"Screen Presence"

actors who do one thing pretty much invariably (like, say, Jack Nicholson)

The Pledge, The Passenger, King of Marvin Gardens, The Fortune, The Crossing Guard... you can't even draw a post-Cuckoo's Nest line really

sometimes he did "Jack" movies after McMurphy, sometimes not.

i frankly think de Niro was "the same" more often, even before he became a full-time ho

well deniro often "works small," as they say. but yes, i'm sometimes struck by the similarity of his performances of characters who on paper would seem to be strikingly different.