by Corky von Texasheim

Created on: June 20, 2008

I remember a cold morning, sitting eagerly in front of the television set as the nominees for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress were being read in early 1995. The last name to be read was "Dianne Weist." Shortly after I remember screaming "Where the hell is Kirsten Dunst?!" Dianne Weist (Bullets Over Broadway) did a fine job, but where was Kirsten?!

Kirsten's missing name that year from the rolls of people being nominated for Oscars wasn't the first time I felt one of my favorite performances was ignored. When I saw Interview with the Vampire I was completely blown away at the subtlety a child had in capturing an old woman trapped in an eleven-year-old girl's body.

I wondered if her being overlooked by Oscar was a sort of "Tatum-Linda" effect, referring to the year in which Tatum O'Neal (a little GOOD girl, Paper Moon) won over Linda Blair (she played a demon... obviously not a good girl, The Exorcist), since Anna Paquin's performance the year before in The Piano garnered her an Oscar. Patty McCormack also lost the Oscar the year she was nominated for The Bad Seed, though, unlike Little Kirsten, at least she was nominated.

Sometimes I'm shocked because performances are recognized by the general public, as well as Oscar, for their genius, especially if "unglamorous." Kathy Bates in Misery comes to mind. Annie Wilkes was a really perfectly portrayed character, and right there with Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter (The Silence of the Lambs) as one of the greatest film villains of all time.

Sometimes just small, subtle moments stick out from certain film scenes that make such an impact visually on me as a viewer, that because of that alone the actor shines. Cate Blanchett's pale, statue-like face at the end of Elizabeth; Glenn Close's Marquise de Marteuil trying to calmly remove her make-up at the end of Dangerous Liaisons; Dustin Hoffman's anger at ex wife Joanna, played by Meryl Streep, in the restaurant scene in Kramer vs. Kramer (obviously since we're speaking subtleties, I mean before he threw the glass at her); Jodie Foster mechanically lighting a cigarette and placing it in an ashtray in the motel scene in Taxi Driver as she explains her rates as a young prostitute to Robert DeNiro.

Some actors are such a master of voice that they don't even appear on the screen at all. Ellen Degeneres' voice performance in Finding Nemo was beyond amazing, conveying the character of the fish Dori so well that it pulled this adult into the film; Park Overall in Talk

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