The best comic actors are imbued with direction, using their sense of humor as a guide for where and how to act. Combine that direction with a point of origin, and we can better understand the nature of the path they ended up following.
Given an early role, a few comedians test the waters, unsure of their persona, still culling to conform to the collective consciousness of funny. Others come out swinging, dauntlessly steering the zeitgeist to their natural habitat of humor. A comic actor can take a half-page of script and make it legendary. Another will inhabit a whole story, owning a character from Fade In to Black Out.
Before the money, before the fans, when the actor is hungriest and most free; these are the times when the laughter is the most authentic. Following are the best pre-fame films from famous comedians.
16Jim Carrey - Earth Girls Are Easy
A fever dream of John Waters up and decides it wants to be a sci-fi romance — that’sEarth Girls Are Easyin a nutshell.
Geena Davis is thoughtful and beautiful, but her fiancée is too bumbling a philanderer to even properly cheat on her. When three furry aliens land in her San Fernando Valley swimming pool, she ends up falling for one and flying away into space with him. Visually, it’s a dream for any fans of costuming, vintage furry work, showy ’80s eroticism, and strange dance offs with guys wearing suspenders.
Jim Carreyand Damon Wayans commit to their roles as dopey aliens, providing the comic relief to a movie that combines songs, dance numbers, and interspecies romance. The film is about physicality, big swings, and campy melodrama; so for their part; the funny guys are there to just be funny. Though one wonders what could have been whenan actor tries for something new.
15Amy Poehler - Wet Hot American Summer
WhenWet Hot American Summerwas being shot,Amy Poehlerwas already one of the founding members of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, the now-famous improvisational academy and performance venue with bi-coastal franchises and a laundry list of commercially successful graduates. At the time, she was still a year away fromSNL, and her role in the absurdist ensemble comedy was rather small.
Channeling Reese Witherspoon’s insatiably frenetic Tracy Flick fromElection, Poehler played an equally obnoxious director of the camp drama program, the stereotypical histrionic control freak who lives and dies by her status. To her, the talent show is akin to a West EndHamletstarring the reanimated corpse of Sir Laurence Olivier. She and her equally obnoxious producer, Bradley Cooper, infect everyone around them with haughty self-importance with such on-the-nose sincerity that it’ll send a chill down the spine of anyone who spent even one semester in high school drama.
That same commitment to character and false sense of urgency would come in handy eight years later when she took up the mantle ofher beloved type-A Leslie KnopeinParks & Recreation. But in a film with dozens of current or future stars of comedy, her brief role shines.
14Paul Rudd - Clueless
Writer-director Amy Heckerling was already a bankable director going into the ’90s, having struck gold withFast Times at Ridgemont High, Look Who’s Talking, and the underappreciatedJohnny Dangerously. So when she adapted the Jane Austen novelEmmaas a coming-of-age high school movie in mid-’90s Beverly Hills, she had to know that she’d be anointing her young cast as the next generation of comic actors.
Annoint, she did. Brittany Murphy, Jeremy Sisto, Donald Faison, and Breckin Meyer were just some of the supporting cast who got their starts. BeforeClueless,star Alicia Silverstone was the Girl from the Aerosmith Videos. After,she became Batgirl.
For a female-centric narrative, the role of the male heartthrob had to be chosen delicately. Particularly since Cher’s former stepbrother would be present throughout the film, and only become the romantic interest during the second act reality check. An unknownPaul Ruddwas chosen to take the role of prickly Josh, the self-important college-aged intellectual who comes to respect Cher for the thoughtful woman she is underneath. He was handsome in a ’90s grunge kind of way, although they managed to polish him up nicely for the closing wedding scene. No doubt even he was surprised when the nerdy pre-law student became People’s Sexiest Man Alive 2021.
13Kevin Hart - The 40-Year-Old Virgin
The only reason thatKevin Hart’s scene is in theThe 40-Year-Old Virginis because Kevin Hart is funny. Hart plays a trouble customer giving Romany Malco the runaround on the price of a warrantee for some electronics. The interaction has zero bearing on the plot, and Kevin doesn’t appear again.
The only purpose it serves is as a vehicle for Kevin Hart’s humor, and it delivers. The hypocrisy of the tiny tough guy, so familiar to fans of Kevin’s standup, exposed itself to a whole new audience as he and Malco threw around the n-word, violent threats, and gang references, blithely unaware that they’re in a mid-level electronics superstore in suburban Orange County. The funny comes from their transparently hollow fronting, when realistically, either has all the street rep of calico kitten wearing a bowtie.
12Adam Sandler - Bulletproof
Although known for silly voices, non-sequitur songs, and his cotarie of regular comedic castmates,Adam Sandlerhas proven himself an outstanding dramatic actor. First, as a troubled lover in Paul Thomas Anderson’sPunch-Drunk Love,and a down on his luck degenerate jeweler in the Safdie Brothers' ferventUncut Gems.
It was an early turn as small-time crook Archie Moses, paired with undercover cop and former best friend Rock Keats (Damon Wayans) in the often overlookedBulletproofin which he first transfused his trademark dopiness with a little bit of heart to form a more fully-fledged character. Moses, an errand boy for crime kingpin James Caan, brings his best friend Keats into his circle of corruption. When he finds out that Keats is actually an undercover cop, he carries his broken-hearted betrayal with him throughout the film, constantly badgering for an apology for Keats' treachery.
It’s a fairly weak script with a predictable twist, but the action comedy beats and authentic love-hate chemistry between the friends-turned-rivals-turned-friends is enjoyable enough. Sandler would go on to carry his dramedy bona fides intosuccessful fare likeBig Daddylater on.
11Owen Wilson - Bottle Rocket
Before Wes Anderson was an Oscar-nominated auteur with cast lists filled chock-full ofA-list stars, he was an unknown, eccentric Texas native with a couple of college buddies named Luke andOwen Wilson. He and Owen would collaborate on a script calledBottle Rocket, about wayward, quarter-life misanthropes with no jobs who decide to rob a bookstore.
Their skill as petty thieves is limited, as is their devotion to a life of crime. Luke Wilson plays Anthony, the sensitive one of the group, who fesses up to his recent stay in a mental health facility to just about anybody who will listen. Verifiably fragile, he nonetheless uses emotional candor to find strength, which puts him at odds with Owen’s Dignan, the cocksure mastermind behind the robbery. It takes a breakthrough for Dignan to finally admit that he’s as emotionally troubled as Anthony.
The film is a tragically funny, in that these characters lack purpose, like the 1,001ist puzzle piece mistakenly included in the box. It ended up establishing the early careers of both Wilsons, and is a fun, easy-to-watch stepping stone to the unique style and poignant arcs that Wes Anderson would come to be known for.
10Kristen Wiig - Knocked Up
InKnocked Up, Katherine Heigl’s Alison is a producer for E! Network News who gets called to the office of her boss, Jack, and informed that she’s being promoted to on-air talent. The seat next to her is occupied by Jill, played byKristen Wiig, whose sole reason for existing seems to be to ape Jack in a professional tag team of corporate doublespeak. The pair play stereotypes of power players with chiseled jawlines, perfect presentation, and a soulless husk of a personality, long bereft of true human connection. Their presence makes the audience recoil with an immediacy usually reserved for tiny venomous scorpions or that furniture leg you always stub your toe on.
“This is Hollywood. We don’t like liars.” - Jill
Wiig, in particular, plays her part with such transparent dishonesty, you can practically see the trail of chewed up underlings in her wake. She’s passive-aggressive and cutting in the most hilarious way possible, alternating between professional approval and personal spite in such rapid succession that Alison can hardly keep up, leaving her mostly confused by this non-person speaking to her. It’s a role with maybe a dozen and a half lines in total, but Wiig’s unparalleled character work allows an entire personality to bubble just below the surface, leaving us begging for more.
9Bernie Mac - Don’t Be a Menace…
Bernie Macwas a favorite of Def Jam Comedy, opening a legendary second season set by grabbing the mic and saying, “I ain’t scared of you mother f***ers.” He repeats the phrase at least a half dozen times, stalking the audience like a predator. His patterned, rhythmic speech patterns and call and response with the DJ punctuated his act, his confidence emanating with every moment he’s on stage. He’s a firebrand, and it didn’t take long for casting directors to notice.
Honestly, he could be on this list for any one of several bit parts inHouse Party 3,Friday, orBooty Call.Still, it’s the 60-second rant against blackness, a parody of the racist cop fromBoyz n the Hood, given by the aptly named Officer Self Hatred fromDon’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood, that has the biggest impact. Officer Self Hatred hates Shawn Wayans because he’s black. He also hates black pepper, black piano keys, and “the back of Forest Whitaker’s neck.” His ferocity in the role, his every word,speak to a talentthat could have easily played the dramatic role that his comedic one is based on. Luckily for us, he chose comedy instead.
8Jackie Chan - Rumble in the Bronx
Surfing the wake of predecessor Bruce Lee’s impact on Western cinema,Jackie Changained leverage with his martial arts gift to carve out a niche usually relegated to Hollywood’s golden age: a physical comedian. Turns out he was never Bruce Lee, he was Buster Keaton.
A lot of action set pieces tell a story, or, at their best, reveal character. Jackie’s signature action style does none of that, concentration instead on the majesty of the performance itself. Combining high art and low, masterful kung fu meets slapstick,Rumble in the Bronxis like watching Baryshnikov take a pie to the face and get sprayed with seltzer.
Related:The 8 Most Essential Jackie Chan Moments in Movies, Ranked"
7Dave Chappelle - The Nutty Professor
In 1996,Dave Chappellewas still trying to decide what kind of actor to be, having quickly arisen as the darling prodigy of the New York standup comedy scene. In looking at his early career, what jumps out are the number of attempts there were to fit him into an established comedy niche. He did Mel Brooks, action comedyCon Air, and the now-defunct black best friend archetype inWho’s Got Mail.He even mixed life with art in behind-the-scenes talk show seriesThe Larry Sanders Show, playing a version of himself unhappy with the direction of a script meant to be his vehicle.
His varying degree of success in these roles speak to the myopia of studio interests, unwilling or unaware of how to best utilize his massive talent. It’s not difficult to see from where his rash of anti-establishment bits come from, and why those tend to be his most poignant.
It wasThe Nutty Professor, however, that allowed him to work with comedy’s elder statesman, Eddie Murphy. Having dipped his fingers into so many creative pies, the freedom to improvise opposite the king of off-the-cuff humor in their shared scenes (Chappelle played a Def Jam comedian who gets his comeuppance from Eddie after making fun of him early on), spoke to Chappelle’s capabilities, even while portraying a hacky insult comic so antithetic to his own think-piece identity. Chappelle would later credit Eddie with encouraging him to write his own material. When he finally went to air withChappelle’s Showin 2003, one imagines it was with thoughts of Eddie’s consecration.
