Hollywoods Best Actor

Lots of actors have their great run. The few years when they are not just doing good work, but the best work of their already great careers.

I can think of Tom Hanks in the 1990's. Oscars for Forest Gump, and Philadelphia. Great performances too in Sleepless In Seattle, Apollo 13, Saving Private Ryan, and The Green Mile. George C. Scott with Oscars in Patton and Hospital. And the list goes on. But is there anyone in Hollywood on this kind of roll right now. Yes.

Jeff Bridges is right now, Hollywood's single best actor. Now a bunch of this has to be attributed to the wonderful roles he's gotten the past two years, but everyone on our list was the beneficiary of the same fate. Once you land the role, you then have to make the best of the rarest of opportunities. Bridges has cashed in in 2009 and 2010.

Son of veteran actor, the late Lloyd Bridges, Jeff and brother Beau both took off on a nice career path early in their young lives. Jeff has been making movies for almost 40 years. There have been numerous Oscar nominations, and finally a win last year for Crazy Heart. Bridges has also made his share of dogs too. Who can forget King Kong 1975. One of the real disasters of the decade.

Bridges in Crazy Heart last year, was the runaway single best performance in any movie by any actor in 2009. He played Bad Blake in a fictional story of a down and out country singer who was a serious drunk. But no matter now far down he falls, the music is still in him. Bridges is so believable you forget he's really not Bad Blake. Bridges does his own singing of some fantastic T Bone Burnett songs, and that is the separator. This is one of the most compelling performances in many years. Simply great!

Let's flash forward to this year. Bridges cast as the iconic U.S. Marshall Rooster Cogburn in the Coen Brothers stellar western True Grit is amazing again. Cogburn is the only role John Wayne ever won an Oscar for the 1969 original. The challenge here, make viewers not see Wayne. Mission accomplished. Wayne was playing Cogburn. Bridges is Cogburn. A coveted role, that is Oscar worthy again. He is simply terrific playing a character I'm sure many would have loved to play. Funny too, in the last two years seems the worse he looks on camera, the better he is.

If you have not seen Crazy Heart, rent it, and watch one of the greats be great. See how an Oscar is won. Same for True Grit, get to the theater and see it on the big screen. The jury is still out as to whether he will repeat or not, and I'm hoping he does. Huge roles, huge performances.

Jeff Bridges. Right now, Hollywood's best actor.