Kurt Russell names cinema’s one and only great actor: “Everybody else runs a distant second”
He may not be remembered as one of the finest thespians ever to grace the silver screen, but anyone who claims that Kurt Russell isn’t a good actor is wrong. According to the man himself, that’s all he – and anyone else, for that matter – will ever be: good and nothing more.
There are good actors, bad actors, mediocre actors, and actors who only ever play themselves, just as terrible actors become superstars and incredible actors never get the fame, fortune, and adulation they deserve. The way Russell sees it, the one thing every performer has in common is that they’ll never be able to achieve genuine greatness.
In general terms, that’s ridiculous. Would anyone look at the likes of Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, Daniel Day-Lewis, Katharine Hepburn, Denzel Washington, or Laurence Olivier at their peak and think: “Meh, they’re all good, but I wouldn’t call any of them great”? Hopefully not.
After all, those names are touted as some of the best actors in cinema history, because that’s exactly what they are. Nobody carves out that kind of legacy, wins that many awards, or lends their name to so many classics without being incredible at their job, so with all respect to Russell, “good” doesn’t come close to doing them justice, never mind the rest of Hollywood’s icons and legends.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, though, and Russell has been around the block and back enough times to form one of the most knowledgeable. Not everyone gets to boot Elvis Presley and then become a confidant of Walt Disney within a couple of years when they’re still a kid, but he’s literally grown up in the business and seen generations of talent come and go.
It’s a bold proclamation to make, but Russell stuck to his guns when he stated with the utmost confidence and certainty that no matter how hard any other working actor tried, the best they could ever hope for was to fall into the OK-to-good category because one name was holding the rest of them down.
“I think there’s only one great actor in the world,” he declared to The New York Times. “Marlon Brando. Everybody else runs a distant second to him.” While it’s not an earth-shattering announcement to hear a star call Brando the pinnacle of the entire profession, what about everyone else?
To underline the sheer madness at the heart of Russell’s lofty claim, all anyone needs to do is take a glance at the Academy Awards. He called Brando cinema’s only great actor in the summer of 1981, sandwiched between the 53rd and 54th editions of the Oscars.
Some of the names shortlisted for the four acting prizes across those two years are De Niro, Nicholson, Hepburn, Streep, Robert Duvall, Peter O’Toole, Joe Pesci, Paul Newman, Burt Lancaster, Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, and, most ironically of all, Goldie Hawn. Those are all phenomenal actors who fit seamlessly into the bracket for greatness, despite Russell’s insistence that the rarefied air belongs to Brando and Brando only.
