The line, "There are no small parts, only small actors” is believed to have been first said by Russian actor and director Constantin Stanislavsky. The Academy could have taken that line to heart, because they had, on several occasions, acknowledged actors with smaller egos and paychecks, and shorter screentime.
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| Beatrice Straight in Network http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcXIktL55Gw&feature=related |
Beatrice Straight won an Oscar for her supporting role in Network (1977). She was onscreen for less than five minutes. I remember loving the book about bad television by Paddy Chayefksy (who also wrote the screenplay) back in high school, then rushing to a moviehouse during its provincial run. I was blown away by its theatrics, including Straight’s turn as a wife wronged by husband William Holden. I thought posthumous Oscar winner Peter Finch’s line, I’m mad as hell as hell and I can’t take it anymore, was the cleverest ever.
30 years after, I saw Network again. What was I thinking? The film didn’t age well. Everything about it was shrill. Peter Finch was Jerry Springer ten times over, before reality TV became a genre. Faye Dunaway also overplayed it, yet won an Oscar. And Straight seemed like she knew she only had 5 minutes to impress the Academy.
Dame Judi Dench took all of 8 minutes to bag an Oscar. I like watching Dench but she remains the dame as Queen Elizabeth, Daniel Craig’s boss, the woman in Italy who had tea with Mussolini, Mrs. Henderson or whoever. If you’d give her one of the cheerleaders’ roles in Glee, she’d sing a cheesy song in staccato, with an evil squint and an imperious stare.
In my book, the greatest-actor-in-a-small-part award goes to Viola Davis in Doubt (2008). She appeared in just one scene, for less than 10 minutes. She did the impossible – she made Meryl Streep the smaller actor.
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