The theatre, television and film are places of employment for all sorts and all standings of actors.
"L. A. Confidential" was a box office disappointment, but it upped Mr. Hanson's standing with actors, who admired the performances he got from the likes of Russell Crowe and Kim Basinger.
Later, as Isac nudged his way toward Rangel, he found himself standing near the actor Chevy Chase, the evening's master of ceremonies.
The alienation that these performers evoke is not the alienation of Albee's world, with its high talk and its Episcopalian doubt, but the chilly defensiveness of actors standing onstage, for the most part, alone together.
Murphy, a long-standing member of actor's union Equity, also worked for years at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast, where he helped to hone the crafts of renowned actors such as Ciaran Hinds and Liam Neeson.
To his own and later generations, the nobility of his mature character, his splendid achievement in his art, and his zeal to raise both the moral and social standing of his fellow actors combined to make him one of the great figures of the American stage.
"Now, I see this as pantsless," the artist Paul McCarthy announced one winter morning to a group of male actors standing at the edge of a massive soundstage in a warehouse east of downtown Los Angeles, flanked by a plumbing supply and an auto impound yard.
Detached from the more faintly registered backgrounds, unimplicated in the receding perspectives of Pabst's compositions, these are simply actors standing in front of a set.
Ms. Washington credited Shonda Rhimes, the creator of "Scandal," for having the vision and — thanks to her previous hits "Grey's Anatomy" and "Private Practice" — the standing to break actors of color out of stereotype.
He stretches his legs often while on the set; the job involves a lot of standing (always outside the actors' sight lines) and what he calls "silent responsibility" — replacing burned-out bulbs, making sure no one trips over a light cord.
In the original film, Ford introduces Wayne with a highly uncharacteristic visual flourish: the camera darts toward Wayne in a rapid dolly shot, as the actor, standing in front of what appears to be a projected background, twirls his rifle in a grand, theatrical gesture.
