10 Great Performances That Weren’t Even Credited

Making it as an actor is a tough business. Naturally, those who are trying to make it often want every credit they can get - in parts big or small, in movies good or bad. The only time you'll usually see an actor uncredited is when they had no decision in the matter of their billing. There are, however, some - not many, but some - actors that have actually chosen to remain off the official cast list. Actors ask to be uncredited - or directors might insist that they are - for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes the director or star just wants to surprise the audience (see: Matt Damon in Interstellar). Other times an actor might think their role so small that it didn't really warrant a billing. Certain major actors even insist on staying uncredited so they don't overshadow others in the cast (Kenneth Branagh requested he not be credited for Swing Kids for that very reason). It isn't often that actors go uncredited in their movies, and it's even rarer that the ones who do give great, memorable performances (the uncredited ones are often just fleeting cameos or bit-parts). Some, however, make a real impression, and here are ten particularly great uncredited performances. 10) Jack Nicholson In Broadcast News Who better to play a legendary and charismatic news anchor of immense reputation than Jack Nicholson? Broadcast News, made at a time when Nicholson was one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, has three (then) young stars as its leads - William Hurt, Holly Hunter and Albert Brooks - all of whom Nicholson knew he threatened to overshadow were he included in the marketing. Nicholson, a friend of Broadcast News director James L. Brooks, made the movie for no money and went un-billed as a favor. He's only in the film for a few minutes, mostly just reading news items, but he casts a huge shadow over the movie. We get a sense of his cold, wolfish charisma just from his few scenes, and he delivers the biggest laugh when he chooses to forego cutting his multi-million dollar salary and save co-workers from losing their jobs. 9) Gary Oldman In Hannibal There are different accounts as to why Gary Oldman goes uncredited in Hannibal as Mason Verger, the horrifically self-disfigured child rapist (no, it's not because of that. Or because the film is garbage). Co-producer Martha De Laurentiis said Oldman was pouting over not being granted prominent billing - so he took his name off the film altogether. Oldman himself said he did it so he could be free to experiment and play the part "anonymously." Whatever the real reason, Oldman is terrifying in Hannibal, even behind the mask of prosthetics. Verger is confined to a wheelchair and barely has any face left to perform expressions, so all we have to go on is the voice. Just in that, in the vocals Oldman brings, we hear a truly repellent, unrepentant psychopath. 8) Johnny Depp In 21 Jump Street Things have been going from bad to worse for Johnny Depp these past few years. The less said about his private life the better, but Depp hasn't had much luck with his film career lately either. His CV from the past decade is cluttered with dud movies: The Tourist, Dark Shadows, Transcendence, The Lone Ranger, two Alice films - all bombs. Arguably the best film Depp has made this decade is one in which he's not even credited: comedy reboot 21 Jump Street. Returning to the role that made him some 25 years before, Depp is funnier than he's been in a long time, sending up his own image and delivering as fine a comic performance as any he's given. If only this kind of Depp form extended to whole movies. 7) Robert Duvall In The Conversation You don't turn down an offer from Francis Ford Coppola to star in his latest film just because the part is minuscule, especially not when he's in the midst of his 70s hot-streak and you just made The Godfather together. Robert Duvall's part in The Conversation is so small, so secretive, that we don't at any point even get a good look at his character's face. That's part of the appeal of Duvall's The Director, though. So powerful and careful we only ever get glimpses of him, The Director always remains a shady figure, and Duvall plays him with a horrible aloofness, as though he's trying to hide his true nature from the audience itself. 6) Tom Cruise In Tropic Thunder These days, you won't find Tom Cruise playing it villainous. He's rarely ever not the good guy - it seems the days of Magnolia and Collateral, films in which directors used Tom Cruise's pleasant face for evil, are over. The actor just doesn't want to play that kind of role anymore. When he's hidden behind copious makeup, however, well, that's a different story. There are two things that people mostly remember about Tropic Thunder: Robert Downey Jr. in blackface, and Tom Cruise secretly playing a porcine movie producer like the biggest piece of shit Hollywood ever produced. Cruise has rarely ever cut loose like he does here. He's unrecognizable, he swears a lot and he even dances to hip-hop - it's the best thing the actor has done in ages. 5) Will Ferrell In Wedding Crashers Will Ferrell is no stranger to making uncredited appearances. He was Starsky & Hutch's belly button-loving crim Big Earl, The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard's dumb used car peddler throwing himself out of a plane without a parachute by mistake, and The Internship's douchebag mattress salesman. In all of those, Ferrell went unbilled. No uncredited Ferrell turn is greater, however, than the one he gave as funeral crasher Chazz Reinhold in Wedding Crashers. A pathetic manchild who still lives in his mom's basement, Chazz is Ferrell taken to his seedy and amoral extreme. He's aggressive, threatening to nunchuck Owen Wilson upon entering his house, and near-psychopathic in his commitment to seducing widows. It's one of Ferrell's all-time best, and the credits don't even recognize him. 4) Kathleen Turner In Who Framed Roger Rabbit Voice performing is an underappreciated art. Bad voice acting can sink a movie, or sometimes make it. In the case of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Kathleen Turner and her sultry vocals help bring the part-animated film to life, and are a big reason why so many cite the film's femme fatale Jessica Rabbit as their weird crush. If you'd checked the end credits, though, you wouldn't even have known it was her. Like Jack Nicholson in Broadcast News, Turner took the pivotal role in Roger Rabbit as a favor to the director, in this case Robert Zemeckis, whom Turner had worked with previously. In providing excellent vocal work, she helps make the most memorable character of the film into what has become a long lasting icon. 3) Ed Norton In Kingdom of Heaven Kingdom of Heaven is chock full of great actors - Liam Neeson, Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson, the list goes on and on - but best of all is one whom you might not even have known was in it. Edward Norton spends his whole time behind a mask in Ridley Scott's Crusades epic, and as such the actor requested he not be credited (the credit was later restored on home video releases). Norton filmed his role as the leper King Baldwin IV in just two weeks, and all we ever see of the actor in the film are his eyes. Despite the limitations he had, Norton delivers the standout performance of the movie, a soulful and uncharacteristically warm turn from an actor all too used to playing the cold fish. 2) James Earl Jones In Star Wars And The Empire Strikes Back Several actors make up Darth Vader. There's David Prowse, the man in the suit; Bob Anderson, who did the stunts; then there's Sebastian Shaw, the man under the mask (and, if you like, you can include Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen in that category as well). Altogether they make an imposing character - though they're still missing the key element. Crucial to Darth Vader is the voice work provided by James Earl Jones, a formidable boom that rasps with sheer hatred. The sound of Vader alone is enough to strike fear into the hearts of cinema-goers. And yet, for his first two Star Wars movies at least, Jones wasn't even credited (at his request). His reasons? He didn't want to be typecast and didn't feel he'd done enough to warrant a billing. 1) Kevin Spacey In Se7en The greatest uncredited performance of all time was designed to shock. In 1995, Kevin Spacey was a rising star on the verge of winning an Oscar, and he was already developing a reputation for playing villains. It was Spacey's thinking that, were he to appear on promotional materials for David Fincher's Se7en, audiences would have the surprise spoiled - because of course they'd know Spacey would be playing the bad guy. When Spacey's John Doe appears out of the blue at the 54 minute mark, it is indeed shocking. Not just because the major star nobody expected suddenly shows up, but because Spacey - cast just two days before filming began - is so horrifyingly unhinged. It's one of his best turns to date, giving us a character that is totally out of control.