Who would you say is the bravest actor in the history of cinema?
Is it Robert De Niro, who bravely gained 60 pounds to play lardy punchbag Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull, valiantly had his teeth ground down for Cape Fear and selflessly agreed to star in The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle? 
Is it Christian Bale, who courageously ate real worms during the filming of Rescue Dawn, heroically lost 63 pounds for The Machinist and willingly agreed to be in a film directed by McG?
Or is it Sylvester Stallone, who has fearlessly endured the pain of a broken neck filming The Expendables, the agony of a compressed heart caused by a good whack from Dolph Lundgren during Rocky IV and the derision of the entire world for playing a helmet-free Judge Dredd?Nope. It's Ilan Mitchell-Smith, who, at the age of 15, wore a ludicrously cropped t-shirt and a pair of barely visible pants in Weird Science.
As if that wasn't plucky enough, Mitchell-Smith gave up acting shortly afterwards, ensuring that it would be the image for which he would always be remembered, and went into teaching, the bravest move in the world for someone world-famous for flouncing about in ladies' skimpies.
All this and he still got billed below Anthony Michael Hall and Kelly LeBrock.
Ilan Mitchell-Smith, The Incredible Suit salutes you. You are officially the bravest actor in the history of cinema.
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It's difficult to argue with your logic. He truly is up there with the legendary Anne Sellors, who played Woman Who Urinates Herself in Threads.
ReplyDeleteWho knows, if he'd have kept it up he could have been Man Pushed In Pig Trough by Kate Becksinsale or summat in Van Helsing
Superb choice, sir. Personally I'd have gone for Randy Quaid, but I can't argue with your reasoning.
ReplyDeleteI welcome other suggestions for the mantle, but until I see someone like Stallone in those grundies it'll be IMS all the way for me.
ReplyDeleteYour old hero Buster Keaton would be my choice. Cunning Stunts without CGI.
ReplyDeleteI think Steve Carrell getting his nipples waxed,without the use of stunt nipples, was quite brave and risky.
ReplyDeleteBuster was of course a legend amongst legends, and Steve's nipples are to be congratulated. But again, you won't see them trying to keep a classroom under control while the kids are taunting them about their transvestite youth.
ReplyDeleteWell if it is real courage, how about sitting on a rocket with about 3.3 million pounds of oxygen and 1.4 million pounds of kerosene in the first stage while someone lights the blue touch paper sending you to the moon in Apollo 11 in 1969. Or is it someone putting their hand up and saying "I am spartacus."?
ReplyDeleteCourage like beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Transvestite or not a teacher had less to fear than the pupils did in my second school from each other. Nasal clearance involved a technique of 'Pick, Lick, Roll & Flick.' Other happy memories are of a hair wash in a flushing toilet bowl or having to climb a cedar pine as a dare.
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