Pop Culture

This makes Shine Look Easy

Those visiting the Sydney Film Festival next month have a chance to see Geoffrey Rush in perhaps his most challenging movie role, in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers. Sellers had a famously troubled personality, and enacting his private life would be difficult enough for an actor. But he was also an incredible character actor, who would transform himself completely with each role. After seeing Sellers in character, it's hard to imagine his roles being played by anyone else (though Steve Martin has bravely agreed to play Inspector Clouseau in an upcoming Pink Panther movie).

            Rush not only plays Sellers, but also mimics many of his characters, including Clouseau, Dr Strangelove and The Party's Indian klutz Hrundi V. Bakshi. If he pulls it off, it will make his spot-on impersonation of David Helfgott look easy.

            But when the news of his casting was mentioned on the website Ain't It Cool News, movie buffs wrote in to complain that Rush doesn't LOOK enough like Sellers. The site's editor, Harry Knowles, suggested that it didn't matter. So few living movie actors could handle such a role, so Rush is inspired casting. Meanwhile, Sellers' ex-wife, model/actress Britt Eckland, objected to her OWN casting: Charlize Theron. (How many women would object to that?) She later softened her stance, and the two women attended the movie's Cannes premiere together, arm in arm.

            Movie stars are among the most famous people in the world. Convincing as a movie star (whose face, voice and gestures are known to all) is far trickier than convincing as Napoleon or Cleopatra. That's why Dennis Hopper, playing Frank Sinatra in The Night We Called It a Day, clarified that he was doing an "impression" rather than an "impersonation" of the great man. Result: the film was a flop (though that wasn't necessarily Hopper's fault).

            One aspect of Sinatra that the film got right was his singing voice. This was performed not by Hopper, but by Tom Burlinson, who had been judged even by Sinatra as his best mimic. Aussies (or semi-Aussies), it seems, can play the stars of the past with pinpoint accuracy. Perhaps that is one reason why Australian actors are doing so well in Hollywood. Ironically, they are more reminiscent of Hollywood's golden age than most of their American colleagues.

            But who'd think they could so ably BECOME the stars of the classic years? Judy Davis, despite her usual excellence, was a surprise choice forthe 2001 telemovie Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows. Davis' uncanny portrayal (complete with her own singing voice) won an Emmy and a Golden Globe.

            Of course, some American actors have played their colleagues from the past with equal relish. Robert Downey Jr's lead role in Chaplin (1992) was a work of well-studied brilliance, down to his imitations of the great comedian's slapstick routines. Jessica Lange played Frances Farmer extremely well in Frances (1982), though she had an advantage: few people would recognise Farmer. Ditto Kirsten Dunst, whose very charming portrayal of the very charming Marion Davies in The Cat's Meow (2001) is still her best screen performance. Critics even ignored the fact that she looked nothing like Davies, who was ten years older than Dunst when the film was set. They were less kind to Eddie Izzard, playing Chaplin in the same film. When someone’s face is as well-known as Chaplin’s, casting a non-lookalike is risky business.

            Nonetheless, Martin Scorsese has cast Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator. It sounds like miscasting, but as a chameleon, she might do well. Once again, an Aussie plays a film icon.

             Who's next? Start with the look-alikes: imagine Hugh Jackman as Gary Cooper, Rose Byrne as Gene Tierney, or Jacqueline McKenzie as silent film star Colleen Moore. Eric Bana, as demonstrated in the Full Frontal TV series, could probably play anyone.

            Meanwhile in The Aviator, Aussie superstar Errol Flynn is played by... Jude Law?

            Actually, that makes sense...