With an acting career spanning decades — from the Disney era to the Carpenter era to the Tarantino era — Kurt Russell has starred in dozens of movies, playing dozens of different characters. Although Stuntman Mike, Ego, Wyatt Earp, Gabriel Cash, and John “the Hangman” Ruth are all great, Russell’s two most iconic roles, arguably, are Snake Plissken from Escape from New York and Jack Burton from Big Trouble in Little China.
Snake is a cool-as-ice, eyepatch-wearing badass, while Jack is a trucker who’s subversively unprepared for action. So, here are five reasons why Kurt Russell’s best character is Snake Plissken, and five why it could be Jack Burton.
Snake Defined Russell’s Action Movie Persona
Although he’s worked across multiple different genres, Kurt Russell is perhaps best known as an action star. And every action movie star needs a signature persona.
With his cool-as-ice demeanor, carefully chosen words (“President of what?”), and irresistible smirk, Snake Plissken defined Russell’s action movie persona.
Jack: Deconstructed That Persona
After Snake Plissken defined Kurt Russell’s on-screen persona as a tough-as-nails hard-ass, John Carpenter deconstructed that persona by casting Russell as a character who is ostensibly a cool guy, a trucker, but turns out to be a total softie when the gloves are off.
Some fans who were expecting to see Russell as an action hero were disappointed by his hopeless fighting abilities in Big Trouble in Little China, but that’s the point. Jack Burton is a deconstruction of a typical Kurt Russell character.
Snake: An Antihero You Can Root For
As a criminal who’s sent into a city-sized supermax prison on a crucial political mission in exchange for some correctional lenience, Snake Plissken is a quintessential antihero.
He’s the “good guy” of the story, but he’s not necessarily a good guy. Still, he has so much redeeming charm, courtesy of Russell, that viewers root for him anyway.
Jack: Satirized John Wayne’s Heroes
In Big Trouble in Little China, Kurt Russell plays Jack Burton by imitating John Wayne. But it’s not an effort to emulate Wayne; it’s a satirical comment on Wayne’s influence on American men.
Just like Breathless’ Michel Poiccard mimicking Humphrey Bogart and Guardians of the Galaxy’s Peter Quill mimicking Han Solo, Jack Burton is nothing like a John Wayne hero — he just wants to be.
Snake: Got Russell Out Of His Disney Rut
Kurt Russell was always John Carpenter’s top choice for Snake Plissken, and Russell was eager to use the movie to get out of his string of featherlight Disney comedies. But Carpenter had to fight his financier, AVCO Embassy Pictures, who wanted to cast Charles Bronson or Tommy Lee Jones as Snake, to get Russell in the role.
If Carpenter hadn’t fought to cast Russell as Snake, the actor could have been handcuffed to Disney forever and doomed to a career of peddling lightweight entertainment to the masses.
Jack: Wasn’t Brought Back For A Disappointing Sequel
Although Escape from New York is one of the greatest action movies ever made and it solidified Snake Plissken’s place as a legend of the genre, he’s let down by the fact that he was brought back for a disappointing sequel, Escape from L.A., years later.
John Carpenter never felt the need to tarnish the reputation of Big Trouble in Little China with a belated sequel embodying diminishing returns, but he did feel the need to do that to Escape from New York.
Snake: Made Use Of Russell’s Strengths As An Actor
Having directed Kurt Russell as Elvis Presley in a made-for-TV biopic, John Carpenter was more than familiar with Russell’s strengths as an actor.
Russell can play a convincingly cool character and bring real humanity and vulnerability to them. The role of Snake Plissken plays perfectly to Russell’s strengths.
Jack: Brought Russell Out Of His Comfort Zone
There’s nothing more challenging for an actor than stepping out of their comfort zone, and the zany tone of martial arts fantasy comedy Big Trouble in Little China brought Kurt Russell way outside his comfort zone.
A lot of the time, this kind of experimentation fails — just look at Tommy Lee Jones’ wacky performance in Batman Forever — but in this case, it worked out smoothly.
Snake: Russell’s Coolest Character
Kurt Russell has played plenty of cool characters throughout his career — more cool characters than uncool characters, really — but Snake Plissken is easily the coolest of them all. The rest don’t even hold a candle to Snake.
He’s a World War III veteran who’s sent into New York City, which has been converted into a maximum-security prison in the movie’s dystopian future setting, to save the kidnapped U.S. President. It doesn’t get much cooler than that.
Jack: Russell’s Funniest Character
It’s not often that Kurt Russell’s comic talents are utilized (even when he was regularly starring in comedies for Disney), but he has a pretty refined funny bone. Quentin Tarantino gave Russell a chance to show off his comic abilities in The Hateful Eight, but the actor doesn’t often get that opportunity.
With all the hilarious one-liners and slapstick in Big Trouble in Little China, the character of Jack Burton gave Russell the opportunity to sink his teeth into some comedic material and explore his range.