Character Actresses

[Swift]

The mention of character actors always seems to come with the image of grizzled middle aged men, never any women. Let's rectify that.

 

I'll throw a few favourites out... Kathy Bates. Frances McDormand. Patrica Clarkson. And most of all Beth Grant

[Ace]

Robin Weigert

 

Carol Kane

[piranesi]

I take this as an opportunity resurrect what i can piece together of a post from the old board about Frances Bay.  An amazing woman who was one of the great PEOPLE WHO WERE NEVER NOT OLD of all time:

I was watching PRIVATE SCHOOL...the awesome 1983 teen sex comedy with Matthew modine and Phoebe Cates.  One of the running gags is a bunch of  uptight old ladies who are donors to this school...like super old...and one of them was really familiar.  I thought maybe she was also the mean old lady in EASY MONEY, so I IMDB'ed this mother and it turned out to be Frances Bay, probably best known as "little gramma" from HAPPY GILMORE and as the old lady that Jerry Seinfeld stole th emarble rye from on SEINFELD, but who also apperared in a bunch of David Lynch stuff, including TWIN PEAKS and BLUE VELVET.

Now, HAPPY GILMORE and the marble rye thing are from 1996, so I'm wondering how long she spent playing old ladies, because she already looked to be in her 60s in 1983.  So, let me introduce you to Frances Bay...the woman who was never not old.  She managed to have a 30-year acting career after PRIVATE SCHOOL when she was already playing "Super old lady No. 5"  She was still going up to her death in 2011, at the age of 92.

Born in 1919 (for comparison, that is the same year as Jackie Robinson, Jack Palance, Sir Edmuned Hillary, and Donald Pleasence) in Manitoba, she enjoyed some fame on CBC during WWII.  And that's it.  She got married and became a housewife and gave up her early dream to act:
 

"I always wanted to be an actress.  I felt so little about myself, considered myself such a sparrow. Not just my size. I thought I was so plain.... I did plays not to show off but because if I did that — I didn't realize it at the time — I would be somebody other than this person I didn't really approve of. I guess that's true of a lot of actors."

Her first film role came at the age of 60 when she played an old lady in FOUL PLAY.  After that followed over 160 credits on IMDB AFTER AGE 60!!!, about half of which contain the word "old" or "granny" or somethign similar right in the character's name and nearly 20 of them coming after a car accident caused the amputation of her right leg.

So let's all raise a toast to one of the great unsung heroes of film and t.v.

 

 

 

Here she is at the age of 88, offering online advice to teenagers.  This is pretty amazing actually:

Here's a pretty haunting clip where she talks about David Lynch and then about how "you can't live in the past" (this is a 92 year old woman saying this):

Here is what must have been one of her last performances, in some student festival short film that isn't very good and that I can't find anything about and isn't on her IMDB page:

 

In 2008 she was given a star on the Canadian Walk of Fame...and I hereby dedicate this message board to Frances Bay.  Everything that is awesome about movies.

Right back at you, babe!

[EricR]

When I think "character actress" I don't think of somebody like Frances McDormand. She's just an actress. If McDormand is a character actress then so is Kate Winslett. I mean, McDormand has been nominated for 4 Oscars and often gets top billing. 

 

When I think character actress, I think of somebody like O-Lan Jones, who's probably popped up in more movies or TV shows playing a waitress than Dean Norris has playing a cop. 

 

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0428952/

[odessasteps]

Joan Cusack?

Before her renaissance a few years ago, i would have said Helen Mirren.

[driver]

Wouldn't Brooke Smith fit the bill?

[Jingus]

I'd throw a cookie to my favorite why-the-hell-has-her-career-sucked-so-much redhead, Alicia Witt. In the right material, she is amazing. Playing either a troubled oddball or an airheaded bimbo, she's pure distilled 200-proof awesomesauce. But if you stick her in a generic leading lady or sidekick role, she sadly just doesn't have that uber-rare ability to take any shitty part and turn it into something awesome, like for example your aforementioned Joan Cusacks, so her very real talent often gets lost in the flood of forgettable bit parts she's essayed.

And either she's got the worst agent in the world, or a terrible nose for scripts, or just has Chris Walken Syndrome where she'll immediately say yes to any damn offer that comes her way. I mean, 88 Minutes and Four Rooms and a WWE movie and that controversial new Raging Bull sequel and multiple Lifetime Original Pictures and supporting roles in countless mediocre made-for-television movies and justly-forgotten chick flicks and shitty indy comedies and even debuting in goddamn Dune, pee-yoo! But if like me you're into crimson-haired creamy-skinned brainy goodness and you're willing to give some offbeat shit a try, take a chance with Joint Body or Fun or the episode "D-Girl" on The Sopranos or even a European miniseries version of "The Ring of the Nibelungs" (which played on SyFy under the name Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King but don't let that scare you off, it's shockingly good).

Especially try to track down an episode entitled "Blackout" of a very short-lived, very obscure David Lynch television series on HBO called Hotel Room; it involves Witt as a thoroughly insane housewife who has been dragged to 1930s New York City by her well-meaning but oblivious and rather bumpkin-esque husband (Crispin Glover!) in an attempt to get her some hifalutin' head-doctorin' in the big city. The entire thing is just two people having a dysfunctional conversation for forty minutes straight in a dark room, with both people trying to pierce through her madness and communicate, and it's pure fucking magic.

[Ryan]

Her career peaked on Criminal Intent! .....

[Execproducer]

She wasn't very good on Criminal Intent. Dale Dickey, of Winter's Bone and Spooge's woman fame, fits my bill.

[odessasteps]

Her career peaked on Criminal Intent! .....

 

i would have said the cybil shepherd tv show.

[mco543]

I'd go with Urban Legend as her career peak.

[Zimbra]

Maybe not as true now that she won an Oscar, but Melissa Leo is who I think of when I think of a character actress.  Didn't have a real leading role for most of her career, but always turned in a killer performance.

 

I was also always a big Hope Davis fan.

[odessasteps]

Mamet traveling players

Lindsay Crouse

Rebecca Pidgeon

Cherry Jones

[Niners Fan in CT]

Anna Faris. Always a good laugh. She never fails to bring a smile to my face.

[Elsalvajeloco]

Anna Faris. Always a good laugh. She never fails to bring a smile to my face.

If we're going to use people from Waiting... then Alanna Ubach sits atop the list.

 

 

 

 

From one end of the spectrum to another.

[Fat Spanish Waiter]

CCH Pounder?

[Ace]

I'd throw a cookie to my favorite why-the-hell-has-her-career-sucked-so-much redhead, Alicia Witt. 

 

To be fair, Acting's just one of the things she does. Right now, I think it's taking a backseat to music. 

[Jingus]

Her career peaked on Criminal Intent! .....

Costarring as the tertiary lead in the role of a generic ballbustin' detective (playing the replacement of a replacement) on a painfully formulaic procedural which is only the third-best entry in its own franchise (behind Law & Order: Ice-T Retracts "Cop Killa" and Law & Order: Rape Rape RapeRapeRape RAPE), appearing in the D'Onofrio-less off weeks that nobody gave a shit about in a grand total of five episodes before promptly being sent back to her home planet and dying on the way there? If that's a PEAK, then I'd hate to see the fuckin' valley. 

i would have said the cybil shepherd tv show.

Hell, that's barely a joke, Witt was great on that show. She was kinda playing herself, a kooky absent-minded genius. That's the first place I noticed her, my mom loved that show and occasionally I'd be walking through the living room whilst the TV was playing it and suddenly my 15-year-old head would whiplash around towards and all I could think was "...what IS that entrancing creature?" 

I'd go with Urban Legend as her career peak.

        I couldn't possibly disagree any more strongly with that. 

Anna Faris. Always a good laugh. She never fails to bring a smile to my face.

Again, she's probably a bit too famous for the purposes of this thread, but oh good lord do I love that girl. Every time she's sincerely delivering some sappy idealistic monologue in pick-your-least-favorite Scary Movie while crazy mayhem is happening right behind her oblivious back, I start getting the Snowball Giggles: that is, nothing at first, followed by nearly inaudible chuckling, eventually building all the way up to outright tear-streaked oxygen-deprived guffaws. She's got what they call "funny bones", the ability to take absolutely anything and make it hilarious. Like, her glorified rape scene in Observe and Report? That should NOT have been tolerable, let alone FUNNY, but she made it work. 

CCH Pounder?

Can anyone who costarred in the single most popular movie of the modern age really be considered obscure? And she's had prominent main-cast roles on lots of big TV shows. But she certainly ain't a household name and certainly is a damn fine actor, so I'd say she probably counts for this.BTW... I've recently made an effort to refer to all thespians as "actor", regardless of their gender. I realized: hey, why the fuck does "female actor" get a whole separate word and awards-show categories, as if they were Very Special Guests in the world of acting while male performers are considered to be the norm? I wouldn't be surprised if it were a holdover from the medieval days, when actresses were forbidden by law in most Western nations because of murky Catholic reasons.

[Fat Spanish Waiter]

I didn't know CCH Pounder was in Avatar until a few weeks ago, I doubt many others do. She is the winner IMO.

[SturmCRF]

Anne Ramsey! Best Terrifying Old Lady In The World. She was in The Goonies, which I quite enjoyed when I eventually sat through it in its entirety, after fleeing in horror when I saw the first half an hour aged six. But more importantly, she was in Throw Momma From The Train. 'Owen! Your friend's had an accident. He's dead. Go bury him in the yard before he stinks up the place' might be the greatest line in all of cinema, and no one could have delivered it better.

[J.T.]

I didn't know CCH Pounder was in Avatar until a few weeks ago, I doubt many others do. She is the winner IMO.

 

I agree.  She plays a witch that turns into a fucking ogre in the Mortal Instruments movie that is out now.  She sprouts a scorpion tail and stabs some guy in the back.

 

Her roles have been all over the place.

[EVA]

CCH Pounder is the epitome of a character actress.

Margo Martindale, as well.

[EricR]

No winner shall be declared until the mention of Grace Zabriskie. 

 

Also Nancy Parsons.

 

And jeez people Karen Black JUST passed away.

 

I also love whenever Mary Kay Place turns up. She's like Dianne Wiest without Oscars.