Most performers rely on the modern kind of acting style, where they make us believe they aren’t acting. These are the chameleonic, ultra-realistic actors that give power to the argument of “Oscars are always given to actors that do biographies." However, sometimes the craft of acting is just that — a craft through which a character is created and method acting or psychological realism seems unnecessary. It’s simply something other than realistic performances, and this has nothing to do with being believable.

Peter Mullanis a Scottish actor with such a style, exemplified through an outstanding career. Mullan is nearly always a supporting character, but his presence always elevates these characters into being just as memorable as the leads. He’s a character actor with a style so precise, he steals every scene he’s in.

While he’s most known in the UK, he’s had many amazing roles that viewers around the world would recognize. Currently starring in The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power, and perhaps best known in the States for Westworld and Braveheart, Mullan is also a writer and director, winning the Venice Film Festival’s top prize, the Golden Lion, for his movie The Magdalene Sisters. Here are Peter Mullan’s best performances.

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10 Shallow Grave

     Rank Film Distributors

Mullan’s performance in Shallow Grave is fairly short and underseen, but it introduced him to director Danny Boyle, who would help put Mullan on the map in a big way with Trainspotting. He plays a thug hunting a mysterious man, and his performance is secondary to say the least, but it never means it’s not important. He’s nefarious and intimidating, but never crosses the line and vulgarizes the role.

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

9 Top of the Lake

     BBC

Mullan’s Matt Mitcham is a leader of some sort whose morals are twisted in his favor in filmmaker Jane Campion’s great miniseries. The crime drama Top of the Lake, starring Elisabeth Moss, is intense by nature, and Mullan adds force to a role that needs to be mysterious. No one is better than him to accomplish this, and his performance garnered Mullan an Emmy nomination.

8 My Name Is Joe

     Film Four

With My Name Is Joe, Mullan won the Cannes Award for Best Actor in 1998, seven years after starring in director Ken Loach’s earlier film, Riff Raff. His Joe Kavanagh is a recovering alcoholic who falls in love while trying to deal with the remnants of his past. In the film, Mullan feels like a kindness-driven ticking time bomb who slowly moves toward the inevitable.

7 War Horse

     Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Ted Narracott is a great father character in Steven Spielberg’s film War Horse, and Mullan perfectly embodies him. He plays the physically and emotionally scarred father of a young man who is beginning to become a burden. When a drunk Ted decides to acquire a horse to plow a field, a beautiful story about bonding begins. The physicality in Mullan’s performance is staggering in this quiet, beautiful drama.

6 Session 9

     USA Films

Mullan’s character is trapped in a story of insanity and horror in this creepy, underrated horror movie from the 2000s. Session 9 is the actor’s closest approach to horror and it’s so effective, it’s hard to imagine someone else playing the part of a man getting close to possession. Sure, the film is greatly unsettling, but its ensemble cast that takes the dramatic layers to the next level.

5 Children of Men

     Universal Pictures

In Children of Men, Mullan has an extremely small part, but it’s endlessly memorable, suspicious, and perfectly performed. It feels strong enough to leave a mark in the viewer who’s trying to understand the cynicism of a character that moves between tyranny and kindness in a matter of seconds. The scene with him trying to make the refugees do some faces while getting off a bus is deeply haunting, as short as it is.

4 Trainspotting

     PolyGram Filmed Entertainment

Mullan plays a quirky drug dealer who decides to help a junkie in the most improbable of moments in Trainspotting. The actor adds gravitas to a film that isn’t well known for this. It’s one of his relatively unknown performances that accomplishes a lot with a few minutes of screen time, and leads to one of the most memorable scenes in the film.

3 Ozark

     Netflix

Jacob Snell was a violent part of the dark Netflix series Ozark, and was played impressively by Mullan. His presence felt ominous and dangerous, even though he didn’t exactly represent an unreasonable man whose acts were random displays of temper. The physicality, the voice, and the emotional load he thrust upon everyone else is felt throughout every episode he’s in. He’s simply one of Ozark’s best characters.

2 Red Riding

     Channel 4

The epic crime trilogy Red Riding, considered The Godfather of the UK, was sadly not seen by everybody, but has one of Mullan’s most important roles. The morals of Reverend Laws are twisted enough in the Red Riding trilogy to give Mullan the opportunity to play good and bad. The dramatic depth of the character requires Mullan to leave volatility aside and just wait for the big blow.

1 Tyrannosaur

     StudioCanal

Simply the best of the best. Mullan stars alongside an amazing Olivia Colman in the very dark film Tyrannosaur, directed by Paddy Considine. It’s a harrowing film that portrays emotional and physical abuse, and the consequences of one man’s particular reaction to it. Joseph is a monster of a man; he kills his dog during a drunken rage, which begins the downward spiral of a man whose nature follows no pattern at all.

Colman has a great role, but this is Mullan’s show from beginning to end, as he explores a relationship with a woman who’s trapped inside a marriage that will surely end in something awful, but sees no way out. Joseph is her only choice, but it comes with a price of fighting fire with fire.