Sure, but what's the Basis Set movie? If you only had one actor in a movie, and you wanted to have the most connectedness in it, you'd choose Sam Jackson right now. (The one from Pulp Fiction, not the one from Ted.)
But what if you could have TWO actors in a movie? Would Sam Jackson (again, the one from Jurassic Park, not the lawyer) still be one of them? Or is it possible that in aggregate, there are two actors who would achieve a better connectedness than Sam Jackson (the one from The Long Kiss Goodnight, not the one who was in Veronica Mars) plus one of those actors?
What if you could have THREE actors in a movie?
Or what about, who is the perfect sidekick for Sam Jackson (stop asking, yes, of course I mean the one with the purple lightsaber, not the one from In Time)? Who, if you add them to a Sam Jackson (the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., not the Mean Girl) movie, gives them the most aggregate connectedness?
A ridiculously great film you should see, about everything that matters, all in one modestly history-distorting bonkers movie, with some songs and some cracking dialogue:
Marc: I am faithful to the ideals of the party.
Orson Welles: I am faithful to the party of ideas.
John Houseman: You are faithful to the idea of a party.
John Houseman: As the producer, I can fire anybody I want, and I am fucking fired!
Somehow it's a fun fact that you can reach any other actor in four moves, but a much less fun fact that you can probably-reach any other actor in 2.6 moves. "Connectedness", huh. Though it was interesting to see that Frank Welker used to be in fourth place. Never heard of him. Or I've only heard of him, he's a voice actor. He does cartoon animals, often without lines, lots of miaowing.
He's done so much more than that. While he is likely many animals you've heard, he's also Megatron and Soundwave from Transformers, Fred and Scooby-Doo, Apu from Aladdin (ok, this is another animal, but he got significant screentime), and Ralph the guard in Animaniacs.
Prior art here is the much older Oracle of Bacon project (which I'm hoping the author didn't know about). It uses the full IMDb data set (not just the top 10,000 films) and gets different results, with Eric Roberts in first place and Samuel L. Jackson in fifth: https://oracleofbacon.org/center_list.php
This is great but surely the point of choosing Kevin Bacon in the first place was because he is surprisingly well-connected. If someone said ‘6 degrees of Samuel L Jackson’ most of us would not be surprised at how well-connected he is.
The point of choosing Kevin Bacon in the first place was that "Kevin Bacon" sounds roughly like "separation," so the reference works. AFAIK there was no additional criterion.
Interesting metric. 20 years ago, if I had to guess who was the center of Hollywood, I would have guessed Eric Roberts. He was in every movie from the bettween the 80`s and 2000`s. Including also all B and strait to DVD movies.
It was always tongue-in-cheek. People liked the idea that he was the center of Hollywood in the 90s even though he wasn't the most famous. It was an amusing observation that he was always in supporting roles in every movie. It feels plausible even if it wasn't true. His name adds to the memetic quality.
This is cool! I liked the time machine the best, and was surprised to see names I didn't recognize at the top (although I did recognize a couple faces once I looked them up).
He's my favourite actor, so I know: he's in a very eclectic range of films in loads of genres with all kinds of actors.
I think that your range as an actor helps you here. For example, Seth Rogan, while he's in loads of films, he is extremely typecast into stoner comedies. So he is more separated from actors in other genres.
I was surprised too, then I started thinking about his filmography
Marvel Movies, John Wick, Robert Eggers films, To Live and Die In LA, Streets of Fire, American Psycho, The Last Temptation of Christ, he was unforgettable in The Life Aquatic, and Wild at Heart!
The directors he's worked with: Robert Eggers, Wes Anderson, David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, John Waters, William Friedkin, David Cronenberg, Sam Raimi... who am i forgetting?
edit: Yorgos Lanthimos!
What an incredible career; I think he spends a lot of time in Italy when he's not filming now
This is missing the fact that there's a temporal element to this. Over time, the corpus grows larger and larger meaning younger actors and actresses find connections easier through common ancestors.
Not quite sure why you are getting downvotes since it’s clearly a play on six degrees of separation and the rhyming substitution at least plays some part in why people have continued to discuss it.
I’ve seen other analyses going back at least a couple decades showing Kevin Bacon was not the center of Hollywood, although none as thorough as this.
Being in a Marvel movie greatly increases your connectedness.
Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Downey Jr. are central to a lot of plotlines in the first 10 years of Marvel movies. With either them or characters connected to them appearing in other movies.
Then you have other franchise connections. If you've been in a Kevin Smith film, you're at most three steps from Samuel L. Jackson by way of Kevin Smith -> Bruce Willis -> Samuel L Jackson. And even if you're not in a film in the "View Askewniverse" like "Zac and Miri Make a Porno", that movie has Justin Long, who was in a movie with Willis.
Every actor in the Fast and Furious franchise is connected through Vin Diesel.
Every actor in the OT and sequel trilogy of Star Wars is connected through Harrison Ford. The prequel trilogy connects through Natalie Portman.
Just between those, it's not too hard to reach everyone.
Ha! I correctly guessed Samuel Jackson. Over a decade ago I read he was the number 1 actor for gross receipts of all the movies any actor had made (don't know if it's still true). I somehow felt that stat would be connected to this one.
Would never have guessed Nicole Kidman for women, though.
I'd never heard that stat about Samuel L. Jackson and find it interesting because I don't think of him as a particularly versatile or prolific actor, though good in his roles and typically well cast. The stat is believable (apart from verifying it) given the massive franchises and singular hits he's landed.
To be fair, pudding.cool has been putting out this same format of content from well before LLMs were a thing. They are all about interactive data stories.
But what if you could have TWO actors in a movie? Would Sam Jackson (again, the one from Jurassic Park, not the lawyer) still be one of them? Or is it possible that in aggregate, there are two actors who would achieve a better connectedness than Sam Jackson (the one from The Long Kiss Goodnight, not the one who was in Veronica Mars) plus one of those actors?
What if you could have THREE actors in a movie?
Or what about, who is the perfect sidekick for Sam Jackson (stop asking, yes, of course I mean the one with the purple lightsaber, not the one from In Time)? Who, if you add them to a Sam Jackson (the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., not the Mean Girl) movie, gives them the most aggregate connectedness?
Enquiring minds want to know!
Also, who's the Kevin Bacon of Bollywood?
Almost certainly Shah Rukh Khan.
Edit: come to think of it, if you want a big cast of the most highly-connected actors, you'd probably pick Cradle Will Rock from back in 1999.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cradle_Will_Rock
A ridiculously great film you should see, about everything that matters, all in one modestly history-distorting bonkers movie, with some songs and some cracking dialogue:
My son has been good at the game since he was 13. He's been a professional actor since he was nine. I don't think he's ever been tripped up.
Certainly not chosen for centrality.
I think that your range as an actor helps you here. For example, Seth Rogan, while he's in loads of films, he is extremely typecast into stoner comedies. So he is more separated from actors in other genres.
Marvel Movies, John Wick, Robert Eggers films, To Live and Die In LA, Streets of Fire, American Psycho, The Last Temptation of Christ, he was unforgettable in The Life Aquatic, and Wild at Heart!
The directors he's worked with: Robert Eggers, Wes Anderson, David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, John Waters, William Friedkin, David Cronenberg, Sam Raimi... who am i forgetting?
edit: Yorgos Lanthimos!
What an incredible career; I think he spends a lot of time in Italy when he's not filming now
I know Grigori Perelman is far from Erdos, which is fun :)
aside from the first, the next few eigenvectors would be great.
anyone done this?
Well, yes, but his name also rhymes with "separation", and that's kind of important.
I’ve seen other analyses going back at least a couple decades showing Kevin Bacon was not the center of Hollywood, although none as thorough as this.
B+
Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Downey Jr. are central to a lot of plotlines in the first 10 years of Marvel movies. With either them or characters connected to them appearing in other movies.
Then you have other franchise connections. If you've been in a Kevin Smith film, you're at most three steps from Samuel L. Jackson by way of Kevin Smith -> Bruce Willis -> Samuel L Jackson. And even if you're not in a film in the "View Askewniverse" like "Zac and Miri Make a Porno", that movie has Justin Long, who was in a movie with Willis.
Every actor in the Fast and Furious franchise is connected through Vin Diesel.
Every actor in the OT and sequel trilogy of Star Wars is connected through Harrison Ford. The prequel trilogy connects through Natalie Portman.
Just between those, it's not too hard to reach everyone.
Would never have guessed Nicole Kidman for women, though.
Many Tarantino movies (including Kill Bill 2).
The Star Wars reboot trilogy.
The Marvel movies (Avengers, etc)
Goodfellas.
I love it lmaoooo. great job
Took me a while to figure out.