Get a Good Look, Costanza? The Bob Balaban Poll

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Voting Close Encounters because I learned that he lied about knowing French to get the part.

I get including film work only, but of all of his performances, the one I most associate him with is the one you reference in the thread title, but don't include!

From the list, Midnight Cowboy is an interesting (and risky?) performance for the time, but Gosford Park, Ghost World and the Guests are where I remember him being at his most Balabanesque. For some reason, I can't remember him in Close Encounters right now. I still haven't seen Altered States.

Also, I don't think he appears even in voice form, but there's a good joke in a meh-ish mid-period Simpsons in which he is referred to as "Gosford Park megahunk Bob Balaban."

love this guy, his recent ep of wtf was good

XP "Gosford Park Hottie Bob Balaban"

his orr in catch-22 is a v attenuated part but vivid: "i drifted for three days"

I did think about including Seinfeld, but he's done other prominent television (e.g., The Late Shift), and I didn't want to have to think a lot about what to cut. Both he and Philip Baker Hall (my next poll) are two of the best character actors of the past quarter-century, and they're both most famous for their Seinfeld characters.

Me, Natalie was also Al Pacino's debut. It's not bad - kooky Patty Duke bopping around kooky Greenwich Village

Yes! And her pesky parents keep wanting her to marry this weirdo, cos they're already desperate (she would be practically a child bride by Mid-20th Century American measurements, but they've got some dark anxiety from the past?) And she has a revealing-in-more-ways-than-one conversation with her moonlighting teacher. One of those interesting Duke flicks (like maybe all of 'em?). I don't remember Bob specifically from this or any of the other (mostly excellent) movies you list, though certainly his Seinfeld arc.

Actually I remember the novelization---by the screenwriter, who may have originated the story: he seemed like an authoritative author---better than the movie, and it may have had some detail or whole scenes that didn't make it to the screen--if you find the groovy paperback in the thrift stone, as I did, check it out: it's pretty tight, and the first-person teen female testimony comes across pretty perceptively or at least plausibly, especially for pop culture then (not that the author or I were ever teen girls, alas).

Voting Close Encounters because I learned that he lied about knowing French to get the part.

Also, because they were filming a year after Jaws came out, people kept mistaking him for Richard Dreyfuss.

I don't even really like Ghost World but it kinda feels like the thing to vote for tbh

love this guy whenever he shows up, and his directing career is about as bizarre as his acting CV

A Mighty Wind

never seen this one but lol @ this cast

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Boyfriend%27s_Back_(1993_film)

Balaban too overshadowed by Charles Haid in Altered States, so Close Encounters it is, esp. his "star scene" where he figures out the ETs are sending a latitude and longitude.

xp it's like the character actor follies!

Paul Dooley! *and* Mconaugheyhey's debut!

there's something sexy about bob balaban.

Anybody else a fan of his Dr. Chandra in 2010? I thought there was surprising poignancy in his last scenes with HAL considering he was talking to a red light, and a lot of that has to be to his credit.

Guffman forever.

Kael on Absence of Malice: "As the head of the strike force, Bob Balaban must think that he's doing Captain Queeg. He has devised an attention-getting nervous shtick--he spins his hands around while playing with rubber bands--and he never gives it a rest."

I'll probably vote for one of the performances in that Close Encounters to Prince of the City run--though he is pretty memorable in Midnight Cowboy.

there's something sexy about bob balaban.

BDE

Going with Whose Life Is It, Anyway?

there's something sexy about bob balaban.

blowing Jon Voight in a movie balcony?

he grew up in the biz -- his uncle Barney Balaban was the president of Paramount Pictures from 1936 to 1964.

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