Who do you think is the most talented actor/actress that you've seen?

[bumblebeewine]

For me, it's Pamela Rabe. So underrated but so immensely brilliant. Also think Jessica Lange is amazing.

Who do you think is the most talented actor/actress you've ever watched?

Has no one mentioned David bamber yet??

Pride and prejudice and more recently camping. Was ridiculously good....

@Elderflower14 he is absolutely fantastic in the third season of True Detective too.

@Elderflower14

I LOVED Dominic West playing Richard Burton... Helena Bonham Carter`s Liz Taylor less so!

Helena Bonham Carter is very good at playing Helena Bonham Carter.

Her Princess Margaret is basically the same character as her Elizabeth Taylor. Vanessa Kirby was so much more subtle and nuanced in her portrayal. Wish they could have kept her on for the 3rd series. Claire Foy too - I really disliked Olivia Coman in the role.

The woman who played the lead role in unorthodox was amazing.

I think its the ones that are good on both stage and screen. I saw John Thaw as Wolsey in Henry VIII at Chichester years ago - mesmerising and he wasn't known for Morse then so completely out of the range of characters he was known for. He got a standing ovation for that. Judi Dench falling over and hurting her ankle in Coriolanus and then completing the performance on a stick was pretty incredible too.
Felicity Kendal was also amazing at Chichester for her ability to act all around a round stage and I saw Maureen Lipman in an ensemble piece where she didn't dominate the rest of the cast which is quite a skill when you're that famous.

Art Malik.

Also, I recently caught an old episode of EastEnders and Lindsay Coulson stood miles above the rest of the cast.

Have just scrolled through to see if my favourite has been mentioned but no - probably because he isn't famous enough! But a few years ago now at a Shakespeare festival in Morecambe my husband and I saw an actor called Tony Howes do a one man show of A Midsummer Nights Dream. He did all the characters himself, even the women's parts and was hilarious. Haven't seen him in anything else and think he's more of a stage actor than a TV one - but would love to take the kids and see that show again it might even spark an interest in Shakespeare in them

Agree with Chiwetel Ejiofor. He's amazing and very understated. Viola Davis is also brilliant.

Allison Janney, who played CJ in The West Wing. She's fantastic at both comedy and drama and I love her.

Sam Neill. He has played some hammy roles (and thoroughly enjoyed them too, from the looks of it), but he's extremely good at roles with depth too. Stand out performance is in Hunt For The Wilderpeople.

Meant to mention Neill's facility with accents. It's hard to believe he's a Kiwi.

Tom Hanks
Morgan Freeman
Jodie Comer
Sandra Oh

@Binterested

I don’t much care for acting generally. I saw the hot priest guy from Fleabag reciting a poem recently and I wanted to die of cringe. So much acting

The ones Iike are :

Russell Tovey

I was very struck by Pauline Collins when I saw her again after a long time off screen in Dickensian a few years ago.

Prunella Scales and Timothy West. Amazing on Audible.

Yes yes to West and Scales reading aloud!

Also another vote for Rory Kinnear's Iago - a shattering performance of pure evil under a cheeky veneer that stayed with me for ages.

Pamela Rabe is brilliant! Joan Ferguson is my all time favourite villain

'I LOVED Dominic West playing Richard Burton'

Hes SUCH a brilliant actor, wonderful in every role. His Valjean in the scripted Les Miserables was a real revelation

@MoreListeningLessChatting

Why on earth do you assume I'm joking?

The Zuni bear is a symbol of strength - I got it on my wrist after going through a particularly hard time in my life

So did I. I was really disappointed in OC's QE2.

I love Kathy Burke and could watch her in anything, drama, comedy. Interviews, presenting. I just think she’s intriguing and compelling.

Kerry Washington
Lexi Underwood
Reese Witherspoon all three ladies in little fires everywhere, absolutely spectacular believable acting.kerry is mesmerising

Emma Thompson

I found OC pretty underwhelming in The Crown as well. I just can't forget that she's Olivia Colman, while I found Claire Foy really believable.

I love Josh O'Connor (Prince Charles), though. He's hilarious as Larry in The Durrells.

@KitMarlowesCodpieceOfthigh

I found OC pretty underwhelming in The Crown as well. I just can't forget that she's Olivia Colman, while I found Claire Foy really believable.

I love Josh O'Connor (Prince Charles), though. He's hilarious as Larry in The Durrells.

I think Colman is clearly uncomfortable in the role, and it shows. HM is never uncomfortable in public, so Colman could never convince me that she 'was' the queen. She always looked like Olivia Coman playing the queen, whereas Claire Foy WAS the queen.

Josh O'Connor is great, as is Tobias Menzies as Philip. He really looks and sounds like an older version of Matt Smith as Philip, whereas the continuity between the other characters has been lost. Colman's queen doesn't seem like a middle aged version of Foy's young queen. She just seems like a totally different character.

I think Colman is clearly uncomfortable in the role, and it shows. HM is never uncomfortable in public, so Colman could never convince me that she 'was' the queen. She always looked like Olivia Coman playing the queen, whereas Claire Foy WAS the queen.

I think the queen frequently looks sour and misanthropic in public, but isn't part of the issue with OC's queen that Claire Foy's period is far less familiar in detail to most viewers, and the queen is mostly depicted as a sympathetic, dutiful young woman in twinsets or fabulous evening dresses struggling to come to terms with her role, duty vs love, and tensions in her marriage etc?

Whereas OC has the much harder job of depicting a much less obviously likeable woman who struggles to produce normal human emotions and has to fake-weep at the site of a catastrophe, is deeply unpleasant to her son and wears some seriously bad outfits?

Came on to say Dominic West. Amazing actor.

There are certain British actors whom I’m always pleased to see on TV or in films, because I think, “hurrah, the professionals are here and I know that it’s going to be good”.

Actresses: Lesley Sharp, Joanna Scanlan, Nicola Walker.

Actors: Adrian Scarborough (probably best known as Pete in Gavin and Stacey, but is in loads of things and is always good), Paul Ritter (the dad in Friday Night Dinner but also brilliant in No Offence and as Wemmick in Great Expectations), Philip Glenister.

The late Jean Alexander was fabulous- and so is Sue Johnston.