The Award-Winning Actor Who Said Hollywood Icon Paul Newman Was 'A Little Dull'

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With his breathtaking blue eyes, Paul Newman looked like he was made in a laboratory designed to build the perfect leading man. But the iconic actor wasn't just handsome. With 10 Oscar nominations — winning one – and a plethora of classic films under his belt, there is no denying that Newman was a fantastic actor. At least, most people wouldn't doubt it. But, if one of Newman's contemporaries is to be believed, the "Cool Hand Luke" star was not a great actor and was, in fact, "a little dull." That was how "Frost/Nixon" star Frank Langella described Newman in his memoir, "Dropped Names." The Tony winner wrote, (via the Los Angeles Times): "Paul loved the craft of acting but the burden he carried was not, in my opinion, his good looks. He had no danger. And it is essential for a great actor." 

Unsurprisingly, fans were shocked by Frank Langella's thoughts on Paul Newman. Langella would later try to explain what he meant at the Nantucket Film Festival in 2012, saying (via Digital Spy) that Newman was hampered by his good looks and "had a tremendous desire to be a great actor, but he was not a great actor. Great actors are rare. He was a movie star, and that's not an insult." And while most would disagree with Langella, some would take his side. One Broadway director felt the same way, telling Newman in 1953 (via Time), "You don't carry any sexual threat at all." And "Oklahoma!" director Fred Zinnemann recalled Newman's failed audition for the movie, saying (via the Independent), "Paul Newman is a handsome boy, but quite stiff, to my disappointment."

Amazingly, Paul Newman, whose life wasn't always easy, may have agreed with Frank Langella. In his memoir "The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man," Newman claimed he felt like he had to prove himself, writing (via People), "I had the luck to overcome the fact that people always said about me 'Isn't he darling!' by having enough drive to see I wasn't ever going to survive just on that." He also discussed his talents on "Inside the Actor's Studio" (via Yahoo! Life), explaining: "Acting, to me, is like dredging a river. It's a painful experience... I never felt I had any gift at all to perform, but it was something that I wanted badly enough, so I kept at it."

Newman kept at it even when his first movie, "The Silver Chalice," was so bad he paid for ads begging people not to watch it. But the star owes at least part of his success to the death of another Hollywood icon. When James Dean tragically died, Newman took over his role in 1956's "Somebody Up There Likes Me," which turned him into a star. Three years later, he received his first Oscar nomination for "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," showing the world that he was more than just a guy with amazing eyes. Now, the actors who have followed Newman often credit him as an inspiration. While he'll never post about it on social media, George Clooney admitted to Time, "I've certainly ripped off Paul Newman three or four times, [though] not as well," and Jake Gyllenhaal revealed to Stephen Colbert that he stole a move from Newman for his role in "Presumed Innocent."