This list explores comedic actors, who I feel, have made a successful dramatic turn. The two criteria for the list are: the actor had to first come to public recognition as a comedic performer before taking on a dramatic role and that they made at least one successful dramatic turn. To be clear, this is not a ranking. I have simply chosen 12 comedic actors who I believe excelled in their dramatic turns.
Also, there are potential spoilers ahead. You’ve been warned.
JONAH HILL
Film: Moneyball
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to start this entry. Instead of agonizing over something clever, I’m just going to dive right in. Of all the actors on this list, I think it is fair to say that Hill’s performance caught me the most off guard. I would put it up there with Sacha Baron Cohen’s performance in Chicago 7. But while Abbie Hoffman is still the comedic relief (albeit a poignant one), Hill’s performance as Peter Brand in Moneyball was the opposite. Going against type, Hill does not play the comedic relief, as expected. But that’s not to say he isn’t funny either. The humor in Hill’s performance comes strictly from the character. Sometimes you can’t help but laugh about how naive Peter is or how passionate, dare I say eager, he is when it comes to studying baseball statistics. Hill’s portrayal is completely authentic. This is why it came as such a shock to me. Like many people, my first introduction to HIll was in Superbad (a movie I watched for the first time when I was way too young). If you had told anyone fifteen years ago that Jonah Hill, the foul-mouthed “teen” from Superbad would be a two-time Academy Award nominee, you might end up being committed.
As Peter Brand, Hill plays the assistant to Oakland A’s GM Billy Beane (Brad Pitt). Stuck with a (comparatively) puny budget and lackluster players, Beane and Brand champion the idea of purchasing undervalued and underappreciated players to create a winning team. Of course, not everyone is on board with this “radical” idea. The strategy creates a divide among the A’s leadership. The head scout is fired after a heated argument with Beane, and coach Art Howe (the late great Philip Seymour Hoffman) refuses to play the players in the way Beane intends. Despite all of the opposition, their strategy slowly begins to work. Going from the laughing stock of baseball to the surprise underdogs, the A’s start to gain a new fandom. Their success culminates with them winning 20 consecutive games, beating the American League record. Though the A’s don’t make it to the national championship, Brand recognizes that their strategy not only worked but will revolutionize the game of baseball.
To figure out why this performance was so shocking to me, we need to go back in time. Twenty years, to be precise, 2004. It was then that 20-year-old Hill made his debut in the David O. Russell film I Heart Huckabees. Hill got the role at the insistence of Dustin Hoffman. Hill was friends with Hoffman’s children, and together, they would pull practical jokes and prank call people. According to Hill, Hoffman’s son Jake compiled a CD of his prank calls and showed them to his dad, who loved it. Hoffman was able to secure a small part for him, thus kick-starting his career. However, it is arguably his next film that would be the stepping stone in his career. In 2005, Hill had a small part as “Ebay Customer” in The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Though the part was small, it was instantly memorable. Hill proved he could hold his own against Steve Carell, but most importantly, writer/director/producer Judd Apatow took notice.
Apatow quickly took a liking to Hill, adding him to his repertoire of actors (a group that already included the likes of Seth Rogen, James, Franco, and Jason Segel). Hill would go on to have small parts in Apatow projects like Knocked Up, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and Funny People, as well as non-Apatow projects like Accepted, Evan Almighty, and Click. The film, however, that launched him to prominence was the aforementioned Superbad in 2007. Hill played the crude, sex-obsessed teen, Seth, opposite the reserved and respectful Evan (Michael Cera). While he plays a co-lead, it did help cement the fact that Hill was capable of being a leading man. Before Superbad, Hill often found himself typecast as the fat, goofy sidekick. However, it would take until 2010 for Hill to get his first true leading role in Get Him to the Greek (a spin-off of Forgetting Sarah Marshall). It was during his “goofy sidekick” phase, that Hill began to evaluate the roles he was being offered. He turned down many roles that were more or less the same as roles he was typecast as, including a role as Shia LaBeouf’s roommate in Transformers: Rise of the Fallen. Hill knew he was capable of more dramatic parts, so when he was offered the part in Moneyball by director Bennett Miller, he jumped at the chance. Giving credit where credit is due, there’s a much more in-depth video on Nerdstalgic’s YouTube channel that explains why this was a breakthrough for Hill. It made me view him in another light and inspired me to add him to my list, so I will link the video here.
Silencing the skeptics, Hill delivered a tender, authentic portrayal. One that nobody saw coming, except for Hill himself. For his efforts, he was rewarded with an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Though he lost the award to Christopher Plummer, it was no doubt a sign of validation for him. The cool thing was that despite his dramatic turn, he never gave up on comedy. Post-Moneyball, Hill gifted us with 21/22 Jump Street (which he co-wrote) and a fictitious version of himself in This is the End. He also gave us movies like The Watch, The Sitter, and Sausage Party. The less said about those films, the better. Two years after his success in Moneyball, Hill found himself nominated for another Academy Award for playing Donnie Azoff, Jordan Belfort’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) right-hand man in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street. While Hill does a great job with the role, his performance lacks the same depth as his in Moneyball. I love Wolf. It’s one of my favorite movies. That being said, the film, by design, is utter chaos, and I mean that in the best of ways. The film is three hours long but it moves at the pace of a speeding bullet, depicting the excess and greed associated with the characters. Again, he’s great as Leo’s sidekick, but his character lacks depth. He’s borderline unlikable.
I think it is fair to say that except for Wolf, Hill’s dramatic career dropped off. He played a lead role in 2015’s True Story opposite James Franco, as a reporter confronting the inmate who stole his identity while hiding from fugitives. I will be the first to admit that I have not seen this film, nor do I have any desire to. I don’t seem to be alone. Looking at the reviews, it would be fair to call them mixed. The film has a 45% score on Rotten Tomatoes if that tells you anything. Other than that, his dramatic performances have been relegated to small parts like Joel and Ethan Coen’s Hail Caesar! and Gus Van Sant’s Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far On Foot. However, I do have hope that Hill will make another splash with his dramatic work. And maybe Hill will surprise me again? He pivoted to directing in 2018, making the coming-of-age film Mid90s and the documentary, Stutz, about his psychiatrist. While Hill hasn’t directed in a while, it would be a nice surprise to see him return to the director’s chair and see him join the likes of actors like Robert Redford or Ben Affleck who have successfully transitioned to directing. I’m excited to see where his career goes next.
Check this out: Moneyball/Best scene/Brad Pitt/Billy Beane/Jonah Hill/Peter Brand
