4. John C. Reilly
John C. Reilly is the most curious actor on this list. He's been in some movies that have enjoyed huge financial success and starred alongside actors such as Mark Wahlberg, Daniel Day-Lewis, Samuel L Jackson, Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Cruise, yet nobody seems to take him seriously as an actor. Reilly has great versatility, which is perfectly shown across his three films with Paul Thomas Anderson. In Hard Eight, Reilly plays a young man in need of a father figure and companionship, and it was a great performance that was little seen. In Boogie Nights, he treads the line between satirical comedy and drama perfectly as the best friend of Mark Wahlberg's Dirk Diggler. And in Magnolia, he plays a police officer, completely overwhelmed by self-loathing as he is inept at his job and is nervous about a date. Reilly is best known to a wider audience for his comedic performances in films such as Step Brothers and Talledega Nights, but they are a clear step down from his dramatic material. One reason for Reilly's lack of recognition is that he doesn't have Hollywood good looks, another could be his versatility which makes him impossible to pin down, and as his best performances have come in independent features, very little people have seen him at his powerful best. A favourite of Paul Thomas Anderson and Martin Scorsese, he is one of the best actors of his generation, yet goes almost completely unheralded, as to a wider audience he's Will Ferrell's brother in Step Brothers. Top 5 Movies:
1. Boogie Nights 2. Magnolia 3. We Need to Talk About Kevin 4. The Thin Red Line 5. Hard Eight