by Dale James

Created on: January 31, 2007   Last Updated: October 26, 2011

To establish the greatest actor of all time it is first essential to define what makes a great actor. It can be many things, the ability to convey emotion, exposition and character effectively, the skill of working with a camera, or an actor's rise to a challenge in acting. In some ways, it is all of these things. However it is also an actors fundamental responsibility to be a chameleon as much as possible. In classical terms the players of Shakespearian tragedy would not claim any more fame than the words themselves. Ultimately, the function of an actor is to entertain, entrap, bemue, amuse, liberate, intimidate and in some instances, terrify his or her audience. Hence it is the audience's response that defines his or her success. An actor must sink beneath his role and be forgotten in his act, yet be ever present enough to be remembered as great. the quintessential in this regard is Anthony Hopkins. Although he is an immensely famous and succesful actor he has not fully earned the title of 'celebrity'. His roles are in soem ways more famous than he is. All who watch 'Silence of the Lambs' (Johnathan Demme, 1991) remember a psychopathic cannibalistic menace who gave them nightmares for days on end. All who saw "Remains of the Day" (James Ivory, 1993) remembered a cold, emotionally repressed yet pitiful character in Mr Stevens, aware that they were seeing Antony Hopkins, yet assured they were witnessing the sad demise of a hard working English Butler.

Of course, Antony Hopkins is not the only performer capable of vanishing beneath his role. Nor is he the only chameleon by any respect. Many actors have created a common ground for each of their characters by which they may play similar roles and yet leave each one as indisputably seperate from the last. If any actor but Al Pacino were to have played both Scarface (De Palma, 1983) and Michael Corleone in The Godfather (Coppola, 1972) he would be then considered irrevocably typecast. His performance between these two characters is, on the surface, quite similar. He is always Al Pacino, yet rather than detracting from the believability of his performance, it manages to actually improve his credibility. The awareness that Pacino is at the helm of such a character is comforting to the audience. He is a trusted figure, an actor of such a talent that no role could be above him.

Other names that could be attributed to this category of great actors are Jack Nicholson, Johnny Depp, Michael Caine and the somewhat underrated Adrien Brody. By this standard, any of these could take place on the list of the all tme greatest actors.

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