Three small parts with big effects in films

During award season, any role smaller than nomination-size tends to get overlooked. But sometimes those small roles do more than support the lead actors. Sometimes it takes just a few minutes of screen time to shock an audience, to illuminate years of the main character’s life or, in some cases, to set the film’s third act on its head. Here we talk to three such performers — at various stages in their careers — who all had a powerful effect on the films they inhabited and came away richer for it.

ROBERT FORSTER: Scott Thorson, “The Descendants”

For a small role that literally packs a punch, look no further than Robert Forster’s. As the father-in-law of George Clooney’s character in “The Descendants,” he’s so consumed with rage about his active daughter’s grave medical condition after a boating accident that he ends up socking the hapless teenage tag-along Sid (Nick Krause) right in the face. When Forster read that scene (one of just two he’s in), “I said, that’s going to get into the trailer. Let’s go, Bob!”

To illustrate how he approached his first day on set, the character actor, whose career spans five decades, tells a story about watching an artist friend at work. The friend pulled out a canvas, prepared it, picked a brush out from among hundreds, selected paints and then, finally, put down the first bold stroke. As Forster saw the painting emerge over the course of the afternoon, he recognized the importance of that initial leap into the project.

“On the very first day, the actor is required to deliver stuff he’s not prepared to deliver,” he says. “But you have to deliver a confident first stroke, and you’ve got to have the details that are going to be there when you finish the movie, because you’ll never get another chance to put it in there.”

Long before that first day, Forster created his character’s back story, taking his cues from the script by director Alexander Payne (co-written with Nat Faxon and Jim Rash) to inform his anger toward Matt (Clooney). “Right from the get-go, I had my own trouble with him. He was a little too old for my daughter, he was a desk guy, he never climbed a mountain,” Forster says. “What the hell are you marrying him for? Now, because he didn’t get my daughter a decent enough boat, here he comes telling me we’ve got to pull the plug. I could get mad about it all over again!” He laughs. “These are the things that you bring with you on the first day, hoping you capture what’s in the script.”

COLLETTE WOLFE: Sandra Freehauf, “Young Adult”

On Collette Wolfe’s first day of filming, she admits she needed reining in. “I think I had over-rehearsed before arriving because I was very excited/nervous” about working for director Jason Reitman, says Wolfe. “I remember Jason saying, ‘Collette, stop acting.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, right, it’s not a sitcom,’ and I immediately dropped in.” The actress, perhaps best known for her recurring role as Kirsten on “Cougar Town,” realized “I could do less than I’m used to doing.”

“Young Adult” centers on Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron), a delusional writer and former mean teen set on “rescuing” her high school boyfriend from the misery that surely is his life now with a wife and new baby. Back in her hometown, she encounters Matt Freehauf (Patton Oswalt), a fellow high school alum. Wolfe plays Matt’s younger sister Sandra, who worships Mavis beyond all reason.

In order to develop her character, “I came up with different scenarios for myself,” Wolfe says. “I pictured being in eighth grade and watching Mavis constantly, wanting to be on the inside. I don’t think Sandra was on the inside of anything. But in her fantasy world, she would be in the cool club, with the cool kids, and Mavis was the queen bee of all that.”

Wolfe found additional inspiration at the table read with the other actors. “In real life, Charlize is an Oscar-winning actress who’s stunning, from South Africa. She’s exotic and intelligent,” Wolfe says. “I think for any woman, particularly me as an actor, and not necessarily a very successful one, it was very easy to get into that worshipful thing.”

Sandra’s final, fateful meeting with Mavis turns audience expectations upside down, but Wolfe didn’t realize quite how pivotal the scene was until much later. “Last week, Jason said to me, ‘I didn’t want to make you nervous, but this was one of the scenes in the movie that made me want to do it, and the movie hinged, in part, on this scene working.’” Well played, Reitman, well played.

BRIE LARSON: Helen, “Rampart”

Brie Larson’s first day on set started at 5 a.m. “They really didn’t mess around,” she says wryly.

Larson may be familiar to some television viewers as Kate, the daughter of a woman with dissociative identity disorder, on “United States of Tara,” but “Rampart’s” parental dysfunction is in a whole new league. Here, Larson plays Helen, the oldest daughter of corrupt cop Dave Brown (played by Woody Harrelson). She is all too aware of her father’s problems, and her resulting anger catches them both off guard.

In that first-day scene, she goes to the police station to tell him off. “It was her opportunity to be the one in control,” says Larson. “He had always been the one that was able to manipulate and be in control, and she wanted to take the power back. But she couldn’t do it.”

The scene in which the two dig at each other had a powerful effect on her — and on those watching. “At one point, our camera operator was crying,” Larson says. “Afterwards, she came up to me and said, ‘I really thought I was going to be the one to ruin that scene,’ because she couldn’t hold the camera steady.” After the scene was shot, the actress noticed that a lot of crew members called their kids to tell them they loved them. “It turned into this very bonding experience with everybody.”

Seven more days of emotionally wrenching work left Larson depressed for several months, she says. But the pain was worth it. “It’s probably the most important thing that I’ve ever done,” she says, adding she would drop everything to work with director Oren Moverman again. “It was the most loving set I’ve ever been on. The most exciting, the most fun, the most laughs as well. That’s the only way you can go to that dark place, because you know you’ve got someone who’s pulling you out of it.”

calendar@latimes.com