There's no doubt Brando was a tosser.
But much like what happens away from the field in footy , what happens away from the cameras doesn't change his greatness.
Just because it came incredibly naturally to Brando doesn't change the fact he was an incredible actor.
Eh, before Godfather sure. In the 50s when he might have been a bit more humble yeah he was great to watch. After the Godfather though he seemed obsessed with his own talent and was average. No real good performances in his last 30 odd years in my opinion. Apocalypse Now he plays a fat dickhead, which is what he was at the time.
meh, we're all inclined to nominate actors we prefer more than who we think is the best/greatest...
That's the other key to acting. Everyone has a most hated actor and can stand any performance they give. Anne Hathaway is mine. She is good sure, but pisses me off so much all I see and hear when she is on screen is a smug or whiny Anne.
I didn't recognise De Niro in the Godfather II, but that was one of his first major roles. The only others were Taxi Driver and Frankenstein, which was a poor movie but his performance made it better (which is rare). Goodfellas is a great movie but De Niro plays classic Italian mobster De Niro, and Pesci's energy in that films outshines everything.
The other thing I love about Daniel Day-Lewis is that he shuns the celebrity side of things. He is a complete professional in ever sense. I'd say about 3/4 of A-list hollywood actors are celebrities first, actors second. Day-Lewis is an actor in every sense of the word. In my opinion when it comes to acting, a lot of amateur or professional stage actors are better at acting in the purest sense of the word than a lot of celebrities, who are only cast because of their star power. Day-Lewis though is chosen not because of his success or Academy awards, he is cast because often he is the only actor that can pull off the type of performance the film needs.
Watching indie movies, foreign movies, movies with kids, movies with actors who have never acted before, they can pull off performances just as good or better than the average celebrity actor. Film acting is overrated as a craft. It is rare that a film's acting is as important as the directing or writing. Most of the time they are cast because of their resemblance to the image the writer wanted for the character, or for their pulling power at the box office.
Johnny Depp is another who I think could be Day-Lewis like in talent, if he didn't keep taking pale face, crazy hair Tim Burton roles in which he just plays over-acted weird characters.
