4. Jean-Claude Van Damme - JCVD
There's a certain irony in the fact that 2008's JCVD is the film where everyone realised the action star could act, considering it's the only film where he's actually playing himself. Clearly more comfortable in his own skin than that of the ludicrously-monikered characters he usually plays, Van Damme plays a washed-up, destitute version of himself - not much of a stretch a few years back, perhaps - who has fallen foul of his family and ends up embroiled in a post office siege. The scene that grabs everyone's attention - and even had some demanding that the actor receive an Oscar nomination - was a seven-minute take in which Van Damme disappears out of the movie set and talks straight to the camera about his life's frustrations. It's a genuinely riveting, even moving scene, and though the man doesn't get a lot of laughs out of this self-aware turn, it is the most dramatically resonant of the lot.