Actors who practically "sing" their roles

[youtalkfunny]

Watched 12 Angry Men again tonight. Many great performances in this one, of course. But Lee J Cobb's "Juror #3" prompted me to start a thread I've been thinking about for a long time: actors who use their voices in an musical manner to speak their dialogue. Roles where cadence and rhythm define the part.

--The simplest example I can think of is Lee Ermey's drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket. If you try to mimic these lines out loud, you'll feel like you're singing:

"Do you feel dizzy? Do you feel faint? Jesus Christ! I think you've got a [censored]!"

"...and the way I see it, ladies, YOU owe ME for ONE jelly DOUGHNUT. Nowgetonyourfaces!"

"Get up there Pyle--oh, that's good, Private Pyle! Don't make any [censored] effort to get to the top of the [censored] obstacle! If God had wanted you up there, he would have miracled your ass up there by now, wouldn't he?"

"Get the [censored] off of my obstacle! Get the [censored] down off of my obstacle! I'm going to rip your balls off, so you cannot contaminate the human race! I will motivate you Private Pyle, (really, REALLY sing these last nine words) if it short-dicks every cannibal on the Congo!"

I can't remember the exact dialog from his final scene (where he confronts the armed Private Pyle), but I can picture the melody--the loud cacophony of profanity at first, then the low, still-menacing sound of trying to calm down (and failing miserably, going back up in pitch until he gets killed).

--Cobb did the same thing in 12 Angry Men. He sang, in a booming voice, every time he got excited.

"What do you MEAN you've changed your mind??? What are you TALKING about? You can throw OUT all the other evidence!"

He's speaking, not singing; but the changes in volume, tone, pitch, and rhythm are unmistakably musical.

--Ian McShane's patter on Deadwood sometimes starts to sound melodic. But I imagine that's more a function of the writing, than a deliberate choice by the actor.

--One last one to throw out: Werner Klemperer as Col Klink in Hogan's Heroes. As Kurt Fuller (who played Klemperer in the Bob Crane bio-pic Auto Focus) said, "Klemperer basically SANG that role."

(BTW, if you didn't already know, every title in this post that appears in italics is something you should watch--even Auto Focus, which features no one "singing" their part.)

[youtalkfunny]

Just thought of a couple more:

--Gene Wilder in "Young Frankenstein"

--Joe Pesci in "GoodFellas"

[Dominic]

nice post....i'll have to think about it tho, as nothing's coming to mind at the moment

[Kimbell175113]

Martin Sheen on the West Wing (during the Sorkin years, at least). When he gives a presidential speech, it's like a song, and you can tell because of the way it is stored in your brain; it's easy to memorize, you do it without trying, like when you listen to a song a few times then notice that you have the whole thing stored long-term.

Though a lot of that is the writing, and I'm trying to think of someone from a non-Mamet, -Sorkin, or -Chayefsky source.

[Kimbell175113]

Trying to think of one, and realized that they were all male, except...

Thora Birch in Ghost World. When she's screaming at the hipster in the record store ("...but I guess Johnny [censored] here is too stupid to get that..."), or condescendingly lecturing the movie theater customer about the value of upgrading his drink size, there's a lot of that quality the OP was talking about. Also the heavy sarcasm throughout lends a weird flow to every word.

[Stagger_Lee]

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? fit the category - it is like a duet the way they play off each other, gradually reaching a crescendo.

[Mrs. Utah]

[ QUOTE ]
Just thought of a couple more:

--Gene Wilder in "Young Frankenstein"



[/ QUOTE ]

When you mentioned Gene Wilder I immediately thought of Madeline Kahn, in anything really.

Here is from "Young Frankenstein"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POHmB...ed&search=


and "High Anxiety"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfr_O...ed&search=

[MrMon]

I think certain dialogue just lends itself to this sort of speech pattern. Long speeches by an effective speaker just naturally come out this way. Shakespeare uses this to great effect in most of his plays, here's the example from Henry V:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAvmLDkAgAM

Speaking loudly usually seems to help in getting this type of speech pattern to work, but you can do it softly. Again, Shakespeare, again Branagh, this time Hamlet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JD6g...ed&search=

[Blarg]

Interesting post!

The screwball comedies can be like this -- the ones with Cary Grant, the Topper ghost comedies.

The arch dialogue of Dashiel Hammett type noirs -- the ones you'll see Bogart in, for instance. "I slammed on the brakes when I saw Porky Grout. I never did like Porky Grout. Then all I could see was shattered windshield and Porky Grout." You could turn that into a song. The dialogues between two characters in that type of noir often have a rhythm and a sort of call and response effect to them, too. Bogart and Bacall definitely got that going in To Have and Have Not.

[youtalkfunny]

Just thought of another one: Brian Cox in Deadwood. He is REALLY going over the top with it.

I can't find much of him YouTube, but there's this (at the 4:45 mark).