Peer Perspective

Bill Murray could be a serious contender for SAG's actor of the year award, if his peers' comments are anything to go by.

The star of Focus Features' "Lost in Translation" was among the actors most frequently singled out by other performers when asked recently which work had interested them most during the past year.

"I love how Bill Murray has moved into this incredibly thoughtful work," Sharon Stone says. "We saw that in (1998's) 'Rushmore,' which was beautiful, but in 'Lost in Translation,' you see it even more. There are brief glimpses of graciousness — when he is trying to negotiate with his wife on the phone, or when he turns his shirt inside out — but it's not in the dialogue. You will just look at somebody, and all those memories come through if you have that talent.

"This kind of man is very, very rare," she adds. "(Such work requires) a kind of wisdom and depth, and it takes such spiritual knowledge. The gift of deep and profound spiritual elegance combined with talent, that's unusual. All of his shenanigans have gone, but the essence of his humor and his truth remain."

Glenn Close also was struck by Murray's performance.

"I thought he was wonderful in 'Lost in Translation'; I thought both of them (Murray and co-star Scarlett Johansson) were wonderful," Close says. "She was lovely, but Bill Murray broke my heart. It was a beautiful performance, largely through just looks and silence — which is very rare, when people are allowed to just sit together. What was so brilliant was that you knew what was going on in the silence.

"As an audience member, I seek to be moved," Close adds. "We seek connection, and great art or successful art creates that. I see movies where people go, 'That was so great, but I was totally unmoved' — it's like the emperor's new clothes. Or (they say), 'The actors didn't convince me.' Actors should make believers of the audience; only when you become a believer do you invest yourself emotionally. That's the gift, and both of them had that. What they did was invest me emotionally."

Kathleen Turner became invested emotionally in two actresses, Nicole Kidman and Renee Zellweger — though in different films.

"Renee Zellweger — she can act!" Turner marvels of the actress's work in Miramax's "Cold Mountain." "A lot of actors somehow in their performances manage to show the audience that this isn't really them, particularly if the character is a little unattractive. But Renee doesn't give a shit. That's what I think I do, and it's good acting — you don't think about yourself."

What Turner found interesting about Kidman's work in Miramax's "The Human Stain" was that she took "a very subdued role, and that's difficult to play. It is much easier to play a more dramatic part (because) the big emotions like anger and pain are much easier than the really small, subtle ones. I was most impressed."

Rob Reiner was impressed with Tim Robbins, among other cast members, in Warner Bros. Pictures' "Mystic River." "Sean Penn is deservedly getting a lot of nominations," Reiner says. "But Tim Robbins' performance to me is also extraordinary. He is almost like a walking wounded person; he has been damaged by the trauma of what has happened to him. But he plays it in such a subtle way — it is almost as if he is drifting through life with this damaged quality, but very subtly — and that's really good acting. It's not even about big, dramatic scenes; (rather, it is about moments) like when he is walking his son to school. It's almost as if he is a child himself: There is no ballast there, and a strong wind could blow him over. It was a perfect way of playing this character. He is a very good actor, but this is the best work he has ever done.

"The hard thing is not to indicate stuff, not to try to show the audience where the damage is, which would be like showing your hand," Reiner adds. "It is about integrating the behavior in a way that is real and natural but doesn't hit an audience over the head."

That's precisely what David Paymer admired in Peter Dinklage's performance in Miramax's "The Station Agent."

"That's one of the hardest things in acting — how to do a lot by doing very little," Paymer says. "The danger is, you try to do too much and overact and telegraph moments and make things too busy or too mannered. There was a simplicity to Peter's performance that just made that whole film so heartfelt and poignant; it lifted it out of being just (a) slice of life into something deeper."

For his part, Dinklage is another "Translation" fan. "The performances really stuck with me," he says. "It seems like it comes so easy to them — that you are just witnessing them, like you are listening in on a conversation — and I love that in a film. They make you understand their loneliness in this foreign city and their need to connect with each other."

Dinklage says "Translation" had special resonance for him after he traveled to several unknown places while promoting "Agent."

"A lot of the time we were confined to the hotels, like (Murray), as many actors are when they do tours," he says. "You only go and see the city at night, so I can completely relate."

Dinklage and Paymer say the following performances also were among many they admired: Dinklage was struck by the cast of Samuel Goldwyn Films' "Raising Victor Vargas," and Paymer equally admired Jeff Bridges in Universal's "Seabiscuit."

"(Bridges) was the glue to that movie, and that was helped by (the fact that) we all feel like we know him, and we feel like he's one of the family," Paymer says. "We carry the baggage of other roles we have played, for better or worse. In this one, the baggage added something — a very nice and comforting thing."

Bridges is one of the most experienced actors to have appeared in 2003's movies, but Annette Bening singles out one of the least experienced: Keisha Castle-Hughes, star of the low-budget New Zealand film "Whale Rider" (Newmarket).

"This girl is an absolute revelation," Bening says. "The great child actors are always the best teachers because they do it so directly and simply. Having worked with a few kids who were phenomenal, you envy them as an adult. They are still a bit in the reality of make-believe, so they can go there in a way that we have to work at, to rediscover that sense of play and immersion and the ability to let go of the critical eye within yourself and be wherever you are, like when you were a little kid in the backyard.

"She is obviously a skilled girl, but there is also something beautiful about her experiencing this story," Bening adds. "She was so simple and so touching — and the movie is a very good movie. It does what movies can do in a way nothing else can — they can take you to a place. I feel like I know that place — I know those people, that environment, the social problems that are going on — and that is all because of the actors and the film."