Small Roles - Big Actors | Martin Short

The Big Picture

Martin Short does what Martin Short does in this brilliant turn in Christopher Guest’s comedy The Big Picture. As vapid Hollywood agent Neil Sussman, Short embodies the empty gestures and hollow compliments that pervade the entertainment industry. At once honest, seemingly forthright, and plugged in, he reveals himself to be nothing but an insecure, heat-seeking missile whose attention can be drawn away at any second.

In a time before cell phones, when you might have the chance of attaining someone’s complete, undivided attention, Short’s agent character loves the idea of you, the promise of you, that is built up before the reality of your ephemeral nature is revealed.

He is a caricature, to be sure, but so dead-on that insiders know this exact type of person, and outsiders simply don’t believe he exists.

The film itself is wonderful. A comedy about a filmmaker (Kevin Bacon) whose short film wins an award, thrusting him into the gaping maw of Hollywood, which happily chews up and spits out people like him without so much as a second thought.