Character Actors: A Character Study

Analyzing four great performers.

There are a lot of actors out there. Sometimes I count myself as one of them. And if there’s anything I’ve learned about “the craft” over the years, it’s that there’s no one way to be an actor. It’s perhaps the slipperiest art form. I often think about what makes a great actor, or what qualities make an actor’s performance go from good to great, from respectable to legendary, from memorable to immortal. Though hard to define, most people will say it’s some combination of technique, charisma, fearlessness, and honesty. But it’s also highly subjective. I happen to love Keanu Reeves, and you may not (in which case you can fight me). You may think Meryl Streep is the greatest actress of her generation, while someone else may find her overrated. And you could both be right!

I recently finished Isaac Butler’s excellent 2022 book The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act, which I highly recommend. The book covers the origins of the most ubiquitous acting techniques in the West, bridging the careers of Constantin Stanislavsky to Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler and Sanford Meisner and their many disciples. Their techniques and philosophies trickled down through the generations, bringing us acting titans like Marlon Brando, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Paul Newman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Daniel Day-Lewis, Meryl Streep, and so many more.

But those are just the actors you’ve heard about. All those people studied with dozens of other excellent actors whose careers have been largely lost to time. Actors, even great ones, have so little control over their careers and legacies. Marlon Brando may have set the stage and then the screen on fire as Stanley Kowalski, but Karl Malden was in both the Broadway and the film adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire too. He just never became a movie star. Why do some actors become A-listers and others never crack top billing?

This brings me to the "character actor."

It’s a beloved genre of performers who are often relegated to the most thankless roles. They’re the best friend, the favorite aunt or uncle, the tragic ex, the comic relief. They’re the ones who help the hero reach their goals, learn their lesson, make their mark. Strangely, it can also be its own insurance policy. So many ingenues and leading men age out of their “type”, or peak too early and start to bore audiences. A character actor can work forever, continually reinventing themselves to make a career out of being a scene stealer.

It’s a lucrative niche to occupy, and a time-honored tradition that has given countless actors great careers, albeit on the sidelines. It’s also a complicated one. For generations, Hollywood rewarded actors in marginalized communities with the consolation prize of the character actor label, denying them the accolades they rightly deserved in favor of often stereotypical or one-dimensional characters. Hattie McDaniel is the most notorious example, but people like Nathan Lane and even Danny Trejo have fallen victim to the curse of the character actor. They all still managed to make a meal out of these morsels, but it’s hard to ignore the ways the industry has used the character actor label to keep actors, particularly actors of color and LGBTQ actors, in their “rightful place” below the title.

Judy Greer, arguably one of the most successful character actors, wrote a whole book about it, 2014's I Don't Know What You Know Me From: My Life as a Co-Star, and has parlayed her identity as the quintessential co-star into its own kind of brand. These days, there’s even a tier of character actors that “breakthrough” mid-career, Jennifer Coolidge being the most recent example. But the category includes folks like Colman Domingo, Michelle Yeoh (really anyone in Everything Everywhere All at Once), Taraji P. Hensen, Mads Mikkelsen, and Steve Carell.

Those people all stuck it out and got their moment in the spotlight so they don’t need any more shine from me. Instead, I want to highlight the careers and contributions of four actors who I feel never quite got their due, or perhaps are yet to. Everyone has their own selection of unsung actors, these are mine. I hope this list makes you think about which actors have meant something to you, and that you take some time to appreciate all they add to our cultural landscape. They’re the real ones.

1. Thelma Ritter

What a friggin’ legend. To me, Thelma Ritter is the classic character actress of the fifties and sixties: equal parts brassy and warm, sharp-tongued and sentimental, she wins you over instantly. And, in perhaps the most obvious indication of how the industry both valued her work and took it for granted, she is tied for the record for the most nominations for Best Supporting Actress, but she never won. She was nominated six times, tying with Amy Adams and Deborah Kerr (Glenn Close still holds the record for the actor with the most nominations without a win, across both acting categories). My favorite film of hers, and one of her most famous, was when she played Jimmy Stewart’s nurse Stella in Rear Window. We watched it all the time on DVD, and in my opinion, her performance really makes the movie. She’s also in one of my favorite movies of all time, All About Eve. I’ve never seen her play a false note in anything she’s done, and she’s funny to boot! All hail Thelma Ritter.

2. Henry Travers

I was recently watching Shadow of a Doubt and had the classic character actor thought, “I know I’ve seen him in stuff but I can’t think what.” Thankfully Google exists, so I can tell you he’s most famous for playing Clarence the Guardian Angel in It’s a Wonderful Life. Duh! Henry Travers was one adorable man. A British actor who excelled both on stage and screen, he was a real workhorse. He made a couple of movies every year between 1933 and 1949 and really made the most of his talents and idiosyncratic performance style. He’s also a perfect example of someone who continued to age into their type throughout their career, he often played older than he was even early in his career.

3. Lance Reddick

I’m still sad about Lance Reddick’s passing almost two years ago. He was so compelling, so empathetic, and so talented. He was a true character actor in the era of peak television, flexing his sizeable acting chops on The Wire, Lost, Oz, Bosch, and so many others. His final film appearance was in the latest John Wick installment, where he had a recurring part as the Hotel Continental Concierge Charon. A graduate of Yale School of Drama, he was best known for dramatic roles, but he was also intensely funny. One of my favorite things he’s ever done was appear on The Eric Andre Show as himself, and in a bit where he dressed up as a mash-up of Kunta Kinte from Roots and Geordi LeForge from Star Trek: The Next Generation and said, “I wish I were Levar Burton,” over and over again, in addition to other things I can’t repeat here. It’s so silly and funny and provocative and so perfectly demonstrates how charming he was. A lesser actor would never have agreed to make such an appearance, but he’s having so much fun. Our world is so much poorer without his talents!

4. Giancarlo Esposito

Giancarlo Esposito’s career has verged on a renaissance many times. He’s been acting professionally since childhood and has experienced both the highs and lows of what the entertainment industry has to offer. Most tellingly, he’s collaborated many times with Spike Lee, appearing in films that sought to correct Hollywood's painfully white-washed atmosphere, and he’s most famous for portraying drug kingpin Gus Fring on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. Despite battling rampant racism and prejudice in his career, he elevates even the most basic material into a viscerally memorable performance and does it with such a light touch it seems effortless. He’s one of those actors who manages to subtly transform into each character he portrays, all while preserving something of his unique essence. He’s endlessly watchable and exhibits a real generosity that makes everyone else in a scene with him look good. He’s appeared in several franchises and big-budget blockbusters but has yet to really have his moment as a leading man. Hollywood, hear my plea! Give this man a leading role or I’ll riot!