Post by Ace on Jan 6, 2005 12:42:58 GMT -5
OK, so he's not British and he not a "bad boy" though he is 'dashing" but other than that... they're not wrong 
Still smitten with Britain: English actors rule Hollywood, while American stars fall
BY JOSEPH V. AMODIO
Joseph V. Amodio is a frequent contributor to Newsday
January 5, 2005
Where have all the American leading men gone?
Some 40 years after the first James Bond movie hit our shores, those blokes from across the pond have returned - parading across America's big screens and romancing its starlets with a bloody vengeance. Oh, a few of the tightly-wound Yanks are out there - your Sean Penns, your Nicholas Cages, your Johnny Depps. But how to compete against an invasion of articulate, suave, slim actors equipped with dreamy eyes and rakish smiles, all debonair and cultured?
Their Brit names alone - Colin, Clive, Jude, Christian - hint of manor houses and romps in the heather - in England, Scotland, Ireland or Wales. Sometimes, they use their delicious accents, sometimes not. That accounts for much of their appeal: They are an accomplished crew, able to sound as authentic and authoritative when uttering Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes in "The Merchant of Venice") as they are when passing for an American (Liam Neeson in "Kinsey," Idris Elba on HBO's "The Wire").
"The British are dominating movies - they're the only people nowadays who are taught how to act," says Marc Eliot, a pop culture scribe and author of "Cary Grant" (Harmony Books, $26), a new biography of perhaps the most popular British-born leading man of all time.
Cary Grant's legacy
Carrying on Grant's tradition today: buzzworthy Brits such as Clive Owen, who scorches through Mike Nichols' latest film, "Closer," earning himself a Golden Globe nomination; the devoted Colin Firth in "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason"; Colin Farrell's lusty, complicated "Alexander." Tapping into teen swoonicity is Orlando Bloom, of "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Lord of the Rings" fame, who starred as Paris in the Homeric effort "Troy."
And everywhere - everywhere - there is Jude Law. If you missed him on "Saturday Night Live" or the cover of Vanity Fair, then perhaps you caught him in one of the six feature films he appeared in last fall.
"My husband teases me that I have a list of guys I'd leave him for," jokes Holly Sklar, a screenwriter and Warner Bros. story analyst in Los Angeles. "Alan Rickman, Colin Firth...."
It's a trend likely to continue with a raft of films starring British (or British-ish) men heading for screens in upcoming months.
Why do Americans love British leading men? Talent plays a part - as does the fact that new blockbuster action heroes developed in Hollywood (the Rock, Vin Diesel) are not burning up the box office. In a world inundated with real-life disasters, the appetite for havoc is perhaps sated - a situation that throws wide the door for more smoldering, sophisticated, intellectual cinematic fare, stuff the Brits serve up so well.
Hollywood spent the money-hungry 1980s and go-go '90s cultivating action heroes - Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Harrison Ford, all now middle-aged. At some point, Americans recalled their taste for dashing bad boys such as Jeremy Irons, Daniel Day-Lewis, Pierce Brosnan, Hugh Grant.
As for the latest crop of American leading men - Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, Leonardo DiCaprio - even they seem rather British, with their lithe torsos, thoughtful gazes and rich, empathetic performances. Unfortunately, they also seem boyish. DiCaprio, may be done up in "Aviator" duds with starlets on his arm, but he still looks like he's out past curfew.
Accents equal profits?
Not that all Brits are box-office boffo. "King Arthur" (with Owen as Arthur, and the Welshman Ioan Gruffudd as Lancelot) fizzled. "Troy" tanked. And Law foundered in big-budget entries such as "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" and "Alfie."
Still, the return to smaller, talky, "more realistic movies now," Eliot says, is good for the Brits.
Take "Closer," originally written as a play for four British actors, yet filmed with Americans in the two female roles. We've seen it before - American women cast in "Bridget Jones," "Shakespeare in Love," "Sliding Doors."
Perhaps director Mike Nichols needed American names on the marquee. But why not male names? Matt Damon, say, and Nic Cage. But no. The men, it seems, must be British.
Americans inarticulate?
"Articulate men," Sklar explains. "There aren't many Americans on the list."
Well, sure, Brits have the accent.
No matter how casual our own language becomes, "there's still a twilight yearning among many Americans for that [British] way of speaking," says Robert MacNeil, veteran journalist and host of "Do You Speak American?", a three-hour documentary on the slang and quirky spirit of American English, airing at 8 tonight on PBS. (See review at right.)
Linguistic experts call it Anglophilia. With a British accent, MacNeil notes, "you become more eloquent. You can have people believing you're saying something more important than you really are."
There is also "the suave factor," MacNeil says.
That "Bond ... James Bond" unshakability, a quality closely linked to the Brit gravitas, a weight despite the slender Anglo frame, which comes only from stage training.
"Broadway has turned into a musical tourist trap," Eliot laments. "There's no breeding ground today as there was for Brando, Hoffman and De Niro. We have to outsource talent."
"English actors spend a lot of time in the theater," says stage and film producer John Hart (who's producing a film version of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play "Proof"). "Americans rarely attempt that, or if they do, it's only when their careers are faltering."
Brit actresses exempt
American filmgoers' current love-affair with the British has limits. It seems that Anglophilia does not extend to women - Kate Winslet and Emily Watson notwithstanding. "The women are not as accessible, somehow," Sklar says. "On them, the accent is distancing, especially for American men."
American women, however, will rise to such a challenge.
"When it comes to fantasies, there are some women who want to date down but usually just for a fling-most women want to date up," Sklar says. "If I had a choice between the Marlboro Man and Colin Firth, I'd pick Firth hands down. Not only will he be good in bed, but then there'll be someone to talk to afterward."
A man's ladies' man
Time magazine declared Bristol-born Archie Leach - aka Cary Grant - "the world's most perfect male animal." Yes, Laurence Olivier and David Niven were swell, but Grant was box-office bullion for 34 years, a man's man and a woman's man, in hits such as "Bringing Up Baby," "To Catch a Thief" and "Charade."
He learned early to play hard-to-get onscreen, so all the attention - from the audience, and the likes of Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn - would go toward him, notes biographer Marc Eliot.
"Everybody wants to be Cary Grant - even I want to be Cary Grant," said the actor.
Still smitten with Britain: English actors rule Hollywood, while American stars fall
BY JOSEPH V. AMODIO
Joseph V. Amodio is a frequent contributor to Newsday
January 5, 2005
Where have all the American leading men gone?
Some 40 years after the first James Bond movie hit our shores, those blokes from across the pond have returned - parading across America's big screens and romancing its starlets with a bloody vengeance. Oh, a few of the tightly-wound Yanks are out there - your Sean Penns, your Nicholas Cages, your Johnny Depps. But how to compete against an invasion of articulate, suave, slim actors equipped with dreamy eyes and rakish smiles, all debonair and cultured?
Their Brit names alone - Colin, Clive, Jude, Christian - hint of manor houses and romps in the heather - in England, Scotland, Ireland or Wales. Sometimes, they use their delicious accents, sometimes not. That accounts for much of their appeal: They are an accomplished crew, able to sound as authentic and authoritative when uttering Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes in "The Merchant of Venice") as they are when passing for an American (Liam Neeson in "Kinsey," Idris Elba on HBO's "The Wire").
"The British are dominating movies - they're the only people nowadays who are taught how to act," says Marc Eliot, a pop culture scribe and author of "Cary Grant" (Harmony Books, $26), a new biography of perhaps the most popular British-born leading man of all time.
Cary Grant's legacy
Carrying on Grant's tradition today: buzzworthy Brits such as Clive Owen, who scorches through Mike Nichols' latest film, "Closer," earning himself a Golden Globe nomination; the devoted Colin Firth in "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason"; Colin Farrell's lusty, complicated "Alexander." Tapping into teen swoonicity is Orlando Bloom, of "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Lord of the Rings" fame, who starred as Paris in the Homeric effort "Troy."
And everywhere - everywhere - there is Jude Law. If you missed him on "Saturday Night Live" or the cover of Vanity Fair, then perhaps you caught him in one of the six feature films he appeared in last fall.
"My husband teases me that I have a list of guys I'd leave him for," jokes Holly Sklar, a screenwriter and Warner Bros. story analyst in Los Angeles. "Alan Rickman, Colin Firth...."
It's a trend likely to continue with a raft of films starring British (or British-ish) men heading for screens in upcoming months.
Why do Americans love British leading men? Talent plays a part - as does the fact that new blockbuster action heroes developed in Hollywood (the Rock, Vin Diesel) are not burning up the box office. In a world inundated with real-life disasters, the appetite for havoc is perhaps sated - a situation that throws wide the door for more smoldering, sophisticated, intellectual cinematic fare, stuff the Brits serve up so well.
Hollywood spent the money-hungry 1980s and go-go '90s cultivating action heroes - Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Harrison Ford, all now middle-aged. At some point, Americans recalled their taste for dashing bad boys such as Jeremy Irons, Daniel Day-Lewis, Pierce Brosnan, Hugh Grant.
As for the latest crop of American leading men - Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, Leonardo DiCaprio - even they seem rather British, with their lithe torsos, thoughtful gazes and rich, empathetic performances. Unfortunately, they also seem boyish. DiCaprio, may be done up in "Aviator" duds with starlets on his arm, but he still looks like he's out past curfew.
Accents equal profits?
Not that all Brits are box-office boffo. "King Arthur" (with Owen as Arthur, and the Welshman Ioan Gruffudd as Lancelot) fizzled. "Troy" tanked. And Law foundered in big-budget entries such as "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" and "Alfie."
Still, the return to smaller, talky, "more realistic movies now," Eliot says, is good for the Brits.
Take "Closer," originally written as a play for four British actors, yet filmed with Americans in the two female roles. We've seen it before - American women cast in "Bridget Jones," "Shakespeare in Love," "Sliding Doors."
Perhaps director Mike Nichols needed American names on the marquee. But why not male names? Matt Damon, say, and Nic Cage. But no. The men, it seems, must be British.
Americans inarticulate?
"Articulate men," Sklar explains. "There aren't many Americans on the list."
Well, sure, Brits have the accent.
No matter how casual our own language becomes, "there's still a twilight yearning among many Americans for that [British] way of speaking," says Robert MacNeil, veteran journalist and host of "Do You Speak American?", a three-hour documentary on the slang and quirky spirit of American English, airing at 8 tonight on PBS. (See review at right.)
Linguistic experts call it Anglophilia. With a British accent, MacNeil notes, "you become more eloquent. You can have people believing you're saying something more important than you really are."
There is also "the suave factor," MacNeil says.
That "Bond ... James Bond" unshakability, a quality closely linked to the Brit gravitas, a weight despite the slender Anglo frame, which comes only from stage training.
"Broadway has turned into a musical tourist trap," Eliot laments. "There's no breeding ground today as there was for Brando, Hoffman and De Niro. We have to outsource talent."
"English actors spend a lot of time in the theater," says stage and film producer John Hart (who's producing a film version of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play "Proof"). "Americans rarely attempt that, or if they do, it's only when their careers are faltering."
Brit actresses exempt
American filmgoers' current love-affair with the British has limits. It seems that Anglophilia does not extend to women - Kate Winslet and Emily Watson notwithstanding. "The women are not as accessible, somehow," Sklar says. "On them, the accent is distancing, especially for American men."
American women, however, will rise to such a challenge.
"When it comes to fantasies, there are some women who want to date down but usually just for a fling-most women want to date up," Sklar says. "If I had a choice between the Marlboro Man and Colin Firth, I'd pick Firth hands down. Not only will he be good in bed, but then there'll be someone to talk to afterward."
A man's ladies' man
Time magazine declared Bristol-born Archie Leach - aka Cary Grant - "the world's most perfect male animal." Yes, Laurence Olivier and David Niven were swell, but Grant was box-office bullion for 34 years, a man's man and a woman's man, in hits such as "Bringing Up Baby," "To Catch a Thief" and "Charade."
He learned early to play hard-to-get onscreen, so all the attention - from the audience, and the likes of Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn - would go toward him, notes biographer Marc Eliot.
"Everybody wants to be Cary Grant - even I want to be Cary Grant," said the actor.
