Items15The creator’s order
  1. 1Adam WestAdam WestBorn Sep 19, 1928Batman in the 1966 television series West’s Batman treats every absurd emergency with complete seriousness, and that is what makes the jokes land. Compare him with Mayor Adam West on Family Guy. The character is an exaggerated version of the actor, but the joke still depends on how confidently…0
  2. 2Leonard NimoyLeonard NimoyBorn Mar 26, 1931Spock in Star Trek Spock makes small changes in expression carry more weight than most speeches. Compare him with the Great Paris, the master of disguise Nimoy played on Mission: Impossible. Nimoy later drew on that show’s habit of giving each team member a specific job when he directed Star Trek…0
  3. 3Peter FalkPeter FalkBorn Sep 16, 1927Lieutenant Columbo in Columbo Falk makes the lieutenant’s apparently casual questions feel like a patient method of taking a story apart. In Wim Wenders’s Wings of Desire, he plays a version of himself. That film is a good place to see what his unassuming manner can do when nobody is waiting for…0
  4. 4Henry WinklerHenry WinklerBorn Oct 30, 1945Fonzie in Happy Days Fonzie is in control even when he barely moves. Winkler’s acting teacher Gene Cousineau, in Barry, also knows how to command a room, but that confidence can unravel in seconds. The latter performance won him a Primetime Emmy and makes a sharp companion to the role that…0
  5. 5Carrie FisherCarrie FisherBorn Oct 21, 1956Princess Leia in Star Wars Fisher’s Leia takes command even when the people around her think they are staging the rescue. For another side of Fisher’s work, read Postcards from the Edge. Its blunt comic voice carries some of the same impatience with easy answers, on a page Fisher wrote herself.0
  6. 6Mark HamillMark HamillBorn Sep 25, 1951Luke Skywalker in Star Wars Luke’s earnestness is what makes his anger in the later films count. If that is the Hamill you know, try his Joker in Batman: The Animated Series. The laugh and the way he stretches a threat before letting it drop show how thoroughly he could change the impression he…0
  7. 7Christopher ReeveChristopher ReeveBorn Sep 25, 1952Superman and Clark Kent in Superman The way Reeve adjusts his stance between Clark and Superman is part of the effect. In The Remains of the Day, he plays Jack Lewis, an American who attends a conference at an English country house. His directness has a different kind of force in a room where…0
  8. 8Angela LansburyAngela LansburyBorn Oct 16, 1925Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote Lansbury made a mystery novelist’s curiosity inviting enough to follow into a new case every week. For a different use of her composure, watch The Manchurian Candidate. The certainty that puts people at ease in Jessica Fletcher becomes much more unsettling in…0
  9. 9Linda HamiltonLinda HamiltonBorn Sep 26, 1956Sarah Connor in the Terminator films Put The Terminator beside Terminator 2: Judgment Day to see how far Hamilton changed Sarah Connor’s bearing between films. Then try her Dr. Kay in the fifth season of Stranger Things. It gives her a different relationship to power, with the character issuing…0
  10. 10Kelsey GrammerKelsey GrammerBorn Feb 21, 1955Frasier Crane in Cheers and Frasier Grammer carried the same psychiatrist from somebody else’s bar into a sitcom of his own. Start with Frasier if you want to see how much comedy he can get out of a man explaining himself. His recurring turn as Sideshow Bob on The Simpsons takes that same…0