Part of Pulp Fiction featuring John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis, and Tim Roth.
Rise to Fame
Marsellus Wallace barely speaks in Pulp Fiction, which is exactly what makes the character terrifying. Quentin Tarantino gave Rhames a crime boss defined by controlled menace rather than dialogue, and Rhames delivered something the film couldn't have worked without. That one role changed his market value. Two years later, Brian De Palma cast him as Luther Stickell in Mission: Impossible, starting a franchise partnership that's now spanned 30 years and eight films. He's the only actor besides Tom Cruise with an unbroken run through the whole thing.
In the Spotlight
Luther Stickell is supposed to be the tech support, but Rhames has turned him into the franchise's moral anchor. He doesn't jump off skyscrapers or race motorcycles through European capitals. What he does is make the whole operation feel like it's worth caring about. The Mission: Impossible series has chewed through most of its original cast over 30 years, but Rhames is still there in the eighth film. He also does voice work (The Garfield Movie, The Wild Robot) and dramas (Uppercut). The franchise keeps refreshing around him, which is its own kind of verdict.
Side Notes
At the 1998 Golden Globes, he won Best Actor in a Miniseries for Don King: Only in America, walked to the stage, and handed the award to fellow nominee Jack Lemmon. 'Being an artist is about giving,' he said. Lemmon tried to return it. The Hollywood Foreign Press made Rhames a duplicate. His name is actually Irving Rameses Rhames. The nickname came from Stanley Tucci, his classmate at SUNY Purchase before he transferred to Juilliard. And during a 1993 film shoot in New York, he encountered a homeless man who turned out to be his long-lost brother, a Vietnam vet who'd lost contact with the family. Rhames moved him into his own apartment.