In an interview Christopher Walken once explained that he wanted to create a character that would eventually have people write characters toward.
“You know… we need a sort of slightly off center, almost crazy, kinda… you know… Christopher Walken-type. Um, hey… is Christopher Walken available?”
In character acting this is golden. Walken created a type. Other really great actors along that line are the dearly deceased Andreas Katsulas and Vincent Schiavelli.
Actresses have a much harder time at this because you want to create a character, not fall into a stereotype. But sometime the stereotype is great because it does guarantee work. One favourite in recent years who’s gotten great exposure as ‘the older woman’ is Alice Drummond
But recently I was looking thru television actors to see what they’d done previously. As I mentioned, I’ve been heavily into Heroes of late. One of the Actresses on the show is Ali Larter. Ali plays multiple personality disorder, super strong Jessica and her primary personality Niki.
Looking thru her resume I also noted that she was in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Ironically, not really playing a character too far from what she does in Heroes. She’s managed to create that, “No, no.. more intellectual than white trash, but strong… Really strong, like not afraid to cut you with a knife to defend someone or shut you up… I mean… is Ali Larter available?”
This is a good thing because this is a specific niche that she can use, grow, and develop in her current series and in other shows and films.
So just a general thumbs up for superior character work for Ali Larter.
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See I remember her from Final Destination 2 more than anything. She’s good at playing that “little bit crazy”
This is a good thing because this is a specific niche that she can use, grow, and develop in her current series and in other shows and films.
Well, that and a whipped cream bikini…but that won’t last as long. 🙂
I don’t know that she’s forming this type of character that’s strong as much as ‘pretty yet smart’. Final Destination 2 and House on Haunted Hill (her early ‘genre’ work) painted her more as the smart and pretty heroine, your typical horror ingenue with the difference that she wasn’t just a naive pretty face, but rather an intelligent and much more worthy prey to the horrors presented in both films. (Both films were much better for it, too, with the addition of Taye Diggs in HoHH as ‘the black guy who isn’t scared all the time, isn’t comic relief, and doesn’t get killed in the first ten minutes’.)
I think she -is- going to become the go-to gal for roles previouslu offered to Holly Hunter or Michelle Pfeifer, now that they’re a little long in the tooth to play the tough-as-nails single mom in every drama that comes down the pike. Heroes certainly has the exposure for Ali, and I think she has the chops. That places her well out of Walken territory and into (dare I say it) Oscar territory. Supporting actress, maybe, but definitely not character actress.
Sorry, I need to digress for a second.
I didn’t realize that Andreas Katsulas had died. *waaaaahhhh!* *sniffle*
That’s two from the B5 cast now, dying far too early.
*double sniffle*