40

What is the least amount of screen time, relative to the total running length, that the single highest-billed actor (or actress) has ever had in a feature-length, non-experimental film? (For the purposes of this question, "screen time" includes time spent doing voice-overs.)

Psychonaut
  • 2,124
  • 5
  • 21
  • 39
  • This might need narrowed down a little more. I know Hathaway won an Oscar for just 15 minutes of screen time, but she wasn't the top billed. But outside of awards, I'm not sure who has tracked this. Might be hard to ever know this for sure. – Andrew Martin Feb 15 '16 at 10:32
  • 1
    This has been discussed in this Reddit thread, though it needs a bit of filtering and sorting. – jcaron Feb 15 '16 at 11:10
  • 1
    I would love to know how much screen time Steven Seagal had in "Executive Decision" I recall him being top billed! – AidanO Feb 15 '16 at 12:38
  • 2
    Top-billed where, though? Promotional art varies from country to country (like in this travesty), and is also sometimes changed after a then-obscure actor in a bit part becomes successful. – Walt Feb 15 '16 at 13:21
  • I don't particularly care in which market they got top billing. In cases where it makes a difference, please make a note of it in your answer. – Psychonaut Feb 15 '16 at 13:39
  • I'm thinking about Helen Hunt in "Castaway". Okay, not top billed, but she was technically the female lead. – Darrel Hoffman Feb 15 '16 at 15:17
  • 3
    Not actually top-billed but John Wayne played a Roman centurion in "The Greatest Story Ever Told" when he was one of the biggest actors in the world; the full version of the film lasts 260 minutes and he was on-screen for a few seconds, delivering precisely one line. As this poster shows, he was given quite a bit of billing for just one line. – Spratty Feb 15 '16 at 15:32
  • Andy Serkis has starred in many films without appearing on screen. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0785227/ – Jodrell Feb 15 '16 at 16:17
  • @Jodrell - I'd assume that mocap falls into the same category as voice-overs. Given that he's pretty much the only famous mocap actor right now, I don't know if this rule needs to be added, but it would make sense to think of it that way. – Darrel Hoffman Feb 15 '16 at 16:24
  • 4
    Andy Serkis does voice acting, which my question defines as screen time. If you don't count voice acting (and motion capture, I suppose) as screen time, then every animated film ever made would have to be listed here! – Psychonaut Feb 15 '16 at 16:24
  • 5
    Is Mark Hamill in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, a possible answer to this question? He only got maybe a minute on-screen, but I think Harrison Ford billed higher. – erdekhayser Feb 15 '16 at 19:02
  • 2
    He got second billing in my market. I doubt there was any release where he was billed first. – Psychonaut Feb 15 '16 at 19:12
  • 1
    Related: http://opendata.stackexchange.com/questions/2139/total-screen-time-and-first-on-screen-appearance-by-actors-in-films – Chloe Feb 16 '16 at 21:53

6 Answers6

41

There are a lot of films with actors/actresses who dominate the film, but actually have very little screen time. For example, Orson Welles in The Third Man had ~10 minutes of screen time. Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight had just under 20 minutes. Judi Dench won an Oscar for Shakespeare in Love for less than 8 minutes acting time. Similarly, Beatrice Straight won an Oscar for Network, based on ~10 minutes acting time. Anne Hathaway also won an Oscar for Les Miserables, based on ~15 minutes screen time.

Of course, the problem with all of these is that they don't fit the scope of your question - in that the actors involved, whilst highly billed, were not the highest billed.

Given this, the best answer I can think of is The Silence of the Lambs, starring, as the joint top-billed actor, Anthony Hopkins. He had less than 16 minutes of screen time, which is more than the others above, but at least shared the top billing.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to verify anything lower than this. There are plenty of people who have had high billing despite having a mere cameo, but I'm not aware of anyone actually leading the credit listings with a lower time than this (although I'll happily amend my answer if I find anyone).

Edit:

Marlon Brando in Superman received joint top billing with Gene Hackman (who played Lex Luthor). Christopher Reeve, who played Superman, was billed much lower as he was relatively unknown at the time. Brando has ~8 minutes of screen time, which is much less than Anthony Hopkins.

Edit 2:

If joint top billing is to be allowed, as many have commented Mark Hamill, who shared top-billing with a host of other people, had a mere minute or two of on-screen presence in Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens.

Edit 3:

Neither of us have confirmed this, but @Thunderforge has suggested Tobin Bell in Saw 3D, who was given solo top billing and apparently only had two minutes of screen play.

Andrew Martin
  • 51,359
  • 9
  • 236
  • 296
  • Keep in mind that my question is about the proportion of screen time, not the absolute number of minutes. That said, of your two examples, Brando still wins (8 of 143 minutes = 6%, compared to Hopkins's 15 / 118 = 13%). – Psychonaut Feb 15 '16 at 14:20
  • You beat me to it. Had to be Marlon Brando, I'm surprised that it was even 8 minutes... could have guessed it was about 4. – John O Feb 15 '16 at 15:31
  • 7
    Does joint billed count? The question says "single highest-billed". Is Mark Hammill joint top billed in The Force Awakens? – Fruitbat Feb 15 '16 at 16:05
  • @Fruitbat: I think it should count, but OP indicated elsewhere it shouldn't. – Andrew Martin Feb 15 '16 at 16:05
  • I think Drew Berrymore in Scream was only on for around 10 minutes. Not sure if she was top billed or what the exact amount of screen time is though. – tpg2114 Feb 15 '16 at 20:11
  • 3
    TV Tropes Billing Displacement page says that Tobin Bell had top billing in Saw 3D, but only 2 minutes of screen time. I can confirm from the poster I found that he did get top billing, but I've never seen the movie, so I can't confirm that he has 2 minutes. It also mentions Mel Brooks getting top billing in Space Balls despite cameo rolls, but I don't know how much screen time that is. – Thunderforge Feb 16 '16 at 05:49
  • @Thunderforge don't know the minutes, but he has two supporting roles, so he seems to be in half the movie, popping in all the time.... – BMWurm Feb 16 '16 at 10:36
  • What exactly is joint\shared top billing, BTW? – Walt Feb 16 '16 at 14:49
  • @Walt: Yes, it is a bit of a misnomer here. I'm using it to mean both a) the highest billed people on the film b) equal prominence in billing. My example in my head is Towering Inferno with joint top billing for McQueen and Newman. – Andrew Martin Feb 16 '16 at 14:52
  • I thought that when names are displayed horizontally, it's about being first-billed (from the left). I admit the Towering Inferno's billing is confusing as hell, though. – Walt Feb 16 '16 at 15:05
  • @Walt: I think there's a fair few examples where they just do it alphabetically to avoid arguments (although Towering Inferno is definitely weird). – Andrew Martin Feb 16 '16 at 15:06
  • Blame it on them :P – Walt Feb 16 '16 at 15:12
  • @Walt Joint top billing can also mean that a few actors are listed, and then everyone else is listed in alphabetical order. This is what happened in The Force Awakens; we have Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, and Carrie Fisher, then everybody else (including those with far more screen time) in alphabetical order. – Thunderforge Feb 16 '16 at 15:41
  • What about Schwarzenegger in The Dispendables 2? – Markus Feb 17 '16 at 14:56
  • Don't forget Robert Redford in A Bridge Too Far. – Martin Schröder Feb 20 '16 at 20:10
37

EDIT: We might have a new record. In the US historical epic One Night with the King from 2006, Peter O'Toole briefly appears in the prologue as the Prophet Samuel for "barely 30 seconds", according to Leonard Maltin's 2015 Movie Guide. (I timed it myself and it's about 25 seconds). Despite this, he's top-billed as the film's star:

enter image description here

Another notable example would be Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space from 1959. It's a B-movie, but by all means not experimental or avant-garde. It was famously filmed after Bela Lugosi's death and more or less based around some brief, silent footage of him which Wood shot before he died. Wood originally promoted it as "Bela Lugosi's last movie", and to make Bela's role more prominent, Wood then hired his wife's chiropractor as a stand in. So, although Lugosi's actual screen time is under 3 minutes (I counted it myself), he's still top-billed in the original promotional art:

enter image description here

[However, there is also the dubious practice of retroactively displaying a famous actor prominently in the promotional art of their older, more obscure films in which they only briefly appeared. TVTropes calls this Billing Displacement and features a few trillion examples, so you might find some more fitting titles there too.]

Walt
  • 99,863
  • 9
  • 328
  • 349
  • I think your final disclaimer is important. I considered added Lugosi, but rejected him because he didn't initially have the top billing. As you say, he got it afterwards. Still, he probably is the closest to what the OP wants. – Andrew Martin Feb 15 '16 at 15:18
  • @AndrewMartin When was he not top billed, though? I thought this whole movie was originally promoted\created as 'Bela's last film'. – Walt Feb 15 '16 at 15:20
  • @Walt: Sorry, I'll rephrase that. He died during it, then it was decided to make him one of the top bills. That wasn't the original plan. Whether that makes a difference or not, I don't know :) – Andrew Martin Feb 15 '16 at 15:27
  • 4
    @AndrewMartin No, AFAIK that's a common misconception. He died before filming and Wood used this old footage of him he had lying around (for some other project) to basically create a film around. – Walt Feb 15 '16 at 15:28
  • @Walt: Oh okay, I'll need to go and read up on it. – Andrew Martin Feb 15 '16 at 15:29
  • 1
    @AndrewMartin You can also just watch Burton's Ed Wood, which I think recreates this pretty faithfully. Plus, it's fun :) – Walt Feb 15 '16 at 15:31
5

Steve McQueen was the top billed actor of The Great Escape.

enter image description here

He has very few lines, and spends almost all his screen time throwing a baseball off a wall into his glove. Supposedly he was slated to have even less (and was nearly thrown out of the movie entirely), but insisted on being given something "heroic" to do.

Part of the problem, it seemed, was McQueen’s determination that his character remain cool and inscrutable. 'We finally figured out,’ Garner said, '“Steve, you want to be the hero, but you don’t want to do anything heroic.”’

So a scene was added near the end of him failing to escape on a motorcycle. But even that scene was done by a stunt-double, not McQueen himself.

I can't find a definitive number for McQueen's screen time online, nor a stream of the movie. However, youtube has a series of 11 clips. Adding up his screen time from all of them, it appears that he had at least 10 minutes of screen time in the movie, which works out to a bit less than 6%. But that's a lower bound, not upper.

T.E.D.
  • 2,561
  • 2
  • 14
  • 18
  • I added this as an answer because I had always heard of this as the prototypical example of the "star" having nearly no screen time. However, I couldn't find anywhere that listed his actual screen time in this (nearly 3 hour) movie. Still, I think he should get extra credit for doing and saying nearly nothing in the screen time he does have. – T.E.D. Feb 16 '16 at 14:50
  • For what proportion of the film is he actually on screen? Unless you provide numbers, it's impossible to tell whether this answer is better than the others already posted. – Psychonaut Feb 16 '16 at 19:05
  • @Psychonaut - Exact numbers are what I have been having trouble finding. I was hoping someone else could find them and post them in a comment. It has to be out there somewhere. I do know the movie itself is 2 hours and 52 minutes (172 minutes). But I think even without numbers it should be given some consideration simply because the "star" wasn't doing or saying much of anything when he was on screen. – T.E.D. Feb 16 '16 at 20:07
  • Well, its not currently on any streaming service I have access to. But I did find the complete cycle chase scene. It clocks in at about 6.5 minutes, for a rocking 3.7% of the movie alone. During that entire sequence his only line is to mumble "Switzerland". – T.E.D. Feb 17 '16 at 03:33
4

There are a lot of good answers, but there is one movie that is notorious for having the top-billed actor have very little screen time.

The movie Game Of Death (1978) stars Bruce Lee, well kind of. All you history buffs know where I am going with this. Bruce Lee was already long dead before this movie was released. There was tons of archive footage that wasn't being used, so the film makers decided to make an entire movie using these clips. Unfortunately, they did not have enough footage, so they had to insert cardboard cutouts of Lee (I kid you not) as a stand in.

Here is a clip showing just how egregious some of these scenes are.

Cardboard Cutout Bruce

Bruce Lee is the top-billed actor in this film, yet he did not actually act in this movie. The acting for this film that he did was technically 0 minutes.

Jason Hutchinson
  • 331
  • 2
  • 8
  • 2
    He still has screen time, though. Otherwise you can put Trail of the Pink Panther in here as well. – Walt Feb 17 '16 at 00:36
3

Alec Baldwin, Blake, 7:23 of 100:00 (7.3%), Glengarry Glen Ross, billing (third or shared first, I don't find querier has resolved in other comments):

enter image description here

Eric Towers
  • 549
  • 3
  • 7
2

George Clooney, The Thin Red Line (1998)

Albeit having a huge ensemble cast, in this 2-hour 50-minute feature he has less than maybe 2 minutes of screen time.

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTk0MjIyNTA1M15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTYwOTM3MzU5._V1_UY268_CR4,0,182,268_AL_.jpg

mike3996
  • 123
  • 6