No, not in the traditional Hollywood Casting Couch department either.
“Oeuvre? Oh, Darling don’t... please…”
The English Actress can’t, and more importantly, won’t, play an idiot. Nor will they ‘Do’ comedy or slapstick. (It takes a Canadian to play Bridget Jones) And they certainly WILL NOT play Ugly, Disturbed, Deluded or Working Class. Okay?
The English Actress and the hubris that surrounds her
How come nearly all, English actresses’ are posh, preppy, privileged, pompous and patronising?
Because they’re ALL cut from the same cloth, they ALL went to the same schools and they ALL had the same upbringing. They are in fact, ALL the SAME PERSON.
Perhaps I should’ve said ‘British Actresses’, instead of ‘English’ but, to be honest, there’s no-need for any politically correct regional representations on this issue, as there are no ‘Regional’ Actresses’.
Indeed it seems, all actresses forfeit background and upbringing as soon as they join Drama School:-That’s if their background and upbringing is in any way different from the Horsy Posh Gels that generally go to drama school in the first place, as they ALL become middle class, middle England, middle aged and Terribly Tewibbly Mumsy.
From Vanessa Redgrave to Keira Knightley … they’re all from the same stock and they all sound like the Queen Mother crossed with Carol Thatcher chewing phlegm. Yah.
In ALL their roles The English Actress exhibits virtually exactly the same character traits: Clipped cut-glass accent, glacial dry ‘wit’, a standoffish disdainful attitude to others, an aggressive intellectualism edging towards boorishness, crossed with an emotional coldness verging on autism.
I understand that drama school has to strip away the ‘self’ in order for actors to rebuild the 'selves’ from the bottom up. My argument has nothing to do with acting ‘talent’. I like Judi Dench...But this ‘condescending cold-fish phenomenon’, stretches from Glenda Jackson (Very Good) to Liz Hurley (er..not quite so good).
“Oeuvre? Oh, Darling don't... please…”
English Actresses’ can’t, and more importantly, won’t, play idiots, they WILL NOT ‘Do’ comedy and slapstick. (It takes an American to play Brigit Jones) They WILL NOT play ugly, disturbed deluded or Working Class OK?
Can you imagine Kate Beckinsale doing a Charlize Theron in ‘Monster?’
"Ms Kate Beckinsale stars as Rosemary West"…in ‘For The Love Of Fred’… Kate? Putting on weight? no make up? Spots? Wearing Glasses? killing some young girls?... Never!
Ms Beckinsale on her mobile phone: “Zizi, Listen Ziz darling Listen!. Fire my fucking agent Darling...Fucking FIRE HER! ... I’m off to the Cotswolds with Marcus to raise some organically-grown-free-range children Yah, Okay Darling Byeee..!”…
Most American actresses’ will play whatever they think stretches ‘em. And the wide variety of American accents and broad ranging ‘types’ who become actors, has led to a better and wider calibre of acting talent making it on the screen.
From ‘Formal Actorly’, to ‘Full On Actioner’, In America there’s less of a highbrow/lowbrow stage/screen distinction.
Selma Blair: Legally Blonde, Hellboy AND Storytelling.
Not since Sigourney Weaver first admitted to being a bit snobby concerning her role in Alien (latterly she realised how much clout she could wield as a Hollywood Producer with the Alien franchise, she subsequently saw the fucking light alright and bastard sharpish on that little issue..) American actresses don’t deride sci-fi and horror and action genres as ‘boys films’, ‘ or find them intrinsically ‘geeky’ or ‘creepy.’
Can you think of an English Rose who instead of Angelina Jolie could’ve OR should’ve played Lara Croft? Alex Kingston? Give me a fucking break.
Can you think of an English actress who could compare or compete with Cate Blanchett? Rosamund Pike? You Can Jolly Well Eat-Out My Gasping Clannard-Hole if your thinking along those perishing lines.
Roll Call of Superior Actressy faux tweedy stockinged toff TURD brigade:
Tilda Swinton: Christ Almighty. Where do I start? Well, what a sour humourless lump of pure hell this person is. Impossibly pious, theatrically pompous and overtly ‘actorly’ to an almost surreal and demented degree. A sort of Calvinistic Puritanism aligned to a bitter twisted and generally unwarranted hatred of ‘The Industry’ IE: The Industry is ALWAYS Bad and low budget always Good.
Tilda truly epitomizes and encapsulates all that is wrongheaded with The English Actress. WHAT THE FUCK IS SHE? seriously, I mean it. Where the fuck did she come from?...Narnia? That's Tilda's idea of 'Dumbing Down' How the fuck did she get like that?
Private Eye has a regular "Luvvies column" with cuttings sent in by readers.
Ms Swinton has had a more than a few mentions regarding how other starstruck wannabe luvvies see Tilda's ‘otherworldliness’ and ‘luminescent qualities’ IE: Her complete all-encompassing ego-driven -intitlement-accepting god-given right to be a icy haughty bag of PRIM shite.
Kate Beckinsale: Sullen, short-tempered, miserable, likely to burn out, but more likely to opt for childrearing, as it’s so very ‘real’.
Kate Winslet: Original farty good time gal, now prone to bouts of black depression.
Kate Played typically ‘Scatty’ in ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’. She gets ONE out-of TEN for doing an American Accent
Please note that ‘scatty’ is Number Two in the English Actress’ Acting Arsenal…Number Three is ‘Unwell’, Number Four is ‘Deliriously in Love’ AND Number One is ‘Frigid’. And, er, that’s it! Acting Class Over!
If it wasn’t for Kate’s extra layer of middle-class subcutaneous fat, she would have drowned at the end in Titanic. And now that she’s lost that extra layer of puppy lard, she’s all-adrift as an actress with ‘morals’ who opposes the ‘system’. She’s capitulated on her anti-Hollywood, anti cosmetic surgery and the dangers of extreme dieting and Glammed the fuck up.
Vanessa Redgrave: Made of some sort of delicate and fragile bone-china. Always has a 'Mona Lisa Smile' you know, she looks like she's having an hilariously witty and urbane private joke at your expense...either that, or she's letting out one of those silent but deadly lady-farts that really hump the place out. I think she's a teeny bit do-lally.
Emma Thompson: Former Farty Burpy & Funny, now Stately Matrilineal Elder Sage of Screen & Stage. Yawn.
Rachel Weisz: Trying to break the mould but can’t, because, and, get ready to join in at the back…(drum roll) “ There just aren’t any decent roles for strong women” ™
-No of course not, ACTUALLY, it’s more that there AREN’T ANY roles for actors with such limited and finite range. (Got a Golden Globe for The Constant Gardener. A BLOODY ‘critics’ film)
Sadie Frost: was replaced in a few key scenes in Coppola’s ‘Dracula’ by a tiny limp little field mouse. No one even noticed.
Helena Bonham Carter: “I can do UGLY”… She is the absolute furthest out-there on the scatty old bat range. Jumble sale chic and scant regard for personal hygene products 'cos they're 'part of the macho military-industrial hegemony of female oppression'
Kristin Scott-Thomas: The other end of spectrum from Bonham Carter. Scott-Thomas is so very set-in-her-ways that she only ever plays herself.
Scott-Thomas is trussed up as tight as the imaginary corset that keeps her waist at a steady 2.04 inches. Uptight. Her smile can split an atom.
Scott-Thomas lives in France with a French man. THIS is what all actors who have the ‘craft’ aspire to. (Be they man or woman)
Saffron Burrows: ‘Saffron Bighead’
Fiona Shaw: Generic plummy
Dame Judi Dench: Can appear patronising and aloof even when you picture her in your mind’s eye.
A few notable exceptions
Kathy Burke: She probably came up through Community Theatre…(Sorry, it takes a working class person to truly patronise the working class.)
Miranda Richardson: 'Dance With a Stranger' 1985 She CAN do mad. But she has the unmistakable whiff of The Footlights Revue about her. Although she wanked off Gabriel Byrne and flicked his spunk into the canal with such deft distain in Cronenberg's Spider that she deserves a special mention.
Samantha Morton: seems to have carved a specialist niche playing idiot savant deaf mutes (Minority Report, Sweet’n’Lowdown)
Morton was raised in an orphanage. I can’t imagine a more off-the-scale exception to my Posh Thesp argument…And the fact that she seems, like, totally stoned ALL THE TIME!
Shirley Henderson: Unhinged voice, sweet & seething. Scary.
Catherine Zeta Jones: An old School HOOFER. A Sport, a Brick, a mucker, a bloody good laugh. And have you seen her husband. He's got rheumy old mans' watery eyes...Glaaaaahh...
Kelly Macdonald: Can’t really act. Although to-be-fair, that hasn't done Uma Thurman's career any harm.
As for the Blokes.
Well, the same thing applies to men as to females in the acting profession, Male actors are drawn from a narrow social demographic, except they HAVE to ‘appear’ to be from a wider social/cultural group than female actors because there is ‘slightly’ more roles and parts for men, -as sidekicks and character actors. These roles offer some sort of cultural/ethnic diversion from the rigid norms often suffered by female actresses.
All the best talent remains unseen & unheard, because they can’t hack or can’t bear, a ‘Drama School Bourgeois Personality Overhaul.’
English Actresses SUCK and not in the traditional Hollywood Casting Couch department either.
Picture them as an endangered species, fragile and waiflike, they can only exist in a biosphere of gentle conditioning with permanent ego massage and some reiki positive energy yoga breathing otherwise they might find they actually have to engage with the real world AND ACT for once …
More notes, theories and outright abuse on The English Actress are available on request. NiGLx
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