“Have you ever noticed
“Have you ever noticed how in Hollywood movies all the villains are played by Brits?” SIR BEN KINGSLEY delivers to camera in a calm but chilling tone in Jaguar’s latest ad campaign. But where did that tradition start and why? Film critic Dave Calhoun investigates WHY IT’S GOOD TO BE BAD 34 j THE PERFORMANCE ISSUE
CULTURE “SHAKESPEARE’S VILLAINS ARE SO RICHLY LAYERED THAT A BRITISH ACTOR FINDS IT ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO PLAY A TWO-DIMENSIONAL VILLAIN, IF HE’S EXPLORED OUR WONDERFUL HERITAGE” – SIR BEN KINGSLEY PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY OF FILM4 Menacing: Sir Ben Kingsley goes hard as Don Logan in Sexy Beast Next time you watch the 1967 Disney film classic The Jungle Book, stop tapping your toes to the tunes for a second and listen carefully to the voice of Shere Khan, the murderous tiger. You’ll hear the silky but commanding tones of the British actor George Sanders. Forget the character he’s playing and instead imagine a well-dressed cad inviting a victim round to dinner at his Mayfair apartment while hiding a dagger behind his back. That’s the performance Sanders is giving: effortless British sophistication coupled with a gentlemanly murderous instinct. It’s no surprise: Hollywood has been exporting British villainy ever since they put two bolts in the neck of Boris Karloff in the 1930s and asked him to play Frankenstein’s monster. It’s a tradition that Jaguar’s It’s Good to Be Bad campaign has been having fun with this year. In it, Oscarwinning director Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech, Les Misérables) directs British acting heavyweights Sir Ben Kingsley, Tom Hiddleston and Mark Strong in their respective dastardly roles – and believes the theme holds up because, “like all good ideas, it hits at a truth”. It’s a fine tradition, and British actors should probably be flattered. It’s not thuggery or malice that American casting directors are looking to the Old Country for. It’s panache, experience, intelligence, with just a hint of immorality and skullduggery. If you want an actor simply to bludgeon someone over the head with a club, any old hired hand from the Mid-West will do. If you want someone to give a lucid speech, in a good suit maybe, with a suggestion of Shakespearean training and a superior (or at least expensive) education along the way – and then effortlessly kill someone, maybe discreetly – it’s best to ask a Brit. THE PERFORMANCE ISSUE j 35