5 actresses who make films better
Even in supporting roles, they make their mark
LAURA LINNEY
Why her: She never quite qualified as a leading lady: Her beauty was somehow tinged with an unseen pain, and she always seemed too smart for the room. But she brought that air of intelligence to small films (the unhappy sister in 2000’s You Can Count On Me, which also introduced us to Mark Ruffalo; the angry wife in 2005’s The Squid and the Whale) and even managed to impart a heartbreaking melancholy to the romantic comedy Love Actually (2003). She’s the queen of inner life.
Where you’ll see her next: In the WikiLeaks drama The Fifth Estate (Oct. 11)
JOAN CUSACK
Why her: She’s settled into a career of animated films — most famously as the voice of Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl in the Toy Story series — and TV, but for many years she was the offbeat comic relief: the principal, the best friend, the quirky neighbour. She never got the top-billing fame of her brother John, although they’ve been in many films together. But she’s received two Oscar nominations and one memorable scene in In & Out (1997) — as a bride-tobe hilariously collapsing at the news that her fiancé is gay — exemplified her puckish charm.
Where you’ll see her next: The voice of Jessie in Toy Story 4 (TBA).
PATRICIA CLARKSON
Why her: A down-to-earth performer who brings a refreshing reality to everything she does. She enriched the fine 2002 melodrama Far From Heaven with her performance as a neighbour in a repressive suburb, and followed it up with a wonderful turn as one of a lonely trio of misfits in The Station Agent that same year. In 2003, her fierce and angry mother — stricken with cancer and not taking it well — gave real heart to the indie comedy/drama Pieces of April.
Where you’ll see her next: In the post-apocalyptic mystery The Maze Runner (2014).
JOAN ALLEN
Why her: Until she became the formidable antagonist of Matt Damon in the Bourne films — a role she imbued with a common-sense intelligence unusual in the genre — she made her living playing wives with a mystery to them: as Pat Nixon in Nixon (1995), or Elizabeth Proctor in The Crucible (1996), Elena in the dark suburban drama The Ice Storm (1997), Betty, who discovers her sexual colours in Pleasantville (1998). She adds gravitas even to fantasy.
Where you’ll see her next: In the Stephen King thriller A Good Marriage (TBA).
JESSICA CHASTAIN
Why her: In 2011, she was the face of cinema. She made seven films and at her best — as the outsider in a racist Southern community in The Help, as the confused but supportive wife of Michael Shannon in Take Shelter, as the force of maternal love in The Tree of Life — she formed a groundwork of compassion on which the films were built. She brought the same sense of humanity to Zero Dark Thirty (2012), giving heart to a political thriller.
Where you’ll see her next: As the wife, giving her side of the story in The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby (Hers) and having it told about her in The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby (His). (TBA)
Honourable mentions: Judi Dench, Anna Faris, Sarah Polley, Natalie Portman, Maggie Smith.