In Praise of the Third or Fourth Billed

Don’t know about you but during this pandemic, I have watched a wide range of video.  From series shot on a shoestring in Alberta to epic movies that I missed in theatres in the before times, I have consumed a ton of stories.  Some are great tales, Mare of Easttown and The Leftovers stand out. Some are total fantasy trash like A Discovery of Witches and The Ministry of Time.  Some are cop shows like Cardinal and Bordertown. Some have great writing and some have great scenery, some occasionally have both but usually you get one or the other.  

 

As anyone who has been to the cinema knows, a star’s name is often the first thing to draw your attention. Orlando Bloom, Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchette, these are the people whose names rest above the title beckoning you to give the unknown tale a watch.  Rare is the star who alone can carry the story, who can keep you from turning the television off when you go to the fridge for a snack. A story needs something more, it needs fleshing out, it needs meat on its bones. A story can’t be a soliloquy, it needs a population for the lead to act off of. This is where the lesser stars and character actors come in.

I offer two examples for your consideration, one of each gender, Lesley Duncan and Bruce McGill.  Who?  

 

Well, let us start with Bruce McGill. McGill is a near ultimate in character actors.  He seems paycheck driven because he will be the good guy, the bad guy or the sociopathic guy-it just does not seem to matter to him. Note well there are bigger stars who fit this category, Donald Sutherland and Gene Hackman come to mind as actors more than happy to accept a large paycheck in a vehicle devoid of artistic merit. 

 

McGill is always working. The first time I remember him was in the 1970s back when you could still smoke in movie theatres.  I went with a bunch of dorm rats to see National Lampoon’s Animal House. McGill came roaring onto a weed smoke obscured screen on his cycle in the iconic role of D-Day. McGill as D-Day embodied everybody’s dangerous friend from their college years. He was the long-haired wild man wandering the halls at 3 AM returning from activities best left unknown.

 

Jump a head a few years to when Miami Vice was the hottest thing on TV.  Vice created stars.  Vice broke new music like Glenn Frey’s Smuggler’s Blues. In the middle of the show’s meteoric run there was McGill playing a psycho ex-cop gone mad.  Under strains of Dire Strait’s Brothers in Arms McGill acted with insane passion the role of cop who had walled up the biggest villain he could not convict Cask of the Amontillado style. His frenzy, his intensity kept more eyes locked on the screen for that episode than Crockett’s white suit and fast car.

 

McGill has been in series after series on the networks, from Rizzoli and Isles to the current Reacher series on Amazon. His movie roles include but are not limited to Animal House, The Sum of All Fears, Elizabethtownand My Cousin Vinny.  There are so many others that my digit grew tired scrolling the iPad as I looked over all the titles in his career.  But there he was in each roll usually as some minor official his chest puffed out and acting like he knew more than he actually did. Invariably he can be seen speaking loud and fast.  As soon as he appears on screen you know the all the salient details of the character’s story just by McGill inhabiting the role. Like M. Emmet Walsh and Jack Elam before him, you know what his character represents once he makes his first entry onto the screen.

 

And then there are the actors who for the most part elevate whatever movie or series that are in.  For this kind of actor, I offer as an exemplar Lindsay Duncan.  Ms. Duncan is an elegant chameleon. She can play common or aristocratic.  She can play English or Australian.  She can play comedy or drama and do each well. She can do art-house cinema and trashy series.  In her most recent role on A Discovery of Witches she plays a thousand-year-old aristocratic vampire.  Does it get trashier than that?

 

She has been in films like Birdman, Mansfield Park and Under the Tuscan Sun. She has been in series including A Year in Provence, His Dark Materials, Traffik, Wallender, The Leftovers and A Discovery of Witches.  I think my favorite role for Ms. Duncan was as John Thaw’s wife in the light comedy of Provence.  She had a certain stoic grace as the wife of an English couple who had relocated to the French countryside. She was the couple’s sane and sensible rock as her husband ran afoul of the local hidden rules, norms and customs of the Provence countryside.  I have to say though her role as Grace Playford, outback rancher, in The Leftovers was a particularly strong dramatic punch. 

 

Big stars may draw us to buy the ticket or queue up something into our watch lists on streaming services, but the others actors are what make the story come alive.  Sure, Ed Harris and Bonnie Bedelia were the leads in Needful Things but it was J.T. Walsh’s breakdown in the phone conversation with Max Von Sydow after he had killed his wife that you remember when the movie is over. “These things happen”. 

 

Character actors can elevate entire franchises.  Where would Justified have gone if it didn’t have Walton Goggins playing Boyd Crowder? You may not know their names.  In fact, you may only be able to describe a character actor you like as “that fella who was in that movie, you know who I mean.” Still, without the B- and C listers film and television would not be the same.