In no particular order.

Cate Blanchett

Yeah, sure, start with the best actor working today. How creative. Well, here we are. She does have eight Oscar nominations, with two wins and possibly a third one on Sunday. But that’s not it. I’m not against that, but what I like about her is this:

She’s not some self-important artiste, nor is she in it for the money. Sure, she’s very rich, but at the same time she will do weird little things like this.

There’s also her work as Hela. It just seems like she is having so much fun in playing that all-powerful evil goddess, who goes around easily putitng people in their places.

Bill Nighy

Speaking of music videos:

Could he be my anxiety as well?

But Nighy is a comedian, so this is just expected. But you know when this one little appearance is the best thing about something? Like Slartibartfast in the 2005 Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. He does the conflicted role so well. He is so enthusiastic, but also just sad at the same time and it works. Then there’s his small role in Doctor Who from 2010:

I’m not the biggest fan of the series, but I’ve seen quite a bit of it and this is definitely my favorite scene.

I haven’t even seen all the movies, but is also the best part of Pirates of the Caribbean. Hot Fuzz is a great movie, but he still manages to be the highlight (and those scenes should tell you a lot about how much people respect him within the comedic community in the UK).

Katharine Hepburn

Again, it’s kind of easy to like an actor with four Oscar wins from 12 nominations. Still, that’s not the important part. There’s a story that she disliked using dresses, so she didn’t. When a producer tried to steal her trousers to force her to wear a dress, she just wouldn’t and would walk around the set until she got her trousers back. She would not just get put down by the societal norms like that. She was also in a relationship with a married man for 26 years, because lines that were made to be crossed for her. She would do her own stunts, because she didn’t feel the stunt performers captured her well enough. There’s so many things she has inspired, like Hannibal Lecter’s voice among other weird things.

Some selected quoted:

I don’t regret anything I’ve ever done; As long as I enjoyed it at the time.

People have grown fond of me, like some old building.

Afraid of death? Not at all. Be a great relief. Then I wouldn’t have to talk to you.

My father, a surgeon and urologist, studied sex professionally all his life. Before he died at 82, he told me he hadn’t come to any conclusions about it at all.

Life is full of censorship. I can’t spit in your eye.

Life is to be lived. If you have to support yourself, you had bloody well find some way that is going to be interesting. And you don’t do that by sitting around wondering about yourself.

If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get married.

Barbara Crampton

When Jay Bauman was doing Re:View (Red Letter Media) on The Guest with the writer Simon Barrett, one of the first things Jay Bauman does is thank Simon for bring back Barbara Crampton in You’re Next. At the time she hadn’t worked on screen in a few years.

She has a weird career. She’s done almost 600 episodes in four different soaps, but at the same time she’s widely known as a scream queen, but I think either side of her career underplays her abilities as an actor. It has been beneficial, though, that she is so willing to do what was required, especially back in the mid-80s on both Re-Animator and From Beyond, and while those were a long, long time ago, Jakob’s Wife from 2021 is also a good movie. Sure, it seems like a genre horror movie, but she still brings it, elevating the movie with Larry Fessenden into a wonderful exploration of a wife empowered in later life.

Tom Waits

He has been bringing the same energy to movies as he does to music for a very long time now. I guess I do miss him making music, but what can you do?