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James Woods

James Woods

Director | Actor | Writer
Date of birth : 04/18/1947
City of birth : Vernal, Utah, USA

James Howard Woods was born on April 18, 1947 in Vernal, Utah, the son of Martha A. (Smith) and Gail Peyton Woods, a U.S. Army intelligence officer who died during Woods' childhood. James is of Irish, English, and German descent. He grew up in Warwick, Rhode Island, with his mother and stepfather Thomas E. Dixon. He graduated from Pilgrim High School in 1965, near the top of his class. James earned a scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; dropping out during his senior year in 1969, he then headed off to New York with his fraternity brother Martin Donovan to pursue aspirations to appear on the stage. After appearing in a handful of New York City theater productions, Woods scored his first film role in All the Way Home (1971) and followed that up with meager supporting roles in The Way We Were (1973) and The Choirboys (1977). However, it was Woods' cold-blooded performance as the cop killer in The Onion Field (1979), based on a Joseph Wambaugh novel, that seized the attention of movie-goers to his on-screen power. Woods quickly followed up with another role in another Joseph Wambaugh film adaptation, The Black Marble (1980), as a sleazy and unstable cable-T.V.-station owner in David Cronenberg's mind-bending and prophetic Videodrome (1983), as gangster Max Bercovicz in Sergio Leones mammoth epic Once Upon a Time in America (1984), and scored a best actor Academy Award nomination as abrasive journalist Richard Boyle in Oliver Stone's gritty and unsettling Salvador (1986). There seemed to be no stopping the rise of this star as he continued to amaze movie-goers with his remarkable versatility and his ability to create such intense, memorable characters. The decade of the 1990s started off strongly with high praise for his role as Roy Cohn in the television production of Citizen Cohn (1992). Woods was equally impressive as sneaky hustler Lester Diamond who cons Sharon Stone in Casino (1995), made a tremendous H.R. Haldeman in Nixon (1995), portrayed serial killer Carl Panzram in Killer: A Journal of Murder (1995), and then as accused civil rights assassin Byron De La Beckwith in Ghosts of Mississippi (1996). Not to be typecast solely as hostile hoodlums, Woods has further expanded his range to encompass providing voice-overs for animated productions including Hercules (1997), Hooves of Fire (1999), and Stuart Little 2 (2002). Woods also appeared in the critically praised The Virgin Suicides (1999), in the coming-of-age movie Riding in Cars with Boys (2001), as a corrupt medico in Any Given Sunday (1999), and in the comedy-horror spoof Scary Movie 2 (2001). A remarkable performer with an incredibly diverse range of acting talent, Woods remains one of Hollywood's outstanding leading men.

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Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or Movie

Nominated

Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series

Nominated

Discussion

Sai Marie

Sai Marie

Hometown HeadlinerParticipant "Your Favorite On-Screen Killer"Critic's Blink

The Getaway - a Twofer on Outlaw Couple.

So, The Getaway from the 1990s was the first movie I thought of with this particular challenge. Why? Because it has two sets of Outlaw Couples that I find remarkably memorable starting with Alec Baldwin and his then-wife, Kim Basinger in the roles of Doc and Carol McCoy. and then turning to Jennifer Tilly, who begins as the abducted Fran Cravey, an unhappy housewife of a hostage Harold Cravey, and later becomes the on-the-lam lover of Michael Madsen in the role of Rudy Travis. To begin with, I r

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The Getaway - a Twofer on Outlaw Couple.
MichelLeFou

MichelLeFou

Participant "Your Favorite On-Screen Killer"Participant "Fresh Film Focus"Participant "My Guilty Pleasure"

The Existential Dilemma of Movie Gangsters: "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!"

Al Pacino's performance in The Godfather Part III has always been controversial. As a standalone performance, Pacino is as flawless as ever, but in portraying Michael Corleone, his character seems drastically different from the previous two Godfather films. Gone are Michael's cold, calculating, and ruthless traits, replaced instead by regret, self-justification, emotional fluctuations, and unrestrained expression of his inner thoughts. Despite the debate, Pacino still delivers many iconic lines

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The Existential Dilemma of Movie Gangsters: "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!"
MichelLeFou

MichelLeFou

Participant "Your Favorite On-Screen Killer"Participant "Fresh Film Focus"Participant "My Guilty Pleasure"

Once Upon a Time in America at 40: How Do We Evaluate This Flawed Masterpiece?

Once Upon a Time in America is a difficult film to evaluate. Among most male movie enthusiasts, it still holds a prestigious status as a masterpiece. Power, violence, brotherhood, and betrayal are elements that resonate with and captivate male audiences, and Once Upon a Time in America explores them in great depth. Sergio Leone’s grand, operatic style, along with performances by Robert De Niro and James Woods, further elevate the film. As far as gangster films go, Once Upon a Time in America und

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Once Upon a Time in America at 40: How Do We Evaluate This Flawed Masterpiece?

Filmography

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