ALL THE RAGE

An actor friend of mine recently auditioned for a part which required him to get angry. Really angry. The kind of angry which one associates with domestic violence and old-school newspaper newsrooms. The friend got the part but admitted it was hard to give a completely uninhibited performance. Evidently "losing your shit" on screen is an art form.

So which modern actors have perfected this art? Obviously Al Pacino comes to mind but on closer inspection Al doesn't quite meet the criteria. Certainly he yells a lot but usually it's in a theatrical, actorly vein. I'm thinking instead of the television and film performers who bring to their apoplexies an air of undiluted violence. The ones who portray characters capable of making you physically uncomfortable and a little bit scared. Ladies and gentlemen I give you...

The Maleficent Five

Temuera Morrison Obviously just going on the basis of Once Were Warriors here. Every time Morrison's character Jake 'The Muss' ambles into a scene you start wincing. He'll beat the shit out of anyone; women, kids, probably animals. Jake's face spends most of the film contorted into a gruesome mask of rage.

Klaus Kinski The real deal. A man who competed with the maniacs he played on screen in a game of one-upmanship. If a script required he scream at someone Klaus would dutifully turn up on set with an actual gun and open fire on the cast. Another true fact: Before Klaus was discovered by Werner Herzog he somehow made a name for himself by getting up on various stages and flying into rages for the amusement of people watching.

Stephen Graham There's only a few scenes in This Is England where the racist brick shithouse Combo completely loses his rag but they are plenty enough. The final reel, in which Combo spends five minutes psyching himself up with a stretch routine before beating a completely innocent man to death is a masterclass in seething rage.

Sol Kyung-Gu A tremendously versatile Korean character actor who trained as a professional wrestler for his role as Japanese depression-era hero Rikidozan in the film of the same name. Sol plays the volatile Rikidozan as a cross between Jake LaMotta and boiling kettle. Life offers no obstacle which Riki cannot smash in the face.

Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje Aka Simon Adebisi from Oz. It's true that Adebisi's rage manifests in ways other than outward displays of violence (mainly staring at people from his pod while doing his unnerving dance) but from time to time he does throw caution to the wind and have a meltdown. It doesn't hurt that Adewale is the living embodiment of the 'giant negro', as read about in 19th century American newspapers and as seen in the racist fears of every white person's waking subconscious.