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Fri 6 June 2025 17:45, UK
Nobody knows for sure whether a movie character is destined for iconic status, not even the king of the cult classic himself, Kurt Russell. That said, he did feel confident enough to call one of them the greatest in cinematic history.
A lot of the time, it’s down to the actor. Harrison Ford turned Han Solo into one of Hollywood’s most indelible rogues, but it was hardly the same when Alden Ehrenreich stepped in for the prequel, and does anyone even remember that Jonathan Goff picked up Hugo Weaving’s baton as Agent Smith in The Matrix Resurrections?
Like many others before (and after) him, Russell worships at the altar of Marlon Brando, so it’s not ridiculous to think that the actor he called the greatest of all time also played the character he called the greatest of all time, except that he didn’t. Not even close.
Instead, he looked inwards to reveal that, dating right back to the creation of celluloid, the figure who left the most indelible mark on his filmic psyche was played by the one and only Kurt Russell. It’s not just the role he holds closest to his heart, but John Carpenter’s muse even went so far as to inform Cigar Aficionado that the best “that anybody’s ever done, in any movie, ever, is Snake Plissken.”
Fortunately, he did offer an explanation for why he holds his own performance in such high esteem. “He’s completely independent: he’s given up on everything on earth except for food, air, and water,” the back-patting began. “It’s every man’s fantasy to be completely, completely capable of walking anywhere, at any time, fearlessly.”
Snake “doesn’t care about you, me, or anybody: he does not care,” Russell continued. “He’s not human that way. He’s not bothered with anything, he’s not tied to anything, he has no agenda.” All salient points, but are they really enough to make the cycloptic antihero the best the moving image has ever produced?
It’s probably the definitive role of Russell’s career, but it would take a diehard fan of his collaborations with Carpenter on Escape from New York and its sequel Escape from LA to put the eye patch-wearing rogue above the likes of Indiana Jones, Vito Corleone, Darth Vader, James Bond, the Man with No Name, Randall P McMurphy, Tony Montana, or any of the other usual suspects who’ve infliltrated the cultural consciousness and refused to leave.
Still, why shouldn’t he put himself at the top of the pile? It’s impossible to say that Snake isn’t an icon, and if Russell wants to call him the greatest motion picture character to ever exist, then he’s allowed. A little egocentric, sure, but he’s been around the block enough times to say whatever he wants.
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