Feb 22, 2005 - GQ has figured out which actors from amongst the thousands of possible choices can be considered the greatest of this generation. The March issue of GQ has the full list of those the magazine considers so far above the rest that they deserve a spot on its first-ever best actors list. Making the cut are Oscar nominees Johnny Depp, Clive Owen, Don Cheadle, and Leonardo DiCaprio. Also on the list are Russell Crowe, Nicolas Cage, Benicio Del Toro, John C. Reilly, Gael Garcia Bernal, and Jim Carrey.
In a press release announcing their top picks, GQ explained why some of the actors made their best actor list.
On Clive Owen: "Hollywood loves a tuxedo-clad Brit; some are Bond material, the others just filler between Bruckheimer explosions. Owen is something else entirely: a steely, charming screen presence that almost never was."
On Nicolas Cage: "A jazz actor whose bizarre, inappropriate choices are almost always the best thing in the movie."
On Johnny Depp: "It's tempting to see high-low calculation on Depp's resume -- a little art house here, a little Hollywood there -- but it's the lack of caution that continues to make him irresistible. Johnny does what Johnny wants to do. Want to move to France and start a family? Sure! Want to play Willy Wonka? Yeah! Want to make a Pirates sequel? Why not? In Johnny's hands, it all makes sense."
On John C Reilly: "The gut-level empathy Reilly quietly musters for his sidekicks, cuckolds, and second bananas defines his sixteen years on film."
On Gael Garcia Bernal: "Bernal has eschewed crossover career moves in favor of riskier parts - an amoral drag queen in Bad Education, the man who would be Che Guevara in The Motorcycle Diaries -- and proved that talent always translates."
On Leonardo DiCaprio: "As the sweet, stunted Arnie in What's Eating Gilbert Grape, DiCaprio played the part as if he were in an altered state, from the first frame to the last. And with his intricate Howard Hughes, both swaggering and fragile, he overcomes his perennial boyishness and proves himself the wildly searching, inventive actor we'd always hoped he was."
Source: GQ
