Does anyone else love watching a movie where Tommy Lee Jones basically plays Tommy Lee Jones? Any movie at all. I mean seriously the guy is a genius at playing himself. Not every actor can do this.

I kind of divide actors up into categories. I have a bunch. For example: there is the “beautiful but bad actress” category (Cameron Diaz falls into this category for me – I really have zero use for her), the “I am such a good actor you will not recognize me in this role” category (Gary Oldman is the absolute king of this) the “I always play the lead but never get respect or an award” category (Poor Leo). You know you have these too. You might not even have names for them but you categorize your actors whether you know it or not.

Then there is the category that Tommy falls into: the actor who pretty much always plays himself. There a lot of actors who fall into this category…mostly guys…I looked it up. Jack is obviously number one and he of course is also the number one guy we always want to see play himself. Jack plays crazy…the very reason Stephen King purportedly emphatically DID NOT want Jack to play the lead in the Shining. That character is supposed to slowly go insane. To King’s way of thinking, Jack Nicholson already came to the table with insane written all over his very disturbing face.

I get what my favorite author is trying to say, and most of the time I agree with him…but the Shining is still the scariest damn movie from my childhood and Jack is a big reason for that.

Anyway, many other actors have success at playing themselves. Paul Giamatti does it a lot, but to be fair there seem to be a lot of parts out there that call for his particular brand of quiet, whispery and angst ridden acting. That kid from Juno is another one. I mean you absolutely expect him to play Juno’s boyfriend from now until the end of time right?

But Tommy is my all time favorite actor who continually has extreme success in just playing himself. From the first time I saw him in The Fugitive up until the recent Lincoln, that man has been playing “grumpy older fellow” in a string of commercially and critically successful films. I have watched Lincoln half a dozen times now and when I am not busy picking my mouth up off the floor at Daniel’s epic performance or rolling my eyes at Sally Field’s simply mediocre one, I am grinning from ear to ear watching old man Tommy.

Did Steven Spielberg really think slapping a wig on that man and draping him in some 1860’s clothing would do more than zero to hide the fact that Tommy was still going to play Tommy? Is he even working hard at all? Is he having fun? I can’t tell! And I don’t care! He picks up another round of nominees for stealing every single scene he is in by delivering one liners in that – getting more gravelly each and every year – voice of his and I love it! Love it I say!! I will watch anything that man does. In fact I think I will just pop in Lincoln again right now…Though I may fast forward poor Sally’s unfortunate scenes.

Side note: did anyone of the 80’s generation besides me utterly fail to recognize James Spader in Lincoln?? I had NO idea it was him till the credits rolled. In that film he practically skyrockets to Gary Oldman status. A total chameleon-like performance.