5) Mark Rylance in Bridge of Spies
He’s adored by Sean Penn, Al Pacino and Steven Spielberg. The last one’s obvious – Spielberg just cast Mark Rylance as his BFG, after directing him to a likely Oscar nomination (and heavy favorite win) in Bridge of Spies. But some of the best actors in the world – people like Penn, and Pacino – consider Rylance to be the best actor in the world, and you’d probably never even heard of him until this last year.
[zergpaid]Thank Steven Spielberg, then, for coaxing Rylance off the stage (his natural home; he’s a three-time Tony Award winner) and giving him his first major mainstream movie role in Bridge of Spies. As Soviet agent Rudolf Abel, Rylance is the film’s softly-spoken, warm-hearted core, the embodiment of a good man. His movements, his facial expressions are almost infinitesimal – it’s the kind of subtle, mannered performance that so few actors dare try, and even less succeed in making work.