10 of the best actors from your country...

Name your country and ten of its best actors...

USA:

- Cliff Robertson
- Dennis Hopper
- Joseph Cotten
- Lee Marvin
- James Stewart
- Steve McQueen
- Robert Mitchum
- Clint Eastwood
- Kevin Kline
- Tom Cruise

USA

Jimmy Stewart
Jack Nicholson
George Clooney
Tom Hanks
Jack Lemmon
Clint Eastwood
Al Pacino
Robert De Niro
Kevin Spacey
Gary Busey

Not much from out country, so I'll name actresses too!

Australia
Cate Blanchett
Geoffrey Rush
Guy Pearce
Heath Ledger
Mel Gibson
Judy Davis
um....
Nicole Kidman's not too bad, I suppose....

Can't stand Sam Worthington or Russel Crowe. Chris Hemsworth is passable, but nothing special. Haven't seen Simon Baker in anything. Cate, Geoffrey and Guy are probably our greatest exports at the moment.

I think Simon Baker's pretty good when he's not looking like a metrosexual.

UK:

- Paul Schofield
- Sir Alec Guinness
- Sir Lawrence Olivier
- Richard Burton
- Robert Shaw
- Sir Donald Pleasence
- Ian Richardson
- Sir John Gielgud
- Sir Peter Ustinov
- Charles Laughton

Subject to change.

FieldsMan wrote:

Not much from out country, so I'll name actresses too!

Australia
Cate Blanchett
Geoffrey Rush
Guy Pearce
Heath Ledger
Mel Gibson
Judy Davis
um....
Nicole Kidman's not too bad, I suppose....

Can't stand Sam Worthington or Russel Crowe. Chris Hemsworth is passable, but nothing special. Haven't seen Simon Baker in anything. Cate, Geoffrey and Guy are probably our greatest exports at the moment.

Leo McKern? Peter Finch? Hugo Weaving?

Sharky wrote:

FieldsMan wrote:

Not much from out country, so I'll name actresses too!

Australia
Cate Blanchett
Geoffrey Rush
Guy Pearce
Heath Ledger
Mel Gibson
Judy Davis
um....
Nicole Kidman's not too bad, I suppose....

Can't stand Sam Worthington or Russel Crowe. Chris Hemsworth is passable, but nothing special. Haven't seen Simon Baker in anything. Cate, Geoffrey and Guy are probably our greatest exports at the moment.

Leo McKern? Peter Finch? Hugo Weaving?

Haven't seen them in anything. Well, apparently Hugo Weaving was in the Transformers films, but I can't remember him in them. Can't remember the film at all, really, except for me wanting Shia laBoof to die at the end of the film... :pirat:

Finch was born in the UK, but raised in Australia (according to IMDB).

Have you watched NETWORK yet, FM? It's one of Shark's favorite films, IIRC.

No, I haven't. But going by the rating on IMDB, plus the fact Faye Dunaway's in it, I may just have to hire it.

I think you'll like it.

FieldsMan wrote:

Not much from out country, so I'll name actresses too!

Australia
Cate Blanchett
Geoffrey Rush
Guy Pearce
Heath Ledger
Mel Gibson
Judy Davis
um....
Nicole Kidman's not too bad, I suppose....

Can't stand Sam Worthington or Russel Crowe. Chris Hemsworth is passable, but nothing special. Haven't seen Simon Baker in anything. Cate, Geoffrey and Guy are probably our greatest exports at the moment.

Errol Flynn?

Just glad you left Hugh Jackman off. Kidman probably deserves to be up there. Her problem is more boring role choices than a lack of talent.

FieldsMan wrote:

Sharky wrote:

FieldsMan wrote:

Not much from out country, so I'll name actresses too!

Australia
Cate Blanchett
Geoffrey Rush
Guy Pearce
Heath Ledger
Mel Gibson
Judy Davis
um....
Nicole Kidman's not too bad, I suppose....

Can't stand Sam Worthington or Russel Crowe. Chris Hemsworth is passable, but nothing special. Haven't seen Simon Baker in anything. Cate, Geoffrey and Guy are probably our greatest exports at the moment.

Leo McKern? Peter Finch? Hugo Weaving?

Haven't seen them in anything. Well, apparently Hugo Weaving was in the Transformers films, but I can't remember him in them. Can't remember the film at all, really, except for me wanting Shia laBoof to die at the end of the film... :pirat:

McKern's top notch in The Prisoner then there's Day the Earth Caught Fire even the Mouse that Roared

Albania

 Victor Gojcaj
 Fatmir Haskaj
 Hazir Sh. Haziri
 Anisa Ismaili
 Agim Kaba
 Laureta Meçi
 Sulejman Pitarka
 Hila Popaj
 Visar Vishka
 Mentor Zymberaj

Random listing

Canada

Bill Shatner
Christopher Plummer
Keanu Reeves
Jim Carrey
Mike Myers
Donald Sutherland
Victor Garber
Kevin Durand
Nathan Filion
Kiefer Sutherland

France

1 - Alain Delon
2 - Louis de Funès
3 - Jean Gabin
4 - Jean-Paul Belmondo
5 - Gérard Philipe
6 - Jean Reno
7 - Lino Ventura
8 - Vincent Cassel (would have been a great René Mathis I think)
9 - Gérard Depardieu
10 - Jean Dujardin

UK, in no particular order.

1. Michael Caine
2. Alec Guiness
3. Robert Shaw
4. James Fox
5. John Hurt (give the man a knighthood)
6. Dirk Bogarde
7. Laurence Olivier
8. Stanley Baker
9. Richard Burton
10. Christopher Lee

Russia


Oleg Yankovsky (1944-2009) - The star of numerous Soviet melodramas and comedies, post-Soviet art-house, and four Tarkovsky films.



Oleg Menshikov (1960) - Best known for the Burnt by the Sun films, East/West, Prisoner of the Mountains, and Barber of Siberia.



Evgeni Leonov (1926-1994) - The most-loved character actor.



Vladimir Mashkov (1963) - Versatile leading man, best known for The Thief, Idiot, a Russian Bond-spoof, The Edge, and a few Hollywood turns including M:I-Ghost Protocol.



Evgeni Mironov (1966) - Probably the most talented of the bunch, is best known for Dostoevsky, Idiot, the afore-mentioned Bond spoof (as an albino Zorin-like villain), House of Fools, Burnt by the Sun, and The Muslim.



Andrei Mironov (1941-1987) - A musical and comedic powerhouse, star of dozens of Soviet-era classics.



Sergei Bezrukov (1973) - The go-to actor for biopics of tormented poets, including Pushkin, Esenin, and Vysotsky. Best known for the 1990s Russian mafia saga Brigada and for playing Jesus in a Master and Margarita adaptation.



Evgeni Evstigneev (1926-1992) - Brilliant ironic wit, best known for The Heart of a Dog.



Vyacheslav Tikhonov (1928-2009) - Best known as the legendary Stirlitz in Seventeen Moments of Spring, about a Russian spy in the upper echelons of the Nazi regime.



Sergei Bodrov Jr. (1971-2002) - Russia's most promising actor until he and his crew died in an avalanche in the Caucasus mountains. Best know for the Brother gangster films, East/West, and ironically Prisoner of the Mountains.

Thanks for that, GG. Apart from the obvious examples like Eisenstein, Tartovsky, Sokurov, and a few others, I'm not too familiar with Russian or Soviet cinema and television. I'm watching 17 MOMENTS OF SPRING now on Youtube with English subtitles. Looks incredible.

I highly recommend Seventeen Moments Of Spring. I maintain that Tikhonov would've made a superb Bond had he been born an Englishman. :)

Canada

Bill Shatner
Christopher Plummer
Keanu Reeves
Jim Carrey
Mike Myers
Donald Sutherland
Ryan Gosling
Ryan Reynolds
Nathan Filion
Kiefer Sutherland

I've updated my list to include Ryan Gosling and Ryan Reynolds, dropping two others. I'm trying to go with the biggest commercial names here, not necessarily the best actors or even my favourites, although my own preferences are obviously a factor.

CJB wrote:

I highly recommend Seventeen Moments Of Spring. I maintain that Tikhonov would've made a superb Bond had he been born an Englishman. :)

His Stirlitz character is as much a cultural icon of Russia as Bond is of Britain. Seventeen Moments of Spring is still considered the benchmark for a TV film in Russia. And a rarity for the Soviet era - it was directed by a woman, Tatiana Lioznova.

Tiffany - how could you forget Leslie Nielsen, Dan Aykroyd, and Lois Maxwell - all surely more iconic than Sutherland Jr, or Reynolds?

GeneralGogol wrote:

Tiffany - how could you forget Leslie Nielsen, Dan Aykroyd, and Lois Maxwell - all surely more iconic than Sutherland Jr, or Reynolds?

Well the list is quite arbitrary obviously, but I'm leaning more towards current stars. Reynolds and Kief are both doing a lot of high profile work these days. I left out another famous oldie in Raymond Burr too, the former Ironside.

the lists aren't including women either. that's a different list.