The 1998 movie that changed Clive Owen’s life: “Never seen that one coming”
Clive Owen’s best performance of the 1990s helped turn him into a movie star.
Not every promising actor has their career solidified from the beginning, and Clive Owen is a great example of someone who it took several decades for the industry to figure out.
Although he had been making interesting choices in smaller, independent films and television in the early ‘90s, he had yet to break through in the same way that other British actors had. This might have been an annoyance to Owen, given that Hollywood had become enamoured with the ‘Brit Pick’ actors, who included Ralph Fiennes, Gary Oldman, Tim Roth, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Colin Firth.
Croupier was a film that fell into Owen’s lap at an unexpected moment, as it was seen as being a potential comeback vehicle for director Mike Hodges. Hodges has helped to define what British crime cinema looked like in the 20th century, thanks to his 1971 classic Get Carter, which featured Michael Caine in one of his best performances as a ruthless gangster. However, Hodges hadn’t necessarily succeeded when he took on more significant Hollywood ventures with blockbuster potential, as he had received scathing reviews for the 1980 reboot of Flash Gordon and the critically reviled horror sequel Damien – The Omen II.
Croupier is about a low-level writer who enters the casino world working as a croupier, and begins to get sucked up into the addictive lifestyle. According to Owen, the film came to him at just the right time.
“You can’t legislate for anything in acting,” Owen said. “It’s one thing I’ve learned. You equip yourself as well as you can and you go in there and give it good go, but even with something that reads great on paper, you have no idea how it’ll go. People say to me ‘what’s your gut feeling about this?’ and to be honest, I have no idea. If there were rules, then we’d all make better films,but good films can fail and films you never imagined would make a splash sometimes do.”
Owen reflected that Croupier was the most significant film that he had ever starred in, adding: “Croupier changed my whole life and career,” he said. “A film that cost a million dollars to make. Never seen that one coming. When I look back on things, on all the opportunities I’ve had, that was the key.”
Not only was Croupier a major crossover hit in the United States, but a film that presented Owen as an actor who could play slick, charismatic, and ruthless characters, making him an ideal choice to play the next James Bond. The fact that he had starred in Croupier seemed like the perfect audition for the franchise’s reboot, Casino Royale, which was also set within the world of casino gambling.
Owen joined a group of actors who vied for the role, but ultimately lost the opportunity to Daniel Craig. As disappointing as it may have been at the time, Owen’s career has been fascinating because he has never truly embraced being a “leading man,” allowing him to give interesting and unexpected performances. He earned an Academy Award nomination for ‘Best Supporting Actor’ for his performance in Closer, and recently earned acclaim for his physical transformation into President Bill Clinton for the FX miniseries American Crime Story: Impeachment.
