First and foremost, if you’ve not checked out any of my previous Six Degrees posts, i’d urge you to do so. The basic premise of the game has been explained before but to quickly sum up, I take two actors and try to link them through film and TV appearances. It’s basically Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon, but without Kevin Bacon. Except for the times when it includes Kevin Bacon. Moving on…
Hello, gentle reader. Long time, no write.
Two years have passed since my last Six Degrees post so I decided it’s time to dust off my keyboard, blow away the metaphorical mental cobwebs that litter the dark recesses of my mind and tippedy-tap out a hot, fresh blog for you all. I reached out to the wonderful folks at the fantastic Skip To The End podcast* for inspiration and they quickly obliged, tasking me with linking Sharon Stone to Ryan Gosling.
As usual, I followed my self imposed rules and used no search engine other than the creaking machinery of my own aching noggin. It was easy to think up examples of Sharon Stone’s work and so I thought it best to work in reverse and start with Mr Gosling, star of such blockbuster hits as…
…I had nothing. I know he’s in Barbie, of course, but i’ve not seen it and that only gives me Margot Robbie to work with. That opens a lot of possibilities of course but I usually like to have a couple of options ready to work with so I dug deep, deep into the darkest corners of my memory palace* and managed to come up with Drive (might have Ron Perlman in it but I can’t be certain) and Blade Runner 2049 with Harrison Ford and…other people. Apparently two years of inactivity has allowed some rust to build up in the cerebral workings.
So, Margot Robbie, otherwise known as the woman who brought Harley Quinn to life and who holds a very special place in my heart for doing so. I absolutely adore Harley Quinn, she’s a complex and hugely entertaining character who first appeared in Batman: The Animated Series and has gone on to become arguably one of the most popular and best known figures in the DC Comics universe.
Margot’s debut as Harley in Suicide Squad absolutely enchanted me (the dive sequence into the chemical vat is one of the most beautiful things i’ve ever seen and I will die on this hill) but the film itself, while a personal favourite of mine, definitely had some issues. Critics and fans alike shared their disappointment with Jared Leto’s performance as The Joker (I still say it was good, fight me) and were even less impressed with his reported antics backstage. I freely admit that I love 30 Seconds To Mars and I think Leto is a decent actor but the man himself…well, I lack sufficient knowledge to fully comment but I think i’ll just say “troubling” and leave it at that.
Regardless, Margot absolutely nailed it as Mr J’s main squeeze alongside an ensemble cast which included Will Smith as Deadshot.
Having had a hand in producing, acting and writing for both cinema and television, not to mention his music career and long-time passion for slapping Chris Rock in the face, Will Smith is one of those names that lights up the memory banks with possible onward links. With starring roles alongside Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Alan Tudyk, Woody Harrelson and countless others, there are so many options available. For my purposes, however, I picked arguably Will Smith’s greatest performance, his brief cameo as a news reader during a ludicrous fight scene in Anchorman 2.
When you stop laughing, you’re going to realise that this was the perfect choice because both Anchorman and it’s sequel stars Will Ferrell as titular news anchor Ron Burgundy, alongside Steve Carrell as sweet, simple Brick and of course the eternal, ageless Paul Rudd as Sex Panther scented Brian Fantana. If you haven’t watched the Anchorman movies give yourself a treat and check them out, they’re utterly ridiculous and laugh-out-loud-until-you-throw-up funny.
Hitting Paul Rudd in the links, it was obvious where I was going to head. Marvel. Paul Rudd delivers a truly fantastic performance as Ant-Man in multiple films across the MCU franchise, opposite Michael Douglas as crotchety genius Dr Hank Pym. If you haven’t figured out where this is going, you weren’t a teenager in the nineties. The talented and beautiful Sharon Stone starred with Michael Douglas in Basic Instinct, the film that made many a young man both incredibly aroused and terrified of any mention of ice and sex in the same sentence.
There you have it. Ryan Gosling to Margot Robbie to Will Smith to Paul Rudd to Michael Douglas to Sharon Stone. Had to use the whole Six Degrees to get there, but I managed it by golly! I then sat for about five more minutes and realised that if I had chosen Margot Robbie’s stellar turn in Wolf Of Wall Street, I could have linked to Leonardo Dicaprio and then directly to Sharon Stone in The Quick & The Dead. I spent at least seven solid minutes swearing and lamenting at how stupid I am, then I sat down and wrote this. Enjoy!
As always, thanks to IMDB for the actor and movie info linked in this article. Not that they know about it, but i’m sure they wouldn’t mind.
*You absolutely MUST check out Skip To The End. It’s an absolute treat for your ears with movie reviews and chat and general good times. They have 134 episodes of the regular show and though they’re not currently recording new episodes of the main show they do put out End Of Year Specials which are ruddy fabulous.
**Picture the cabin from Evil Dead, but cruddier.