Who's the best actor on the planet?

Alec Baldwin would be a deserving addition to this list.

Great actor.

 

For his scene in Glengarry Glen Ross if nothing else.

 

He'll never top that scene.

His early work in Married to the Mob and Miami Blues is highly underrated.

 

How long until Alma posts the name of some Indonesian actor who nobody on here has heard of who has starred in a series of silent short films that were only released in Jakarta?

 

Nicely done.

 

That dude is so yesterday.

 

Johnny Depp, without question.

and I'll add Brad Pitt. Even his crappy, crappy movies (Meet Joe Black, Troy) are watchable because of his screen presence.

 

Johnny Depp, Russell Crowe, Streep, Julianne Moore, Sean Penn, Angelina Jolie

 

First one that popped into my head was Edward Norton. He's the only reason I'll even think about giving The Incredible Hulk a shot.

Primal Fear (meek altar boy/ruthless killer)
Fight Club (sad sack insurance adjuster/badass underground fighter/domestic terrorist)
Rounders (slimy card shark)
American History X (jacked up neo-Nazi/reformed older brother)
The People vs. Larry Flynt (lawyer)
Red Dragon (serial killer hunting cop)
25th Hour (contemplative drug dealer)
The Italian Job (turncoat heist man)


Amazing range, equally effective in all manner of roles. Picks excellent scripts and therefore has very few clunkers (Death to Smoochy is an exception).

Johnny Depp gets a lot of love, but I often find him too schlocky (Pirates and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory jump to mind). I think Norton is a much more 'natural' actor, for lack of a better term.

Perhaps his only demerit is a lack of comedic acting, but I gravitate toward dramas and action movies anyway, so that doesn't bother me much.

 

Someone else mentioned Brad Pitt and, I have to say, his acting skills are quite underrated, I think. He gets a lot of credit for being a 'movie star' with screen presence and all that, but - like Norton - he always seems very natural in his roles.

When he first got big, I kind of chalked him up as a 'pretty boy,' but he's impressed me in a lot of his roles (plus he's the star of one of my favorite movies of all time, 'Seven'). Leo DiCaprio is similar.

 

Pitt is way underrated as an actor. So is DiCaprio.

People downgrade them because of stuff they did early in their careers (Legends of the Fall, Titanic) but both have incredibly impressive resumes and have resisted doing the big budget films that I'm guessing both are offered daily.

 

I saw a preview for a Pitt movie that looked very interesting. His character is born a very old man and ages backwards. He has a romance with Cate Blanchett.