The 10 Best Character Actors Ever

Character actors are primarily supporting players, performers who help the leads carry a movie or television show. Many leading men and women, like Gary Oldman, Judi Dench, and Philip Seymour-Hoffman, began as character actors before gaining the widespread fame and recognition needed to get more primary roles.

However, due to the nature of entertainment, there are many more supporting parts than leads, meaning that not every great character actor is destined to become a star. That said, these talented performers carved out a place for themselves to be recognized as some of the best character actors of all time.

Margo Martindale

Margo Martindale may have established herself by playing more motherly characters, but that doesn’t mean she’s a force to be taken lightly. Early in her career, she had small parts in films with Tom Cruise, Susan Sarandon, and Leonardo DiCaprio, before finding larger parts in television.

Over the last 20 years, she’s appeared in Million Dollar Baby, Dexter, Secretariat, Justified, August: Osage County, The Good Wife, The Americans, Sneaky Pete, American Crime Story, and BoJack Horseman, where she played a fictional version of herself: Esteemed Character Actress Margo Martindale. This alone indicates that Martindale is one of the greats.

John Carroll Lynch

Perhaps most recognizable as Marge Gunderson’s (Frances McDormand) spouse in Fargo, John Carroll Lynch is known for performing all kinds of characters, from serial killers to dorky dads which cements his position as one of the best character actors of all time. Immediately after the Coen Brothers’ film, Lynch nabbed a supporting role on The Drew Carey Show, and the rest is history.

Since Fargo, Lynch has appeared in over 100 movies and television shows, including Face/Off, Zodiac, Gran Torino, Shutter Island, Crazy Stupid Love, The Americans, Jackie, The Founder, American Horror Story, and The Trial of the Chicago 7.

Lois Smith

With a career spanning eight decades, Lois Smith’s first movie role was a supporting part opposite James Dean in East of Eden. After a 15 year period focused on theater and television following East of Eden, she returned to the big screen as Jack Nicholson’s sister in Five Easy Pieces.

In the last 50 years, Smith’s had parts in movies and television shows like Fatal Attraction, Midnight Run, Dead Man Walking, ER, Twister, Minority Report, True Blood, The Americans, The Nice Guys, and Lady Bird. Smith is still an active actor in her 90s, having won a Tony for her role in The Inheritance in 2021, making her the oldest actor to ever do so.

Djimon Hounsou

Djimon Hounsou began his career in entertainment as a model, before transitioning to acting through appearances in the music videos of Paula Abdul, Janet Jackson, and Madonna. However, it wasn’t until he appeared in Amistad that he began getting more than just roles as an extra.

After appearing in Spielberg’s historical drama, Honsou had a brief run on ER before going on to appear in Gladiator, Constantine, The Island, Guardians of the Galaxy, Furious 7, The Legend of Tarzan, and A Quiet Place Part II. Hounsou has earned 2 Oscar nominations along the way for In America and Blood Diamond, proving that he deserves a spot in the character actors’ hall of fame.

Amy Ryan

Amy Ryan started her acting career Off-Broadway and got one episode parts on shows like Law & Order, ER, and Chicago Hope throughout the 1990s. It wasn’t until she appeared in The Wire and had a memorable role in Capote as Alan Dewey’s (Chris Cooper) wife Marie that Ryan started gaining critics’ attention.

That said, it was her Oscar-nominated performance in Gone Baby Gone as the mother of an abducted child that lead to her prolificity and defined her as one of the best character actors of her generation. Since Gone Baby Gone, Ryan has gone on to appear in Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, Changeling, Green Zone, Win Win, The Office, Birdman, Bridge of Spies, Beautiful Boy, and Only Murders in the Building.

Martin Landau

After a couple of years getting one episode parts on television, Martin Landau had his first big break with a supporting turn in Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Landau’s career shifted back towards television, with substantial parts in Mission: Impossible and Space 1999.

Having become known as one of the best character actors in the horror movie genre, Landau’s career saw a resurgence in the late 1980s when he appeared in Frances Ford Coppola’s Tucker: The Man and His Dream and Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors, both of which he was Oscar-nominated for. After these films, Landau had parts in The X-Files, Rounders, Entourage, and an Oscar-winning turn as actor Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood.

Alfre Woodard

Following breakout success Off-Broadway, Alfre Woodard quickly established herself as a powerful character actor. In addition to receiving several supporting and guest Emmy nominations over her career – winning four – Woodard received an Oscar nomination for Cross Creek in 1984. These awards and nominations prove that Woodard deserves to be considered one of the best character actors of all time.

She has had a prolific career, Woodard acting opposite the likes of Denzel Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, and Danny Glover. She has appeared in Scrooged, St. Elsewhere, L.A. Law, Primal Fear, Love & Basketball, Desperate Housewives, Memphis Beat, 12 Years a Slave, Luke Cage, and See.

Chris Cooper

After spending over a decade on the stage, Chris Cooper made his film debut in Matewan, where he starred opposite James Earl Jones as an organizer for mine workers. With everyman looks, Cooper became a regular in westerns of the 1990s, before breaking out of the genre with films like Money Train and A Time to Kill.

In the early 2000s, Cooper became an in-demand supporting player, appearing in October Sky, American Beauty, The Patriot, and The Bourne Identity. After winning an Oscar for Adaptation., Cooper has gone on to have supporting roles in Seabiscuit, Syriana, The Town, The Muppets, and Little Women.

Tilda Swinton

Starting out with the Royal Shakespeare Company, Tilda Swinton appeared in several independent experimental films, the most prominent of which being a 1992 adaptation of Orlando, before adventuring into more mainstream projects. In 2000, they had a supporting role in The Beach opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, and they haven’t looked back since.

Subsequently to The Beach, Swinton has proven to be an acting chameleon, appearing in Vanilla Sky, Burn After Reading, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Snowpiercer, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Trainwreck, Doctor Strange, Suspiria, and Michael Clayton, which they won an Oscar for.

Thomas Mitchell

The first actor to win a Tony, Emmy, and Academy Award, Thomas Mitchell had supporting roles in some of the most iconic films of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Initially appearing on the Broadway stage, Mitchell made his way into films in the late 1930s, most notable of which was The Hurricane, for which he was nominated for an Oscar.

In 1939 alone, Mitchell appeared in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Gone with the Wind, and Stagecoach, for which he won an Oscar. Other notable movies Mitchell appeared in during his career included The Long Voyage Home, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Dark Mirror, and High Noon. Mitchell also appeared in a variety of television shows later in his career and, due to his varied roles and prolific work, deserves to be remembered as one of the best character actors of all time.

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