[Garrett]

Doing my obituary column I nearly always find myself getting more upset with the death of second or third string actors rather than the really big, big stars.
I really like the smaller actors then the big Hollywood names, eg 2 names mentioned on an other thread today Vladek Schabel and Anton Diffring and from recent deaths JD Cannon and Lane Smith to me the screen light up when they came on screen.

Not saying I do not like the big stars as Peter Cushing is my favorite actor and I always enjoy Rod Taylor although not as big a star as he was. And some of the ladies that’s an other thing cannot miss mentioning Famke Janssen.

But it was actors like Ivor Dean, Leo McKern, Ed Bishop, Dinsdale Landon and one that’s no dead yet Tom Adams yet not see for some time I like the better over the big stars like say, well perhaps thas best not said.

Anyone else like the little stars?

[dennis]

yup you can keep the so called stars,i was a fan of anton diffring since i was a little boy,he frightened me as a german officer.died in his 80s in france a few years ago.

[gargoyle]

One of my all time favourite 'small' actors just has to be Kenneth Colley (the empire strikes back, firefox) - the perfect, much put upon militia!

[NicolasB]

A lot of "minor" stars tend to be in the position that they are because they're good actors. The majority of "stars" tend to impose their own personality on a role - the audience knows in advance what (say) Tom Cruise is going to be like in a film, regardless of the character he's playing. But it's only if the audience does have a good idea in advance of what a "star" will be like that they can make a decision to watch the film based on his being in it. Thus, only "stars" who do this ever make it to the very top.

Even very well known, high-calibre actors and actresses (Judi Dench, for example) rarely end up playing the lead in anything - they do the character parts, and therefore tend not to make it to the very top - but are often (IMO) much more enjoyable to watch.

[Battle]

I think Daniel Day Lewis is an actor that is seriously under rated - he immerses himself completly in the role hes playing so you get a completly different performance for each of his films

Take Gangs of New York - fantastic film and apparently Mr Lewis went around in character for the entire time he was filming.

So much better that the more formulaic "stars" that just rehash the same characteristics over and over again in everyone of their films