Big Time Movie Stars in Sci-Fi & Fantasy Films

Virtuosity.

Missed that one, Thanks!

Also Splice, Predators, Angels in the Outfield (if you count invisible angels helping a bad team win at baseball as 'fantasy'), and Solo.

It's a little iffy, but I'd consider Synecdoche, New York to be fantasy (along with pretty much all of Charlie Kaufman's films). I know it's more surrealism and symbolism, but they present themselves as fantasy so what can you do.

"Cool World" puts Pitt out of the running, I think (and Gabriel Byrne, for that matter).

Fixed that for you.

I think any time in their career would suffice, really.

Wasn't Rainmaker a Fantasy? It's been 30-some years since I've seen it, though.

Oh yeah, looks like Sean Penn hasn't been in an SF/F film yet. Looks like this year's Tree of Life is Fantasy, though, so he's going to lose his outsider status soon.

Russell Crowe's breakout part was as the escaped virtual character in Virtuosity opposite Denzel Washington. (Denzel has been in a good half-dozen SF/F films: Deja Vu, Fallen, Book of Eli, Manchurian Candidate, The Siege, The Preacher's Wife.)

Daniel Day Lewis is in Nine, which is a musical. (It features an awesome number by Kate Hudson.) I'll agree that some musicals aren't Fantasies because the musical numbers are given realistic settings (Cabaret), but the rest are definitely a subgenre of the Fantasy genre.

Philip Seymour Hoffman is in The Invention of Lying and Mission: Impossible 3, which are both sci-fi.

We're talking about big stars who ARE NOT in SF/F movies. Trying to find one.

No biggie -- the thread title is misleading given the conversation. My bad.

Never saw MI3. Had no real desire to after the first two, neither of which I actually liked.

I wasn't counting it as sci-fi since the first two really more fit into the 'spy' genre than sci-fi. While there is a good bit of overlap between the two genres (Bond's gadgets and more) I've never really though of it as 'sci-fi' exactly. Kind of like how convincing people that a lot of stuff in the adventure genre has ties to fantasy (Indiana Jones and its ilk) would be a hard sell.

Of course MI3 could have been far more sci-fi in its themes than the first two. As I said, I never had the desire to watch it.

The Invention of Lying was in the comment I quoted.

To be honest though, I'm surprised that was the only film I missed. I went more off the top of my head and I'm honestly not all that familiar with either actor's filmography. Which is odd since I do rather like the both of them when I see them in things.

That accordion tune that plays during that movie is darn catchy, too.

Sorry, slight derail that I couldn't resist. Still, I wouldn't get too hung up on whoever said this. They have clear biases about what makes for right, or "high" movies, and they're not going to budge on it. Every actor or actress is going to have different projects that they will or won't do, and fantastical or sci fi movies have been around for a long while and are much more mainstream. Not really a whole lot to see here or get defensive about.

Okay I'll say this. Liz was a class act. Not because of someone else's stuck-up ideals. But because she lived her life on her terms. If you didn't (or don't) like that, TOUGH ****!

As to her being in todays films or not. Bah. Of course she would.

Look at the earnings potential.

Compare between Liz Taylor and Angelina Jolie.

Cleopatra (1963). Due to the infamously botched handling of the film and numerous delays (the film took nearly 4 years to complete), she raked in 7 million bucks. In today's dollars, that's $48-50 million.

Jolie:

2010: 22 million
2009: 27 million
2008: 13 million
2007: 20 million

AND SHE WASN'T EVEN THE TOP FEMALE EARNER MOST OF THOSE YEARS!

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Most of those spy films are sci-fi. And often with the pejorative version of that word, too. All of the Bond films are science fiction to some degree. Some outrageously so, such as Connery being strapped to a table with a giant laser about to slice in in half and some less so like For Your Eyes Only. The Mission: Impossible movies continue that sort of tradition using day-after-tomorrow technology.

Contrast with the Jason Bourne films which, while not exactly "realistic", don't have any science fictional elements to them.

Well, we're not talking about dumb people who only think that Fantasy means witches and warlocks of one sort or another. There's no question the first three Indy films are Fantasy, while the fourth one is Science Fiction. I mean, box that melts people, guy who pulls people's hearts from their chests without cutting them open and a cup that heals people... that's Fantasy.

Don't bother, it's genuinely terrible. But then it's by J.J. Abrams, so there you go.

This is true. British actors treat the acting as a job for the most part, whereas American actors are often caught up in the celebrity of it, ever since the star system began in Hollywood's earliest days.

Also, science fiction in Britain was always less ghettoized than it was in the US. People like Arthur C. Clarke had much higher profiles and received greater respect there and Doctor Who was embraced, as opposed to America where shows like Star Trek had to struggle to stay on the air. Fantasy has always been huge there because of Shakespeare's plays, a few of which are Fantasy: A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, Hamlet, Macbeth, Richard III, etc.

Alec Guinness was in science fiction long ago when he starred in The Man in the White Suit. That outfit is every bit as science fictional a creation as the Enterprise, a Dalek, the Red October or Gort. It's not flashy, but it's still SF.

In the US, Science Fiction especially was looked down on as not being serious, or being less than literate. Which was true in a number of cases. America doesn't have the tradition of truly literate science fiction the way Britain does. With the special exception of Verne in France, practically all of the earliest science fiction is British: Frankenstein, Brave New World, everything by H.G. Wells, Olaf Stapledon, and so on. Whereas in America we were all about the Fantasy: Baum's Oz books, Twain's Connecticut Yankee, Poe and Hawthorne's horror stories. The only real exception to this rule was Bellamy's science fiction novel Looking Backward, a huge bestseller, but for whatever reason there were no successful follow-ups in the US. Most of the sci-fi that followed in America was lightweight adventure stuff: Burrough's Barsoom books, Buck Rogers, E.E. Smith's Lensmen, and so on.

It's kind of the way TV used to be perceived by movie stars: just something beneath them. there was the occasional good show, but overall it was pretty sad stuff. Over the past couple of decades, though, TV has been a launching point for movie stars and they often come back to it because some of the best entertainment is there, now. I think that's what's happening with SF and Fantasy these days: it's the dominant genre the way Westerns used to be the driving force in film and television.

Actually, there are two main reasons that I have heard from "Movie Stars" turning to television in recent years.
The first is a regular paycheck. Yeah, the big names can make 10-30 million or more per film, but then there's the not so big names. And if a show goes on for a while, the paychecks get bigger and bigger. Just look at the stars of 'Friends' by the last few seasons: a million dollars per episode! 22 million for a season. At that time, not one of those actors would have been able to command that much for a leading role in a movie. Even now, for those actors of 'Friends,' I don't think any of them can command that much for a starring role. Well, perhaps Anniston, but I'm not sure.
The second reason for a "Movie Star" to go to television is that they get to play a character for a long time. During that time they get to portray someone with all sorts of quirks and things that happen to them. We see this called "character growth" when we sit down and discuss what has happened this week. We hear all the time from Stars "When I read the script, I just connected with this character" or "I just knew that I HAD to portray this character" and such. Yes, actors get payed to portray different people, but many of them acutally LIKE to do that, and some, when confronted with a script and character that really appeals to them jump at the chance to do television.

So, steady paycheck and the chance to portray a character through many changes and for long periods of time can trump a large paycheck and the limelite of a Movie.

Not to mention how it allows a lot of them to live in one location.

Hamlet?! Oh, right, the ghost of his father... Dang, thought I had you there.

I had forgotten about this one, and it is probably number three for some actors, and number two for others. Depends on how high they are placing their family on thier list of priorities.

Yes she was. I actually rather liked RED to be honest, but then I never read the comics. It didn't have all that much in the way of sci-fi elements to it though if my memory serves.