takes the cake, in terms of such a high status director offering such a high quality performance. He has so much gravity and he provokes such conflict in the viewer. Of the main characters I think he has the least lines, and yet his is the most memorable in such a classic film. And while we’re on the topic of Renoir and directors acting, Renoir in his own Rules of the Game was wonderful (I know it probably doesn’t count since it was his own picture (otherwise Hitchcock in any Hitchcock is obvious), but such a memorable performance in one of the greatest films ever made deserves to be invoked on this thread)
And I know the first post already mentioned this, but I’ll never forget Scorsese as Vincent van Gogh in Kurosawa’s Dreams. I pretty much peed my pants in my excitement the first time I saw it, it was such an easter egg, and what a compliment too. Maybe one day Scorsese will respect my work as a director so much that he’ll put me in one of his films, and then some film auteurs will reminisce about it on some message board just like this…
Victor Sjöström, Wild Strawberries
Woody Allen, The Front (surely some of WA’s best acting)
Otto Preminger, Stalag 17
Erich von Stroheim, Sunset Blvd
John Cassavetes, Tempest
John Huston, Chinatown
Nicholas Ray, Hair (a brief, completely unexpected appearance)
Roger Corman, Swing Shift
Elaine May, Small Time Crooks
I like how the Taiwan New Cinema directors appeared in each other’s films:
- Hou Hsiao-hsien in Edward Yang’s Taipei Story
- Yang’s cameo in Hou’s A Summer at Grandpa’s
- Wu Nien-jen in Yang’s Yi Yi, and cameos in other Yang films
Erich von Stroheim has received a number of mentions for his supporting role in Sunset Blvd. Yet my favourite is .. same movie, different director .. Sunset Blvd was a 1950 release.
Cecil B. DeMille recited a line that made the hair on the back of my head stand up. Wish I could put quotes around it.
Near the conclusion of the movie, after Norma Desmond had exposed her madness, DeMille said that being hounded by a dozen (?) news photographers could send some-one down the path to insanity.
Think paparazzi. Think Britney Spears. Think of those lucky individuals who perhaps diverted madness by losing their tempers.
Great line. Great performances. GREAT MOVIE !!
Seriously? Harold Ramis doesn’t get an ‘amen’? tough crowd…
witkacy
I agree with Justin re Pollack in Eyes Wide Shut. Rade Sherbedgia chews up scenery; but Pollack brings it in Kubrick’s film in the most disciplined and direct way possible. After decades of seeing his movies – the good, the bad, and the indifferent – I found myself watching his Frank Gehry doc in a whole new light…