List-Mania: Who are your all time favorite character actresses?
Monday, June 4, 2018 at 9:49PM by Nathaniel R
With the announcement of the latest panel for the next celebration of actressing at the edges, how about a related list discussion? Who are you favorite character actresses ever? I've listed 21 of my favorites after the jump from throughout film history. This list was off the top of our heads so there's surely some glaring "how did you forget about ________ ???" examples of missing geniuses...
For the following list major stardom was NOT applicable. i.e. the actress can't be primarily a leading lady but she should be mostly known for supporting roles. People like Amy Adams and Julianne Moore don't count, we'd argue, because for as much as they've filled big filmographies with a lot of supporting roles, they're essentially leading ladies. Likewise some older ladies like Maggie Smith and Judi Dench that people think of as 'character actors' due to their age still semi-regularly take leading roles.
Anyway... the list!
21 FAVORITES
DEFINITELY NOT A COMPLETE LIST -- AND IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER
DELIGHTED WHEN THEY POP UP IN ANYTHING
(I'VE LISTED SOME KEY ROLES FOR EACH TO JOG YOUR MEMORIES)
• Maureen Stapleton (Interiors, Reds, Lonelyheart, Airport, Heartburn, Cocoon)
• Joan Cusack (Toys, Working Girl, Broadcast News, Shameless, Addams Family Values, In and Out)
• Celeste Holm (All About Eve, Gentleman's Agreement, The Snake Pit, High Society)
• Glynis Johns (The Sundowners, The Ref, Mary Poppins, Miranda, The Court Jester)
• Rita Moreno (One Day at a Time, West Side Story, Carnal Knowledge, The Ritz, The King and I)
• Ann Dowd (Compliance, The Handmaid's Tale, The Leftovers, Captain Fantastic, Nothing Sacred)
• Lee Grant (In the Heat of the Night, The Landlord, Shampoo, Damian the Omen II, Plaza Suite)
• Claire Trevor (Key Largo, The High and the Mighty, Marjorie Morningstar, Raw Deal)
• Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler, In the Bedroom, My Cousin Vinny, Untamed Heart, Love is Strange)
• Agnes Moorehead (Magnificent Ambersons, Bewitched, Jane Eyre, Citizen Kane, Dark Passage)
• Madeline Kahn (Young Frankenstein, Paper Moon, Clue, What's Up Doc?, History of the World)
• Thelma Ritter (Pillow Talk, With a Song In My Heart, The Misfits, Rear Window, Bird Man of Alcatraz)
• Barbara Harris (Family Plot, Freaky Friday, Nashville, Peggy Sue Got Married, Seduction of Joe Tynan)
• Fay Bainter (White Banners, The Children's Hour, Jezebel, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty)
• Regina King (Year of the Dog, Poetic Justice, Ray, American Crime, Miss Congeniality, Jerry Maguire)
• Miranda Richardson (Damage, The Crying Game, Sleepy Hollow, Dance With a Stranger, Spider)
• Ann Miller (Kiss Me Kate, Easter Parade, Mulholland Drive, On the Town, Stage Door)
• Dianne Wiest (Lost Boys, Edward Scissorhands, Hannah and Her Sisters, Parenthood, Rabbit Hole)
• Samantha Morton (Synecdoche New York, Harlots, Jesus's Son, Morvern Callar, Control)
• Hattie McDaniel (Show Boat, Gone With the Wind, Alice Adams, The Great Lie, Since You Went Away)
• Elsa Lanchester (Bride of Frankenstein, Bell Book and Candle, Naughty Marietta, Inspector General)
Reader Comments (73)
YAS VERONICA. see i knew i'd forget awesome people. I needed a top 200. ;)
I mean, this list is pretty spot on, but.... whither Judy Greer, Olivia Colman, Lupe Ontiveros, and Character Actress Margo Martindale?
And also nearly ALL of the Christopher Guest regulars: Catherine O'Hara, Parker Posey, Jennifer Coolidge, and Jane Lynch... and Beth Grant, Mare Winningham, Loretta Devine, and (much as I hate to say it, as she SHOULD be a massive leading lady star) Andrea Riseborough.
And of course, everyone's favorite, Laurie Metcalf.
Having just (re)watched Mother & Child (2009) — Annette! — we’ve got to add S. Epatha Merkerson, who was so sublime in that, as well as memorable in T2, Lincoln and, of course, Lackawanna Blues, which deservedly won her boatloads of awards.
Great list though I've always thought of Glynis Johns as a leading lady, but she's delightful no matter when she turns up.
Only 21!! Geez that only scratches the surface of the possibilities but I'll try to keep it within that range:
My one, two and three tops are:
Thelma Ritter
Eve Arden
Agnes Moorehead
So many others who I couldn’t possibly rank so in alphabetical order here are 30 off the top of my head…and I barely got out of classic Hollywood!:
Fay Bainter
Louise Beavers
Spring Byington
Diane Cilento
Faye Emerson
Edith Evans
Nina Foch
Connie Gilchrist
Sharon Gless
Margaret Hamilton
Isabel Jewell
Madeline Kahn
Susan Kohner
Elsa Lanchester
Marjorie Main
Hattie McDaniel
Ruth McDevitt
Juanita Moore
Mildred Natwick
Elizabeth Patterson
Elisabeth Risdon
Reta Shaw
Gale Sondergaard
Octavia Spencer
Jan Sterling
Genevieve Tobin
Claire Trevor
Lucile Watson
Chloe Webb
Mary Wickes
I think you may be a tad too liberal with your definition of character actress, particularly with Rita Moreno and Marisa Tomei, but to each his own. Fun list and exercise. Here’s my own:
Frances Conroy
Joan Cusack
Judy Davis
Loretta Devine
Melinda Dillon
Beth Grant
Madeline Kahn
Regina King
Elsa Lanchester
Angela Lansbury (admittedly a stretch of my own)
Cloris Leachman
Margo Martindale
Butterfly McQueen
Agnes Moorehead
Mildred Natwick
Catherine O’Hara
Elizabeth Peña
CCH Pounder
Thelma Ritter
Lois Smith
Dianne Wiest
My Top 10 (though I could include hundreds! Aren't great character actresses why we all watch movies and love TFE? ;)
Marisa Tomei
Parker Posey
Madeline Kahn
Agnes Moorehead
Eileen Brennan
Regina Hall
Veronica Cartwright
Judith Anderson
Christine Baranski
Dale Dickey
I think you may be a tad too liberal with your definition of character actress, particularly with Rita Moreno and Marisa Tomei
Don't let their beauty disqualify them from the categorization. Moreno never got leading roles in film, and Tomei's run as a leading lady ended rarely rapidly.
lovelovelove seeing all these names...
I would only add (or reaffirm):
Grace Zabriskie
Lupe Ontiveros
Beah Richards
Elizabeth Peña
Rosie Perez
We all just watched The Landlord and nobody says Pearl Bailey?
Double down on Posey, Kahn, Devine, Place. I’d add Jennifer Jason Leigh, Rinko Kikuchi, Julie Walters, Geraldine or Oona Chaplin, indie Lisa Kudrow, Clea Duvall.
NATHANIEL - thank you, I knew she slipped through your mind, basically as we all - including myself - tend to be so anglo/american focused when thinking about film... but Chus has always been fantastic, not only with Almodovar, I have to thank being spaniard to actually have followed and enjoyed her career - decades long - with many more different directors (some of them, brilliant, and in brilliant films) and have to say that almost everyone in Spain loved Chus and she's been called - with merit - the Spanish Thelma Ritter, which is probably the highest praise any character actress in Spain can achieve... my fave performances by Lampreave include...
"La Escopeta Nacional"
"Sé infiel y no mires con quién" - playing against type
"¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer ésto?"
"Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios"
"Belle Epoque" - Oscar Foreign Film!
"Espérame en el cielo" - she should have been nominated for an Oscar, in my book, for this one... a touching film in which both leads shine, one of the few times Chus was able to be more a co-lead than just supporting.
"La Flor de mi Secreto" - I hate this film but her acting duel with Rossy de Palma is one for the ages, and one of my fave acting duels in film history...
by the way, I insist, check out Screen Rant's "Pitch Meeting" series in youtube... so, so hilarious. You'll thank me afterwards.
@KBJr. -- nice!
Melissa Leo
Parker Posey
Laurie Metcalf
Lesley Manville
Jennifer Connelly & Ellen Burstyn (when supporting)
Regina King
Jennifer Jason-Leigh
Excellent topic and choices. Some personal favs:
Catherine O'Hara
Shelley Winters
Eileen Brennan
Lesley Ann Warren
Octavia Spencer
Patricia Clarkson
Loretta Devine
Lee Grant
Molly Shannon
Dianne Ladd
Parker Posey
Teri Garr
Tilda Swinton
Catherine Keener
Sally Hawkins
Regina King
Kristen Stewart
TOO MANY TO NAME!
A few additional names: Louise Beavers, Amanda Blake, Alice Ghostley, Juanita Moore, Mary Wickes, Jane Withers.
I second/third/whatever for Veronica Cartwright, Celia Weston, & CCH Pounder. They always bring their A Game to any project. Also, I don't think anyone mentioned Elizabeth Wilson (The Birds, The Graduate, Little Murders, Nine to Five, The Believers, etc, etc) so will do so here. Love her.
Dame Edith Evans (Tom Jones, The Chalk Garden, The Nuns Story, The Whisperers, her only starring role, which she was robbed of the Oscar after wining everything else, when they "Gave" it to Hepburn for Guess Who's Coming To Dinner" Because Spencer had died).
Peggy Mount (Oliver, Ladies Who Do)
Jo Van Fleet (I'll Cry Tomorrow, East of Eden)
Theresa Wright (Pride of the Yankees, Mrs. Miniver)
CCH Pounder (Everything)
Geraldine Fitzgerald
Colleen Dewhurst
Sandra Oh became a big star after GREY'S ANATOMY, but there was a time where she showed up in *everything*.
Other favorites:
-Christine Estabrook
-Christine Baranski
-Robin Bartlett
-Kathryn Hahn
-Mary Steenburgen
-And I'm gonna count Molly Shannon and Kristin Wiig, because they've both been very impressive when not being cast to be broad and wacky (such as Shannon in "Marie Antoinette" and Wiig in "mother!")
I can't believe it, but I think I'm the first to mention Mary Wickes, a true character actress across nearly a half-century of film... from White Christmas to Postcards from the Edge to Sister Act to her voice talents in Hunchback of Notre Dame... she steals every scene she's in and makes the most of smaller roles.
Some others that came to mind:
-- Frances Sternhagen
-- Beth Grant
-- Harriet Harris
-- Khandi Alexander
-- Alice Drummond
-- Kim Dickens
What a random yet inarguably wonderful list.
I love the Moorehead-Kahn-Ritter combo at the centre.
Surely they form some sort of Holy Trinity of character actress awesomeness.
Or really just a Holy Trinity of life.
Maura Tierney
Thelma Ritter
Shelley Winters
Nora Dunn
Kathy Bates
Teresa Wright
Patricia Hitchcock
Joanna Pettet
I know there are more....
I also cannot believe i forgot Rosie Perez while making this lists who i've loved forever and who recently was sensational yet again in RISE (even if the series itself was not sensational).
forever--You said Nora Dunn! Dayum, yaasss
I’m stunned you didn’t include Margo Martindale. She has a brilliant role on Bojack Horseman, playing “Character Actress Margo Martindale”