Ben Kingsley’s theory on why British actors make the best villains: “They all aspire to play them”
Juicy parts might become thinner on the ground for older actors, but at least Britain’s elder statesmen of the silver screen can sleep easy in the knowledge that Hollywood is never going to lose its appetite for casting them as villains in blockbuster movies.
While there are some actors born and bred in the United Kingdom who could never convince as a despicably evil character – with Jim Broadbent instantly coming to mind because he’s just too damned kindly-looking, Hot Fuzz notwithstanding – every major studio in Hollywood repeatedly smashes the big red button marked ‘British villain’ with ongoing regularity.
Gary Oldman has built a secondary career on it, and even widely beloved and wholesome sorts like Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart have gotten in on the act in the X-Men franchise and Green Room, respectively. Mark Strong is in danger of being permanently typecast, Alan Rickman was fantastic at it, never mind Anthony Hopkins, Jeremy Irons, Ralph Fiennes, Jason Isaacs, Terence Stamp, and the rest.
Because he’s a British actor who’s been working solidly for decades, Ben Kingsley has inevitably been roped in to play his fair share of baddies. The results are often shite, though, looking at how the live-action Thunderbirds, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, and Lucky Number Slevin turned out, but it’s not something he’ll ever shy away from.
Whether it’s Nazis, Russians, or whatever the industry’s current antagonistic flavour of the month is, Brits are always at the top of the casting wish list. It’s become one of the most familiar cliches in the business to cast a villain with a cut-glass accent and a stiff upper lip, and Kingsley has a theory on why it’s become such a common practice among filmmakers and performers.
“Shakespeare,” he told Rama Screen. “Because it’s very hard to avoid that brilliant presence in England. And for actors, especially if they go through drama school, Shakespeare is a huge part of their education as drama students. And the Shakespeare villains are very often the most gloriously written parts in the play. All these great Shakespearean villains are beloved by British actors; they all aspire to play them.”
It’s not so much a theory, then, but an entirely accurate summation. Think of any notable British actor who’s played a villain in a major movie, and the chances are incredibly high that they’ve tackled Shakespeare at least a handful of times on stage and screen. Kingsley is one of them, and his belief is that because so many classically-trained stars end up making their way to Hollywood, that background makes it incredibly easy for them to break bad and make life a misery for a heroic main character.
Basically, it’s all Shakespeare’s fault, not that the actors seem to mind when it keeps them in a job.
