When it comes to my film choices, I shan’t lie, I like a good action based blockbuster. I own all the Die Hard films for example. The dialogue may be cheesy, the action may be implausible, but these action adventures have the habit of producing some of the most iconic appearances and characters ever seen. Bruce Willis’ cigarette smoking, gun toting, terrorist smote-ing John McClane for example, or Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo. Neither role won recognition from any award bodies, but for a young teenage boy, I can assure you that Bruce Willis didn’t need an Oscar for me to love him, my heart was won the moment he pressed the button on that walkie talkie and uttered that immortal line to a bemused Alan Rickman. “Yipeekayay…”
My reflection on this action adventure genre has however led me to wondering about actors – can some simply carry a film on their shoulders as the lead man without any signs of worry at all? Are others only ever destined to support? I came up with some examples to illustrate this. Bruce Willis for one, essentially WAS the Die Hard films, just as Matt Damon IS the Bourne franchise. In fact, such is Damon’s fantastic portrayal as the ‘one man against a government’ underdog that he has become director Paul Greengrass’ go to man in much the same way that Russell Crowe is Ridley Scott’s when it comes to a historical adventure. Some roles are so big that only some actors can fit into them with any kind of comfort and some actors don’t fit at all – certainly, getting the wrong actor can have disastrous effects. Let’s take Ridley Scott’s historical epic Kingdom of Heaven as an example. When it comes to historical epics, Scott’s history isn’t exactly bad. He made a more than popular film once called Gladiator. Kingdom of Heaven sounded promising. Set in the crusades, good. Eva Green as the love interest, (very) good. A number of large battle scenes, good. Orlando Bloom leading… hang on. And Orlando shall be the best example of an actor who is and will always be, cut out to be the supporting man. Pirates of the Caribbean were essentially big cameos from Johnny Depp, with Bloom’s whiney and quite frankly annoying Will Turner a constant distraction and nuisance in the background. Bloom in a lead role? Hardly, he was second fiddle to Depp, just as everyone else was. Lord of the Rings, and once again, Bloom was a supporting character at best – compared to Viggo Mortensen’s Aragorn there is very little that you can say about Legolas at all. This is of course not to say that the writing didn’t help the situation, obviously Will Turner and Legolas weren’t the main characters, but as Kingdom of Heaven suggests (and believe me, if you have seen you will know what I mean) Bloom’s scrawny presence doesn’t make him lead material.
So then, Bloom is one category of actor from the two that we have established – the supporting man, who tried leading and wasn’t very good. Another in this mould is perhaps, Liam Neeson. Neeson’s dulcet tones grace everything in supporting roles, from Star Wars through to the voice of Aslan. He is one of those actors whose work seems to go largely unnoticed but enhances a film, the workhorse of cinema if you will – a man who knows his own strengths and plays to them. Having said this, even his turn as a leading man in Taken wasn’t horrendous, even if his suppression of that creamy Irish accent for a hammed up American one was.
Finally, there are those unique actors who seem to have done perhaps one or two films in the leading roles and either shine or bomb. I have to say that I was shocked to find out that Sharlto Copley’s recent depiction of the quirky yet lovable Wikus Van de Merwe in District 9 was his first ever acting experience. His ability to create a character as cringingly funny as Van de Merwe and yet as fantastically endearing when everything goes wrong is truly remarkable when he has no previous roles. He carried the film spectacularly well and is destined for great things it would seem. But just as we have actors such as Copley we have the other side of the coin. Someone who, unbelievably was cast in a lead role when he should never have even been supporting, had a hand in destroying the credibility of a franchise and made being a Jedi very uncool indeed. Hayden Christensen, where are you now? Actually I don’t care, don’t ever come back.
See Sharlto Copley in action as Wikus Van de Merwe here:
And see Hayden Christensen here:
By Charles Dennett