It’s both a gift and a curse, the role of the supporting actor. Come on too strong and over-the-top and you detract from the main character’s story, looking like an attention seeker. Play it too quietly and you’re forgotten, left by the wayside by more interesting performances.
Supporting character’s can vary from the lead’s best friend, to the big bad villain to the girlfriend. Either way it takes a special skill to win the audience over whilst playing a supporting role. Whilst watching a movie the mind is automatically drawn to the story of the main character or protagonist, with the outcome of their endeavours proving to be the thing you care about most by the time the credits roll.
Over the years however, there have been a few who have stolen the limelight with performances playing off the lead role. Characters who’s screentime proved the most engaging and electrifying over the course of the movie, despite more important things going on around them.
Here, in no particular order, are 10 supporting characters that stole the spotlight and made themselves the most memorable thing over the course of a film.
10. Sergeant Dignam (Mark Wahlberg) – The Departed
Martin Scorsese’s dark, action-packed thriller tracks the turbulent lives of double agent’s Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio as they try and bring down Jack Nicholson’s crime lord. It’s a gritty and tense affair, set in the violent streets of Boston, packed with stars in the shape of the aforementioned actors, as well as impressive turns from Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen and Ray Winstone.
However none of these performances come close to the surprising turn from Mark Wahlberg, playing loudmouthed dedective sergeant Dignam.
Channelling his Boston roots, Wahlberg is snarling and scathing, rude and volatile as DiCaprio and Damon’s boss. Dignam is the kind of character you can’t help but love. Good with his fists but far more brutal with his mouth, Wahlberg steals absolutely every scene he features in, whether it be exchanging casual and bitter insults with his boss Baldwin, or verbally tearing his work colleagues a new one for any possible mistake they make.
He keeps up a remarkable intensity throughout every moment he spends on screen, exhibiting naked, unashamed rage at everybody who gets in his way. He’s rude, loud and violent, characterising Scorsese’s Boston brilliantly, and proves to be the highlight of an excellent movie.
9. Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) – The Matrix Trilogy
Unfortunately, the sequels to the original and by far most impressive Matrix film have not proven to be kind to Smith, who’s character went from extreme to extreme. However, the brilliance of the first film revolved around the superbly sinister Smith, who sought to end his human foes once and for all with a bitter efficiency.
With Keanu Reeves not bringing too many acting chops to the table, Weaving acts him off screen with a wonderfully measured performance, blending robot-like tendencies with a bitter and terrifying hate for those that oppose him.
As a machine/man, Smith is truly electrifying to watch as he calmly and coolly threatens, fights and works his way towards winning the war against the humans. The one moment where he truly lets the persona drop, spilling his guts to Morpheus in a convincing and unsettling scene, is fantastic, and Smith is quite possibly, after the special effects, the most memorable aspect of the first movie, which remains an exhilarating classic.
8. Deputy Marshal Sam Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones) – The Fugitive
The classic chase movie starring Harrison Ford boasts an absolutely fine performance from Jones, who dominates the screen and is totally electrifying whenever he is on it.
It’s a performance so thrilling that every moment he is off screen feels like a pause. Gerard is a no-holds-barred, dedicated and thorough cop, who will stop at nothing to catch the wrongly accused Richard Kimble. Like a tracker dog, as long as he has the scent, he will not stop.
Though his fellow cops are constantly convinced Kimble is either dead or out of reach, Gerard ruthlessly sticks to his guns and is absolutely cool as he does it. He also provides the majority of the laughs and is a thoroughly likeable character, putting the audience in a good position. You almost want Kimble to be caught just so Gerard can succeed.
7. Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt) – Twelve Monkeys
Terry Gilliam’s bizarre time travel movie chronicling the desperate and unhinged James Cole(Bruce Willis) journey through time to find out the cause of a virus that has wiped out the majority of the world’s population in the future was a disturbing, puzzling and enthralling experience, keeping us guessing with it’s ambiguous messages and leaving us nonplussed with an ending that was totally up for interpretation.
Brad Pitt, who has excelled when playing more offbeat roles throughout his career, plays an inmate at the mental hospital Cole is submitted too at the beginning of the film.
From his introduction, Goines is wild, mad, but more human and realistic than his fellow inmates, rattling off a thought-provoking rant within his first few moments on screen and continuing the intensity and wild-eyed mania throughout his story.
With so much going on in the film, it’s difficult to process individual scenes and characters, but Goines stands out a mile with a fantastically crazy attitude and a number of tic’s and phrases that really make you hunger for to see him more. The balance is hard to strike when playing somebody mentally ill, with actors often portraying crazy to the point it’s obvious they are acting, but Pitt plays Goines with realism, making him a really likeable character of whom you miss when he’s not on screen.
6. Aaron Stampler (Edward Norton) – Primal Fear
This sweeping, twisting courtroom drama was devilishly surprising and tense throughout. It was a totally engaging and thought-provoking experience that played with the audience nicely, but the suspense and entertainment were provided almost entirely by Norton’s character, Stampler.
The Oscar nom for Norton really kickstarted his career, and justifiably so, for his performance was absolutely and totally convincing playing opposite lead Richard Gere.
Stampler is at times, disturbing and unsettling to watch, with manifestations of schizophrenia as a would-be murderer. He’s utterly chilling, with a problematic and well-worked back story providing the real meat in the story. You can’t take your eyes off Norton, who you can tell has researched and practiced his character thoroughly in preparation. His stuttering delivery, intense stare and obvious psychological torment make him the obvious talking point of the film, and it’s hard to see it being nearly as watchable without him.
5. Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) – Goodfellas
Pesci picked up an oscar for his startlingly fantastic performance in Scorcese’s gangster thriller.
The film tells the story of low level mobsters in New York, also starring Robert DeNiro. Pesci plays violent and fully psychotic Tommy DeVito in an absolutely spellbinding performance which draws your eyes from his first scene to the last.
Pesci utterly embraces the role, diving headfirst into the violent and brutal character and as a result proving the most watchable thing amongst a host of intriguing characters. DeVito is utterly unpredictable and as a result, terrifying to watch, for you never know when the violence is going to come. Inevitably it does, and the conviction of Pesci’s acting truly keeps your focus.
Thuggery and violence are always shocking on the screen, but DeVito’s more than just a thug. He’s remorseless, calculating and scary in his actions, and thus fascinating to watch.
4. Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) – No Country For Old Men
Shiver inducing in his execution, relentless in his tracking, and remorseless in his actions, Chigurh is one of the great movie psychopaths that stays in your head well beyond the film is over. He seems almost supernatural in the way he stalks the desolate and violent ravaged landscapes of the Coen brother’s thriller.
While Josh Brolin and Tommy Lee Jones are also fantastic, it is Bardem’s character that shocks you, combining lopsided grins with a freakish hair cut as he kills mercilessly.
Telling his story almost entirely with facial expressions, Chigurh is haunting and bewitching as so many of the Coen’s darker characters have been, and totally steals the film, proving hellishly memorable for hours, even days after the film’s conclusion.
3. Darth Vader (James Earl Jones/David Prowse) – Star Wars (Episodes 4-6)
Is there a more recognisable sound in the world of film than the respiratory device of Vader’s going to work? Is there a more quoted and recognisable quote than: “I am your father”?
Darth Vader is a powerhouse, an evil yet complex behemoth trained in the ways of the force. He’s imposing, impressive, terrifying and awe-inspiring as he stalks the galaxy, always threatening and by far the most interesting thing in Lucas’ world.
As a result, he steals the films. That’s a big statement to make of course, as the films have gone down in history and memory forever as classics, but Vader is as big a part of that as anyone.
Like all the best villains, there is a heart brimming beneath the surface, longing for his son and wondering if his place below the Emperor is truly the best he can do. But on the outside he is a cold, metal beast, capable of ending a man’s life with a casual raise of the hand, absolutely commanding the screen as he one day hopes to command the galaxy.
2. Dickie Ekland (Christian Bale) – The Fighter
Christian Bale once again showed his commitment to performing a role by shedding a tonne of weight to play crack addicted former boxer Eklund in David.O.Russell’s stunning and provocative boxing movie featuring Mark Wahlberg, Amy Adams and Melissa Leo.
Bale picked up the Best Supporting Actor gong at the Oscars for his performance; and rightly so. He had plenty to dig into for Dickie, who was a complex, disturbing and haunted character who wants his brother to succeed for partly selfish reasons.
Eklund, who was knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard in the highlight of his career, has delusions of grandeur and glory, believing himself to be, along with his brother, the pride of his home town, though others only see him as a washed up junkie, which of course, he actually is.
Bale performs the role with extreme authenticity and strength, somehow winning us over despite his character’s unreliability and manic antics plaguing his brothers attempts at breaking out of Lowell’s crack-addled streets in a typically inspiring rags to riches tale.
1. The Joker (Heath Ledger) – The Dark Knight
Ok, where do I start?
There’s been a lot of buzz and recollection about Christopher Nolan’s awesome trilogy in recent times, and quite rightly so, and thus many have been inspired to look back at the spellbinding performance of Heath Ledger in the role of the joker.
Christian Bale’s conflicted, brooding and dark Batman is superb. Gary Oldman’s honest and likeable Cop is fantastic. Morgan Freeman is wonderful. Aaron Eckhart is fantastic. But the film belongs to The Joker from the moment he first pulls off his mask to deliver the chilling line; “Whatever doesn’t kill you simply makes you… stranger”.
Constantly dancing on the precipice of madness, yet calculated and convicted. He’s complex, corrupting, enchanting and you cannot take your eyes off him throughout. Each scene peels another layer off one of the most devilishly brilliant characters of all time, unfolding the disturbed psyche of a cadaverous and unhinged villain, smirking and giggling his way through Gotham’s collapse, laughing at his opposition, uncaring about the possibility of his own death.
The Oscar was a given. Ledger will live forever in this performance, bringing a wonderfully well written character to life in a way so few of us could even begin to imagine.
Anyone else I missed, let me know….
