Vincent D’Onofrio as Orson Welles

It’s Vincent D’Onofrio’s birthday, and while the mike has selected D’Onofrio’s turn as the insane killer from The Cell as his favourite performance from the actor, my award for best D’Onofrio performance has to go to his small cameo in Ed Wood where he plays famed actor Orson Welles! I never realized before seeing this scene just how much D’Onofrio resembles Welles – this really is a case of perfect casting. Apparently, though, Tim Burton didn’t like D’Onofrio’s attempt at imitating Welles’ famous voice, so he got Maurice Lamarche (better known as the voice of the Brain in Pinky and the Brain) to dub the voice instead. A decade later, however, D’Onofrio got a chance to show off his entire Orson Welles impression, complete with voice, when he starred in a short film which he also wrote and directed called Five Minutes, Mr. Welles that was shown at the 2004 Venice film festival. In the short, we see Welles, desperate for cash, preparing to film the pivotal scene as Harry Lime in The Third Man. The only problem is that Welles doesn’t like the lines that have been scripted for him! And we all know how old Orson got when he didn’t like the script…