10 Great Performances That Were Overshadowed By Their Co-Stars

8. Melanie Laurent - Inglourious Basterds

Overshadowed By: Christoph Waltz Christoph Waltz is, to put it bluntly, a bonafide scene-stealer. It's not his fault - he was gifted with the ability to deliver Quentin Tarantino's dialogue like some mystical, silver-tongued devil and it's delicious to watch each and every time he opens his mouth. The moment he first appeared in Inglourious Basterds as milk-chugging, pipe-smoking Nazi Colonel Hans Landa, movie-goers knew that Tarantino had found somebody special. So although his role in Inglorious became everyone's favourite subject, it also meant that another brilliant performance went unsung. Melanie Laurent, quite simply, is amazing here, though - given that she was a female and that the rest of the movie found itself dominated by strong male types - she received nowhere near the levels of acclaim that she deserved for her performance. As Shosanna Dreyfuss, she's the real star of the picture - Laurent makes her character bold, brave and sexy all at once, though not a second of acting feels forced or fake or hammy in the way that some Tarantino performances do. It's cool, collected and perfectly weighed: the movie just wouldn't have worked without her.