10 Movie Henchmen Who Stole Movies From Villains

While there isn't any one "main" antagonist in the Quentin Tarantino-written and Tony Scott-directed True Romance for a heavy to steal the show from, there is one figure who always lingers more in my rewatches than the likes of Christopher Walken's Vincenzo Coccotti or Gary Oldman's Drexl Spivey - as iconic and as brilliantly performed as they are - and that is James Gandolfini's Virgil.

The performance that reportedly won Gandolfini the role of Tony Soprano in David Chase's hit mob drama The Sopranos was also the second meeting between him and Scott, with Gandolfini having a small but uncredited role as a thug in The Last Boy Scout who throws Damon Wayans' Jimmy off an overpass. (Gandolfini would also star in potentially Scott's magnum opus, Crimson Tide.) Here, he got to flex his acting chops beyond just his imposing stature, playing a hitman who tracks down Clarence and Alabama (Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette respectively) to L.A. in a bid to return the drug money they stole from Coccotti.

He appears only for a few minutes in a scene where he tortures Alabama, but there's such sinister glee etched across Gandolfini's face that he easily cements himself among the most evil Tarantino villains, albeit one who hasn't been enshrined as such due to True Romance often being forgotten as a Tarantino story.

It takes a lot to outdo Walken and Oldman, but Gandolfini accomplished just that in his main scene, with Arquette also going hell for leather to make it a true highlight of the film and Scott's filmography overall.