Armin Shimmerman was just as good as Principal Snyder as he was as Quark.
I met him at a convention once and got him sign a letter as Principal Snyder, suspending my friend (who’s a huge Buffy fan) from Sunnydale High and threatening to expel her. He read it and thought it was hilarious.
That’s an awesome story and I agree he was great in that role.
There’s a an admiral in Star Trek Beyond that looked familiar, I had to look it up and it’s Shohreh Aghdashloo. A forgettable role, only noteworthy because I recognized the actor.
She plays Avasarala in The Expanse. Total powerhouse performance.
Whoopi Goldberg for The Color Purple.
Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All at Once
Louise Fletcher in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Michelle Yeoh in everything
*almost everything (you forgot about section 31?)
Oh hell yes for Louise Fletcher…!
Walter Koenig was a great Chekov, but his role as Bester the PsyCop from Babylon 5 was a more nuanced role that gave him way more to do.
Bester was so great. Great vilain
I came here to say this. I first saw Walter Koenig as Chekov, but I really loved him as Bester. I’ve heard that he lights up when people bring up Bester at conventions and such.
Can confirm. I was an avid 90s Star Trek convention attendee, and got to hear a couple quick Bab5 anecdotes from him years ago.
Bester still gives me the creeps.
Best character in the entire series. Never before would have imagined Walter making my skin crawl.
Andreas Katsulas had a recurring role as Commander Tomalak on TNG, but he absolutely shone as G’Kar on Babylon 5, especially in later seasons.
TIL Tomalak was G’Kar. I don’t know how I didn’t know.
He gave me goosebumps in several scenes, especially this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJmuHNDcXLQ
Karl Urban was an okay Dr. McCoy, but the 157 different roles he played on Xena Warrior Princess was where he really shined the brightest.
TIL!
Really only a handful, but that hilarious he had a few characters
Jeffrey Combs must have been busy.
He really did have range with them. I watched Xena when I was a kid, and I had no idea they were the same actor
It would be easy to just gesture vaguely at all of Sir Patrick Stewart’s career. But your question was about better performances than in Trek, and I actually think he did an excellent Picard during the original TNG run. Not quite a hot take, I know.
However, for a double off-Trek billing, I suggest Green room (2015) where he plays against Anton Yelchin among others. It’s a pretty taut little thriller about a punk band on the road that realise to their horror that their gig for the night is at a neonazi club out in the sticks. It goes downhill from there.
Oh fuck yeah. That movie was wild and Sir Patrick Stewart delivered a truly evil performance.
It’s jarring if you only know him for his cool-headed leader or mentor roles like Picard or professor Xavier… He really lets rip as this extremist POS.
Brent Spiner was brilliant in Master of Disguise, a phenomenal movie
For me Colm Meaney wins this hands down. Good in Star Trek but great in other things.
Layer Cake, It’s always sunny in Philadelphia and Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa are the 3 that come to mind first.
Colm Meaney’s performance in Layer Cake is simply astounding!
Con Air, as the baddie.
The Man Who Went Up A Hill And Came Down A Mountain, as a goodie.
The Commitments.
pretty good in the “Hell on Wheels” series. It also features Anson Mount.
great villain in stargate atlantis
He’s great in intermission. And it’s a good movie.
And the snapper!
Gangs of London
curiously, the podcast “the incomparable” made an episode exactly about this topic (more specifically, performances before their trek appearances ) https://www.theincomparable.com/theincomparable/823/
Oh fun I will have to check it out
Bakula on “Quantum Leap”
Eve Harlow on “Agents of SHIELD”
There’s an episode of Scrubs where Bakula plays a janitor and secretly wants to leap back as a little Easter egg
Also, "It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Bakula on “Men of a Certain Age”.
Mulgrew. Flemeth. (Kidding).
Levar Burton will always be reading rainbow guy, no matter what he does.
Zachary Quinto. Silar. One of the better villains, until the writers went on strike and the show fell off the rails. Granted, this likely just marks the man’s range as an actor.
John Cho. The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon.
Koenig. Bester.
You could argue that everything Stewart does is equally well done. Scrooge. X. Gurney.
Definitely Scott Bakula.
At the same time, I’m getting the feeling they weren’t given the greatest scripts or directors to work with on Enterprise.
I was excited to see where Archer and Malcom would go with their characters, but now they’ve been distilled too far into an angry little men.
I get the reasoning, but come on. Malcom’s a complete wanker past season 3, and Archer’s face never changes beyond “It’s all about the mission!”
Conversely, I believe Robert Picardo nails his hammy characterization of The Doctor perfectly.
I love the fact that even still with shows like Prodigy or Academy, he’s still willing to show up with that trademark EMH snark
Whoopi Goldberg, Sister Act II
Jeff Combs was excellent in “The Frighteners”
Jeff Combs was excellent in everything, though.
Jeff Combs was
excellentin everything, though.
Jeff Combs in Transformers Prime, voice of Ratchet. He did some excellent voice delivery as that character.
And Re-animator, and Castle freak. He has a very good track record in a certain subset of horror movies!
Ayy, +1 for Castle Freak. Isn’t that the one where the freak rips off his own ding-dong?
I honestly don’t recall. You’d think that sort of thing would be etched onto your memory 😬
Oh, I was just referencing a bad movie podcast that has frequently mentioned that movie. One of the hosts repeatedly recommended Castle Freak, and claimed that the freak ripped off his own ding-dong. This was subsequently disputed by listeners, and one of the other hosts.
At one point, one of the show’s listeners tweeted at Stuart Gordon, asking if the freak ripped off his own ding-dong. Stuart Gordon responded, simply, “No.” However, Jonathan Fuller, who played the titular freak, provided the show an autographed picture on which he wrote, “I ripped it off myself!” So the matter still pends.
Ha, sometimes even the production crew suffer from the Mandela effect 😆
How many roles did he play?
