British actor who achieved international recognition for strong dramatic
acting in the 1970s and 1980s, and notoriety for the monstrous credibility
of his Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs (1990). A respected theatre
and television actor, his best film performances are those which allow
him a little scope for theatricality. His Captain Bligh in the 1984
version of The Bounty rivalled Charles Laughton's;
Richard Attenborough
discovered his sinister qualities in Magic (1978); and David Lynch cast
him effectively as Dr Treves in The
Elephant Man (1980). His more subdued acting skills are evident
in 84 Charing Cross Road (1986), which began life as a BBC television
play. More recently, he has taken out a patent on the emotional reticence
of the middle-aged English male with a restrained performance as a repressed
Edwardian patriarch in Howard's
End (1991), as a butler struggling with feelings while the world
turns in Remains of
the Day (1993), and as the writer C.S. Lewis in Shadowlands
(1993).
More irrepressibly, he has punctuated this streak of constricted Englishness
with a wonderfully over-the-top performance as the Dutchman Van Helsing
in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). He was knighted in 1993. His more recent
films include John Schlesinger's
The Innocent (1993.), and the epically melodramatic Legends of the Fall
(1994). He played the title role in Oliver Stone's Nixon (1995).
