Most people (except for Internet journalists!) have known or crossed paths with a drug dealer -- at least enough to understand just why and how on-screen portrayals thereof are often memorable. With Weeds' Nancy Botwin, unquestionably TV’s most famous drug saleswoman, returning this week (season 6 premiered last night on Showtime), it is, yes, high time that we pay homage to our favorite fictional dealers of all time.
Saul Silver, Pineapple Express
The modern classic. Say what you want about the movie (overlong, desperate, sometimes flat-out unfunny) and James Franco himself (self-serious, annoyingly handsome, annoyingly a student at ever prestigious college in the U.S.), but the actor delivered a pot dealer for the ages -- and if all involved are to be believed, he did so on a totally clear mind. Let’s not forget that when word first got out that Franco would be playing the stoner opposite Seth Rogen’s straight man, we all did an auditory double take, but the result was a huge success, netting Franco a Golden Globe nom and free joints for life (unconfirmed).
Jay and Silent Bob, Clerks
Whatever Kevin Smith’s logic behind Jay’s unrelenting verbal diarrhea and Bob’s utter silence, the dynamic between the drug-dealing duo really, really works -- never better, of course, than in the original Clerks. But Jay is the real star, and while Jason Mewes is raunchily hilarious in that movie, there exists a tangible legitimacy to his performance. Be it his real-life drug run-ins or otherwise, you get the sense he’s playing off experience and not some visceral reaction to, say, William S. Burroughs’ Junkie. No, he probably didn’t have to go Method for this one.
Lance, Pulp Fiction
A longtime rumor (started by Courtney Love, so take it with a zillion grains of salt) holds that Kurt Cobain was originally asked to play the role ultimately filled by Eric Stoltz. As cool -- in retrospect -- as it might’ve been to see the grunge icon pop up as a heroin dealer transacting business with John Travolta, it’s hard to imagine (a) his megastardom not detracting from the necessary credibility of the role and (b) him turning in such an addict-energetic performance. Ask yourself this: During the Uma Thurman ‘adrenaline’ scene, could Cobain have projected the kind of frenzied fear that Stoltz did? Guess we’ll never be able to answer that with any certainty, but Stoltz’s Lance remains a drug-dealer classic, personifying all the adjectives one would use to describe his real-life counterparts: erratic, shady and entertaining.
Ron Slater, Dazed and Confused
Rory Cochrane has amassed a body of work that is vast but, quite frankly, unimpressive. It’s OK, though: In Richard Linklater’s masterful Dazed and Confused, the journeyman actor gifted us with arguably the most entertaining -- certainly the most amiable -- drug dealer in cinematic history. There is no doubt that James Franco’s almost-as-impressive stoner/dealer in Pineapple Express (see above) was at least partly informed by the unforgettable, un-hateable Slater. He’s at least the best supporting stoner of all time … maaaaan.
Tony Montana, Scarface
Duh. A list of best onscreen drug dealers without Al Pacino’s Tony Montana would be akin to a list of best drug movies without … oh, God -- what’s the one drug movie all stoners agree on? Fear and Loathing? Up in Smoke? Anyway, Tony is the quintessential dealer character of all time, an endless well of coke-fueled entertainment and quotables -- obviously thanks in large part to Pacino’s now annoying commitment to over-the-topness and setting decibel records.