Actors/actresses who should have had a bigger career?

Joseph Cotten
Dana Andrews

Jean Peters
Jean Hagen

Ian McShane

Jane Greer

I would have expected Terence Stamp and Timothy Dalton to star in more prominent lead roles.
The thing is, if we only consider the films that actually happened, then this could only happen at the expense of the actors who played those roles.
But I'm sure I could think of some miscasts that could have worked better with these actors.

Totally agree regarding Jean Hagen

Kevin Kline

Alan Arkin (seemed to hit his peak toward the end of his life).

Harvey Keitel

He has had a wild career come on now

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HEI guys.

He's done OK.

Him and De Niro were in Mean Streets (1973), and personally I'd have tipped Keitel to have the better career. He was a real class act in that film. Showed he can dance too.

I love him (and his moves!) in Mean Streets.

But I guess it depends on how we define "big". DeNiro-big? no, barely anyone is... Keitel has appeared in several modern classics, the last of which came out in 2019 (The Irishman), has worked with great/auteur directors and on-screen partners from the time he started until today... that's around 50+ years filled with memorable roles and moments. I'd say Steve Carell has done OK. Keitel's a badass.

Ethel Merman....Yes she had a big career in theater but made almost no impact in movies. Every time I see her in a movie I realize how personable she is on the big screen.

Anthony Perkins
Christian Slater
Chris Klein

Yeah I meant to put Perkins but forgot.

Anthony Perkins was great in a lot of his movies, I don't know why he didn't have more big hits? Probably got type-cast.

I need to dig more into his filmography at some point. He'll always be known as Norman Bates to casual film goers and cinephiles... which is fine, but I recently watched Pretty Poison on Criterion Channel and it was spectacular and he was great in it with a wonky kind of role and film. Also The Trial is amazing and I liked him in Friendly Persuasion and The Tin Star.

I will say this. Last year I had an opportunity to see Psycho here in Dead Moines and even though I've seen the film at least a half dozen times in my life... seeing it on the big screen, I really REALLY appreciated and noticed how brilliant his performance is and how nuanced it really is. Very VERY few people could have pulled off a performance we're you almost want him to escape and go unnoticed from Martin Balsam's private investigator character. Everyone talks about Janet Leigh with that film, but having given that film a laser like focus and seeing it in theaters... without the brilliant performances and interactions in the second half of it by Balsam and Perkins, it doesn't work at all.

In fact, one of the reasons I don't have Hitchcock in my top 10 directors... yes he's great no doubt, but the more I study him and film... so much of what made his films great, were not necessarily the director himself, and while yes he made have directed the performances to an extent, you can see in some of his films things work brilliantly, while other films like Torn Curtain or The Trouble With Harry, stuff falls completely flat. Without Perkins, there's no way Psycho would have worked.

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I didn't want him to escape. Didn't get that vibe from it. I perhaps didn't hate him the way I should have done a double murderer, but I felt no affiliation with him.
Matt Damon in The Talented Mr Ripley, maybe. I'm not particularly convinced it was down to Damon's acting though, perhaps more the editing and maybe the score (I can't recall).

My pick is Lee Pace. He's amazing.

One of the great things about that performance and film is how the point of view shifts from Marion to Norman... OK so here's the kicker...

It's impossible, even for people who haven't seen the film, but who ARE watching it for the first time, to not know that Norman is the murderer. It's such a part of the cultural cannon that anyone who is even marginally in tune with film or pop culture or a million and one references would know that Norman is the murderer without even having seen the film... it's to the point where the mother thing, the shower thing, and even the Bates Motel itself... as often parodied in everything from rent-a-car commercials to hotel commercials to credit cards, is just a known factor.

So here's the thing. From the audiences point of view, not knowing the spoiler and putting yourself back in the seats in 1960, we have no idea until the end that Norman is a murderer. What we think is happening is that the mother killed Marion and that Norman is trying to cover the crime to protect his mother and it's from that stand point too that the performance is brilliant.

For instance... the extended scene where he's cleaning up the bathroom and motel room, when he's "arguing" with his mother, when he sinks the car in the swamp, and when he's desperately trying to avoid and dodge Arboghast (sp?) his performance is top and it's his point of view that we see and the tension comes from the element of "will he get away with covering up his mother's murders?"

Obviously watching it from either point of view... yeah he's guilty as Hell, but he's crazy and still it's a deeply involving and sympathetic performance and Perkins... not Janet Leigh is why the film works and it's why even people who haven't seen anything except maybe a Marvel film here or there know about Psycho.