Steve Crook

The article in Time would be interesting to see.

Actors often say that playing the villain is more fun than playing the hero.
But could it be because there are a group of British actors who are just so good at playing villains?

Malcolm McDowell, Anthony Hopkins, Gary Oldman ...
They are very good at it

Steve

JustColl

Yes, I too would have liked to have seen that article. I wonder if they archive online?

And yes, you do have a point - we have some excellent bad guys - and if it's a comedy, it doesn't bother me at all. It's more the whodunnit / who's-gonna-do-it that I find annoying. I *want* not to know. I *like* guessing / being surprised. I wish they'd have Gary Oldman playing the good guy just so I can be fooled!

Moor Larkin

Didn't all this British as baddies myth start and finish with Alan Rickman in Die Hard?

Can't say as I've really noticed it otherwise. British actors often play baddies but they usually pretend to be American...... I'm thinking of that bloke from Yorkshire - Joss something or other was it? And Michael thingy, who does Dumbledore for a living nowadays. Gary Oldman is always American isn't he, when he does his gangstery stuff.

So far as the Birmingham accent goes, I'm not sure 'whiny' is quite right. There used to be a good joke, that, as always I can't remember properly, but it was to do with the confusion between a man wearing a Kipper Tie (think 1970's) and asking for a Cup Of Tea.

I thought the baddies in American movies were always Colombian anyhow..... Mexicans becoming too important a part of the potential Box Office over the years...... presumably.

Americans are usually shown positively in old British movies because that way, the doughboys were more likely to give us chocolate and nylon stockings.

Buffalo_Chuck

I don't know about films, but obviously this writer stereotypes.

Steve Crook

Something like that

The Birmingham / Black Country accent makes people sound like they're whining or complaining a bit. for the "full on" whine there's always the Liverpool accent

Steve

suzepulcheria

It goes back much further than that. remember Jean Gillie in Decoy? A psycopath who gets her come-uppance. Chosen by her then husband who was the director. And what about DARLING Boris Karloff? Mind you he could make the most horrid character sympathetic!

"I've come a long way you know!" "Equally long way to go back..."

Moor Larkin

Who's that guy who played the same moaning, weaselly scouser who spat as he spoke? He was in Vinnie's prison soccer movie and one or more of the Brit-gangster films. Does he do anything else? He's quite old school I suppose - turns up in loads of movies and always plays the same character.



I only realised quite recently that Boris was British! I always wondered how he ended up back here, doing Colonel March! He had come home.......

suzepulcheria

Boris was born a stone's throw from where I live in SE London. There is a blue plaque. He had a very British voice!

"I've come a long way you know!" "Equally long way to go back..."

Moor Larkin

In retrospect I thought, yes, of course he did. At the time I just thought of it as a BIG voice. He was in old films on TV when I saw him, so I never gave much thought to the nationality of his voice: he was from planet Hollywood.

Not sure when it dawned on me that Alfred Hitchcock was British, come to that. I had the impression Nicolas Cage was British for quite a while after he first became a star, and assumed Cate Blanchett was British too, until recently. No idea why, something about a first impression I suppose. Sometimes you would only really notice an actor's nationality outside of a film-role anyhow, because who knows what accent they personally have?

Maybe I need to read the celebrity press more......

penfold

Charles Laughton played more than his fair share of Hollywood baddies too.....

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

Moor Larkin

But was he intended to be British? That's were I'm getting perplexed. There's a massive difference between British actors playing baddies and British actors playing baddies because they are British, or baddies having to be British and therefore being played by British actors.......

and so on ad infinitum........