Michael Clarke Duncan names his five favourite movies
Actor Michael Clarke Duncan was a true force in his craft. He was best known for playing John Coffey in the 1999 film The Green Mile, directed by Frank Darabont and based on Stephen King’s 1996 novel of the same name. The performance earned Duncan a nomination for the Academy Award for ‘Best Supporting Actor’.
Aside from his breakout role, Duncan also performed in the Marvel film Daredevil as the villain Kingpin, a role he also voiced in Spider-Man: The New Animated Series. Duncan went on to play in Planet of the Apes, The Scorpion King, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and Kung Fu Panda. He sadly passed away in 1957 at the age of 54 after suffering a heart attack.
When it comes to Duncan’s favourite movies, he once told Rotten Tomatoes that he is just a “fan of movies, period,” which makes it difficult for him to name any particular films. However, in the same breath, he picked out five films that just seem to work on a deeper level than any others. Let’s take a quick look at them now.
The first film Duncan chooses is the 1956 religious epic The Ten Commandments, directed by Cecil B. DeMille, starring Charlton Heston, and based on the Biblical book of Exodus. The film shows the story of Moses and how he receives the Ten Commandments from God and frees the Hebrews from Egypt.
Duncan said of the film: “Charlton Heston. Heston was unbelievable. Man, for me, to act like that in such a prolific film is unbelievable to see. I can sit and watch that over and over and over and over again. You can’t get better than Charlton Heston. He was just unbelievable in that film, that’s all.”
The Green Mile actor then admitted that his next choices might sound “a bit weird” before naming two Arnold Schwarzenegger classics, 1982’s fantasy film Conan the Barbarian and Commando from 1985. The former is directed by John Milius and tells of a barbarian warrior who vows to have his revenge after his family is killed by a cult leader.
Duncan then picks out Michael Bay’s 1998 science fiction disaster movie Armageddon, starring Bruce Willis, Liv Tyler, Ben Affleck and Billy Bob Thornton. It tells of NASA’s plot to destroy a meteor the size of Texas that is heading to Earth by sending up an oil driller (played by Willis) to bore a hole into it so they can drop inside and detonate a nuclear bomb. Duncan finishes off with a cheeky mention of The Green Mile.
Michael Clarke Duncan’s favourite movies:
- The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 1956)
- Commando (Mark L. Lester, 1985)
- Conan the Barbarian (John Milius, 1982)
- Armageddon (Michael Bay, 1998)
- The Green Mile (Frank Darabont, 1999)
