Actors: What they are best known for

In every film, the actor is casted to bring a specific set of tools to the movie that creates a character. Some actors are a close match to the characters development in the screenplay, some are not even close. When the right actor is found, a film will benefit from that actors skill, technique and presence.

 

Pulp Fiction was populated with "A-list" actors. Each one of these actors were instrumental in bringing the character they portrayed to life. As I stated earlier, if a different actor had been casted, the character they played would have been a little different, and the movie would have had a different impact on the viewer. This isn't to say that it would have been better, or worse, just different.

 

For the purpose of this assignment, I have chosen three actors from Pulp Fiction that have had successful careers, and bring certain elements to the screen.

 

Samuel L. Jackson

Samuel Leroy Jackson started his career playing drug addicts in small parts before transcending this type cast into the action hero genre film star. His vulgar language and loud, in-your-face style have predominated almost every role since. His skill at portraying an intelligent, dominating character shines through every movie he is part of. Even if he is not cast in the “main character” slot, his presence is felt throughout.

Bruce Willis

Walter Bruce Willis became a well-known actor starring in the television series “Moonlighting” where he played a private detective that always had something laughable to say. He moved out of that role into the hard charging action film star from films like the Die Hard series. His roles in films sometimes differ from this main genre, but as a whole, he is typecast as the gritty, loud and never stopping action hero going up against impressive odds.

 

 

John Travolta

John Joseph Travolta started his career on a television sitcom as a greaser/lover. He moved through his career in many typecasts, yet he is most thought of as the intelligent and ruthless elitist. Most of his roles he has presented a character that defines the movie, almost never the opposite. His presence brings a sense of suspense and intrigue to a movie.

All three of these actors have a presence on-screen that makes a movie a blockbuster. Each of them brings something special to a film, all of which anyone would expect from movie greats. For the purpose of the assignment though, let’s focus on one.

Bruce Willis has had a dramatic effect on how action movies are made today. His role as the tough New York City cop, John McClane, and all of the action packed scenes he brought to life with his witty banter with the bad guys, over-the-top gun play and determination to win at all cost has changed the landscape of the earlier action films. Of course he has had plenty of roles that where he doesn’t play this type of character, yet in all of his films he is has a singular strength about him.

Some of his roles have placed him in positions where his wittiness would have drawn from the movie, but even in these, he brings out the inner strength of the character such as in “Tears of the Sun” where he portrays a Lieutenant in the Army tasked with evacuating a civilian doctor from the forces of a corrupt dictator.

His other roles have a more dramatic flair to them such as when he portrayed a psychiatrist that was killed by a troubled man, and did not realize he had died until the end of the movie, "The Sixth Sense".

But of course the role that will always come to mind when his name is mentioned is that of John McClane from "Die Hard".

 

All sources come from Youtube.com, IMDB or my own head.