Catching up with Walton Goggins
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Could he have a whiter name? Points against him, that's all.
My first exposure to him, at least consciously, was in Hateful Eight. Something about him tugged at me like he's probably something to pay attention to. Acting isn't really my thing, but my thick walls can be penetrated to some extent. The greatest ever, Brando, is what, again? Did he have some extraordinary process or something? Or did he just have a gift? And what gift was that, again? The guy couldn't even memorize his lines? Really? He read them off cue cards? Really?
None of that is to diminish the craft of acting, and I'm sure it's a craft, but then you also know that the best ever, was actually not a craftsman. Or maybe some can frame him as a craftsman. Dude was lazy as fuck though. Ended up his life at 300 pounds.
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But then the next greatest actor, Nicholson, you hear stories about him doing the A Few Good Men speech, first take, like it's perfect, and I know that can't be easy, but he had the narrative in his head and he kept it there and he did it with the cameras on him and that's why he's Nicholson. Also I hear stories of him calling himself a writer, because he gives script advice to his director, and that advice becomes some of the best stuff in the movie. I guess it is what it is.
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I don't buy any of those as the greatest actor. Brando is good, as is Nicholson. But the people I look to are Robert Duvall, Goggins, Gandolfini (his physical acting was unreal). People who just disappear unto a character. Costner has gotten a lot better over the years. It's awfully hard to judge actors without considering the pieces they are in.
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Audrey Hepburn drove Bogart to drink. Of course, it was a very short drive.
Seriously, when making Sabrina, they'd have to shoot scenes multiple times, because she was young, nervous and would flub lines.
Bogie believed in blocking it right to begin with, then one and done.
