On the big screen, there are characters who are very talkative, but there are also others who don’t talk much. Focus on 6 movie heroes whose voices are rarely heard.
In cinema, we love big mouths, talkers, people who talk a lot and who, sometimes, don’t let others put one down. But we also like the more muted characters, who prefer economy of words to extravagance and who often surround themselves with a mysterious aura. Focus on six of them, the film’s little-talking but well-remembered protagonists, embodied in particular by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ryan Gosling or Tom Hardy.
Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator
Columbia tristar movies
On our list of dumb heroes, he’s impossible to ignore…in silence! The Terminator that Arnold Schwarzenegger embodied in 1984, in front of James Cameron’s camera, is already a famous movie hero for expressing himself on screen with stinginess.
In this wonderful SF classic, “Schwarzie” utters only seventeen sentences (nineteen, if we factor in the times he borrows the voices of a police officer and Sarah’s mother) and 58 words. The most famous T-800 letters? Inevitably when the primary balances “I’ll be back later!”
Finally, note that the character Schwarzenegger plays will almost become a big talker in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, as he’ll have 700 words to his credit. With a salary of $15 million on film, the actor earned an average of over $21,000 per word!
Tom Hardy in “Mad Max: Fury Road”
Village Roadshow Films (BVI) Limited
Following roles of few words (Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, for example), Tom Hardy has done it again with Mad Max: Fury Road. In the 2015 re-imagining of the theatrical legend, his character Max Rockatansky is a desert war veteran, trying to survive on his own and let go of attachment. One of his characteristics: he is very frugal with words, since he pronounces only 52 sentences.
Max is a man who just wants to go home but doesn’t have a home.Tom Hardy explains. “There is nothing left for him but silence, pain and destruction. He lives in a world devoid of humanity, but he is still searching for it.”
It should be noted that Australian director George Miller, in order to create his cult franchise, studied pioneer cinema and especially silent cinema, such as Buster Keaton’s. Certainly not a coincidence…
Groot in “Guardians of the Galaxy”
Pictures of Walt Disney
In the feature-length Marvel superhero film Guardians of the Galaxy, which was released to theaters in 2014, an amazing character stands out: Groot, a tree-like humanoid voiced by Vin Diesel. He is almost silent, uttering only one sentence: “I’m Groot”.
Vin Diesel revealed that he recorded the famous “I’m Groot” More than 1000 times! The Fast & Furious hero describes the exotic plant in Chinese, English, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese and French. For the sextet version, the Hollywood star utters a cult following “My name is Groot”.
On a more serious note, it should be noted that doubling down on the character of Groot proved to be a remedial exercise for Vin Diesel, then affected by the death of his friend and colleague Paul Walker in the Fast & Furious saga. According to the actor, the innocence and sensitivity of the “giant flower” allowed him to mourn his companion, who died in a car accident.
Ryan Gosling in “Drive”
the agreement
In Drive, released in theaters in 2011, Canadian actor Ryan Gosling plays a lonely young man, “The Driver”. During the day he drives to Hollywood to the cinema as a businessman, and at night to gangsters.
Ultra Professional, The Driver, who has his own code of conduct, also has the distinction of not speaking too much, no matter the circumstances. In 1h40 he uttered 116 sentences and only 891 words! A silence that gives Gosling’s character – and feature film Nicholas Winding Refn – all its mystery and power.
Clint Eastwood in “Pale Rider, The Lone Rider”
Malpaso Corporation
Another movie character who is not at all talkative: the one played by Clint Eastwood in Pale Rider. A self-directed 1985 Western, American Legend stars a solitary, enigmatic racer dressed all in black who arrives in LaHood, a California mining town.
The last independent gold diggers in Lahoud are being harassed by the gang of Koi Lahoud, the founder of the town who wants to take over their claims. A perfect opportunity for the enigmatic character played by Eastwood, with his shooting skills and no need to express himself too much, to restore order.
The anecdote is that in addition to speaking very little, Eastwood’s character in Pale Rider is devoid of identity, much like the one played by the actor in “The Dollar Trilogy” (For a Fistful of Dollars, A Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly).
Kevin Smith in Silent Bob
TFM distribution
In Kevin Smith’s films, there is often the great duo of Jay & Silent Bob. The first, played by Jason Mewes, is a real talker, while the second, interpreted by Smith himself, is almost a mute.
Bob’s silent speeches in Kevin Smith’s movies, from Clerks to Jay & Bob, aren’t really that many. But why is this character so silent? “It’s really because Jason talks so much. It was that simple.”Smith told the Zanies Comedy Club during the Wild West Comedy Festival, in Comments reported by Comicbook.
“I wanted Jason to be in a movie, but I didn’t want him standing there alone talking or talking to someone who happened to be passing by.”Follows the American director. “So the idea was to have a mate standing there, who is basically his sounding board, who talks to him all the time.”
