Eddie Murphy
Best Known Comedic Roles: “48 Hrs,” “Trading Places,” “Beverly Hills Cop,” “Coming To America,” “The Golden Child,” “The Nutty Professor,” “Bowfinger” and the “Shrek” franchise.
Best “Serious” Dramatic Turn: Murphy proved to be canny casting in Bill Condon‘s big-screen adaptation of Broadway musical “Dreamgirls,” as R&B star Jimmy “Thunder” Early, and picked up an Oscar nomination for his trouble. The film as a whole is kind of a misfire, but Murphy’s tremendous in it, the part smartly channeling his ego, his enormous charisma and his darker side into a role that’s part Marvin Gaye, part James Brown and part, well, Eddie Murphy. He’s a joy to watch when Early’s on top, and surprisingly wrenching when he’s on the way down.
Other Dramatic Roles Of Note: Murphy’s mostly stuck to comedy otherwise, albeit to varying degrees. Directorial debut “Harlem Nights,” co-starring Richard Pryor, is actually a fairly straight-ahead crime picture: slaughtered by critics at the time, it’s worth reevaluation. “Metro” is probably the closest thing he ever made to a pure action movie, and he’s rather moving in Ted Demme‘s underrated 1999 film “Life.” He’s about to return to drama, though, leading “Cook” for “Driving Miss Daisy” director Bruce Beresford.
Emma Thompson
Best Known Comedic Roles: The British actress started off her career in the famous Cambridge Footlights alongside Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, and went on to star in TV sketch show “Alfresco” and her own short-lived sketch show “Thompson.” She broke out on the big screen in Richard Curtis-penned rom-com “The Tall Guy,” and has since featured in big-screen comedies including “Nanny McPhee” and “Men In Black 3.”
Best “Serious” Dramatic Turn: Thompson, who’s arguably better known as a dramatic actress now at least in the U.S, won the Oscar for “Howard’s End,” but we’d probably pick out her performance the following year in “The Remains Of The Day” as her finest dramatic hour. The Merchant/Ivory adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro‘s novel is a masterpiece of British repression, and Thompson is wrenching as Miss Kenton, the housekeeper who loves Anthony Hopkins‘ Stevens (and vice versa), though neither can bring themselves to say it. It’s a warm, sly, surprisingly sexy and principled turn, poking and prodding at Stevens in the hope of a reaction and desolate when one fails to come. In its anti-”Downton” indictment of the culture of the British class system, Thompson’s performance is one of the key pieces of evidence.
Other Dramatic Roles Of Note: Thompson was also Oscar-nominated for “In The Name Of The Father” and “Sense and Sensibility,” and probably should have been for her excellent Hillary Clinton surrogate in “Primary Colors.” More recently, she was good in “Brideshead Revisited” and “Saving Mr. Banks,” and gave an ace vocal turn in Pixar’s “Brave.”
Steve Coogan
Best Known Comedic Roles: “The Day Today,” “I’m Alan Partridge,” “Around The World In 80 Days,” “Night At The Museum,” “Tropic Thunder,” “The Other Guys,” “The Trip,” “Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa”
Best “Serious” Dramatic Turn: If we’re being honest, Coogan’s very best performance is as Tony Wilson in Michael Winterbottom’s Madchester masterpiece “24 Hour Party People,” but the film is as much comedy as drama, and it owes a little something to Coogan’s trademark Alan Partridge performance. If we’re talking pure drama, then the British comic’s finest hour to date is in 2012’s “What Maisie Knew,” the somewhat underseen adaptation of the Henry James novel by Scott McGehee and David Siegel. Coogan and Julianne Moore play the feuding parents of the titular Maisie, and both are tremendous, with Coogan particularly revelatory: the performer’s always played in the sandbox of ego and self-absorption, but there’s still a remarkable lack of vanity in which he plays the selfish, feckless art dealer father. It’s not a turn without nuance: Coogan give the character real charm and he does clearly love his daughter. But he’s also a man as concerned with scoring points against his ex as anything else, and it’s admirable the way that Coogan avoids falling back on his comedic skills to water down the character.
Other Dramatic Roles Of Note: Aside from his collaborations with Winterbottom, with “A Cock And Bull Story,” “The Trip” movies and “The Look Of Love” all joining “24 Hour Party People” (and mostly riffing on a similar type to diminishing returns), Coogan’s also strong in “Marie Antoinette” and “Ruby Sparks,” and last year admirably played a quietly angry straight man in the Oscar-nominated “Philomena,” which he co-wrote.
Jerry Lewis
Best Known Comedic Roles: “My Friend Irma,” “At War With The Army,” “The Stooge,” “The Caddy,” “The Delicate Delinquent,” “Artists And Models,” “Cinderfella,” “The Bellboy,” “The Nutty Professor,” “Boeing Boeing”
Best “Serious” Dramatic Turn: Former Dean Martin partner, France’s favorite funnyman, telethon hero and noted sexist Jerry Lewis had been away from the screen for nearly a decade after the disaster of his still-unreleased holocaust drama “The Day The Clown Cried,” but Lewis went quite some way to redeem himself by teaming up with Martin Scorsese for “The King Of Comedy.” Lewis was totally inspired casting as a Johnny Carson-ish talk show host (Carson was actually first choice for the role) kidnapped by demented fan Rupert Pupkin (Robert De Niro) looking for his big break. Lewis is such a pro that he absolutely sells that Jerry Langford could be a beloved TV funnyman, but the character is hardly an always-on kind of guy: he’s a steely professional who no longer seems to take any joy from laughter or his fans, particularly ones who tie him up in their basement. It’s a sour but not unsympathetic performance that was truly revelatory for Lewis.
Other Dramatic Roles Of Note: Lewis has mostly stayed away from drama (and indeed from movies altogether) in the last few decades, but has generally been impressive when he does go there: he’s good alongside Johnny Depp in Emir Kusturica’s “Arizona Dream” and in oddball curio “Funny Bones” with Oliver Platt and Lee Evans. More recently, he returned to the screen in the drama “Max Rose.”
