Bogart:
Connery:
Cary Grant:
Roger Duchesne in Bob le Flambeur.
Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction.
Terence Stamp in, oh, take your pick. Sure, The Limey.
Chow Yun-Fat in Hard-Boiled.
Takeshi Kitano in Hana-Bi. I think the fact the he was Kenny Blankenship just makes him cooler.
Jean-Paul Belmondo in Le Doulos.
James Coburn, except in The Loved One, where he was great, but not at all cool.
Otto Sander in_Wings of Desire_.
Ben Gazarra in The Killing of a Chinese Bookie.
Katherine Hepburn: “Of course he has a knife. We all have knives. It’s 1183 and we’re barbarians.”
McQueen is kinda the default, but I’d say Toshiro Mifune is a good contender.
McQueen --had he lived longer – woulda pulled some of Newmans roles. But Paul is cool in so many ways other than that. And Newman had a great late career stretch (Color of money and sequel)
But ok – seeing how we are talking about Newman – That great Redford movie with him on a boat alone…
God we are blessed with some cool actors even when they get older.
And btw no one has mentioned this guy: John Wayne.
Finally the Robert Mitchem post above is serious. He was cooler than shit. Even when he had that skin disease in Midway.
And not an actor, but there is almost no one cooler than Nina Simone
Uma! She DEFINATELY qualifies!
Hopper, Ford, and Huston - a triptych of cool!
I have not read any of this thread, I will not read any of this thread.
because the answer is
Steve McQueen.
I am out.
Clooney is like Hamm: sometimes he can play an arrogant moron, usually he plays a debonair fellow who is way cooler and more handsome than the usual schlub.
Jennifer Lopez can play glamorous, and sometimes she’s just Jenny from the block.
Neither of them have been cooler than they were in Out Of Sight.
This post brought to you from the early days of the Bush Administration.
I don’t think any actor in history has conveyed “I don’t give a shit” as well as Mitchum did. It’s a scary, scary look, but also alluring.
Steve McQueen is the coolest.
Paul Newman is a close second.
Robert Mitchem so close to being a top 3 it hurts.
I was watching Sam Jackson in Jackie brown and then I was struck with the obvious.
Now that is cool. Not least of all for Jackie Brown.
I was watching Sam Jackson in Jackie brown and I was struck with the obvious. One of the coolest actors ever was:
Slash thread.
Sam Jackson in “the long kiss Goodnight” Man is he cool. Geena sure yeah yeah … Sam? Great.
Masatoshi Nagase as Jun in Mystery Train!
(That gif cuts off before he throws his lighter up in the air and catches it in his shirt pocket. Super cool.)
