With the release of Gangster Squad on DVD and Blu-ray today (order your copy here or click here to enter our competition) , it highlight to us that one of its cast has been in a lot of films. The person in question is Giovanni Ribisi. To most, he’s one of those actors that you can’t place the name of, and spend most of the film trying to figure out what you’ve seen him in before (and will probably either pick Friends as Phoebe’s brother of Avatar!). Truth is, you’ve seen him in a lot of things.
This doesn’t make him an actor that will take any old role though. Ribisi has been in some of the most important films in contemporary Hollywood cinema. He provides a quality of acting that always intrigues you. He brings characters to life that are endearing, a bit quirky, or down right disturbing.
Although he offers stunning performances, he seems to be an underrated actor within Hollywood that deserves more attention than he is getting.
Here are (in our humble opinion) are his top 5 performances in film and television that prove him to be one of the most versatile and influential people in Hollywood right now:
5) – Donny – Ted (2012)
Ribisi seems to favour mentally disturbed characters, no more so than in Ted where he plays a deranged father willing to do anything for his son, which includes stealing Ted himself. As this film takes a very dark approach to humour, Ribisi’s performance could be a mockery of his past characters ridden with trauma, but he plays it so well you are genuinely terrified of him – Especially when he starts dancing.
