Top 9 Characters
I've been enjoying Tad's class. Recently, he's been talking about characters. Over at Mindsay, I've been making lists. So I've decided, why not create a list of my favorite characters of all time?

Like one person said, it may oversimply Indiana Jones' character to assign him one special fear: that of snakes. I've never really liked Steven Speilberg all that much. Even though he's created some of the most "memorable" movies of all time, I get bored with his formulaic stories and characters.

Some of the most interesting characters I've ever encountered in a movie:

Lenny in Memento (Guy Pearce): Short-term memory problem. Wants to avenge his wife's death. Has tattoos all over himself to cope with his memory problem.

Uncle Charlie in Shadow of a Doubt (Joseph Cotten): Hates having his picture taken. Stern. Murderer. He is mysterious at first, but as the story unfolds, his secrets cannot be hidden and he is exposed.

Penny Lane in Almost Famous (Kate Hudson): Groupie. She is mysterious at first, but reveals 3/4 into the movie that her name is Lady Goodman, because ultimately she wants to be known.

Mitchell, the lawyer in Sweet Hereafter (Ian Holm): Is prosecuting in a case involving the deaths of several innocent children. It is revealed later that he may not have been such a good father himself. His daughter is on the road to destruction, with sex, drugs, and total disregard for anyone else. While dealing with this case, he is fighting an internal battle about how good or how poor of a father he was.


Eugene Simonet in Pay It Forward (Kevin Spacey): Has been badly burned all over. He's a teacher, who is trying to help his children how to discover to change the world in their own way. He is expecting to change the lives of his pupils, but it is the life of one pupil that changes him. He also learns to love, as barriers come down.

Margo Tennenbaum in The Royal Tennenbaums(Irene Gorovaia/Gwyneth Paltrow): Adopted kid. Failed playwright. Wooden finger. Sole barrette on the left side of her head. In love with her adopted brother. Married to an older man. Margo's character is one of the quirkiest and best-drawn I have ever come across.

Vincent Freeman in Gattaca (Ethan Hawke): This person is told as a kid that his genetics aren't as good as his brother's. He is predestined to fail. But his determination might help him outrun his fate. This character will go through anything to get what he wants.

Two characters I haven't mentioned and don't need to describe... Hannibal Lector (Anthony Hopkins) and Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins). These characters are so unique and so intense. They are riddled with faults. They might seem at first glance to be even normal, but the more you look at them reveals how twisted and deranged they are.

If you look at all these characters, most of them deal with not only external battles, but internal. The psychological makeup of these characters has to be interesting, but so does the external events around them. Lenny from Memento could be the most normal person ever. But once his wife dies and once the need to avenge her death surfaces, the real Lenny comes out. And that's why movies are made. To capture the real person in the face of adversity.

The reason why most of these characters worked so well, is how they were portrayed by the actors. It is really hard to portray something internal on-screen. However, if you have the right actor, like Kevin Spacey or Anthony Hopkins, a whole new scary, exciting world is created.