Tom Hiddleston: Brits always play baddies (xpose)

Tom Hiddleston and Benedict Cumberbatch have been "laughing" about British actors playing villains in blockbuster movies.

Tom Hiddleston finds it hilarious that British actors are renowned for playing "the bad guy".

The actor was named Best Villain at the MTV Movie Awards on Sunday. Tom won the accolade for his portrayal of Norse god Loki in last year's box office smash The Avengers.

He loved playing the character, and often discusses the trend for Brits playing baddies with his pal Benedict Cumberbatch.

"I was talking about it with my friend Benedict, who is the villain in the new Star Trek film and we were laughing about it," he told UK TV show Lorraine. "It's as if there is a long line of British actors who have appeared in big American films as the bad guy. I think it all started with James Mason."

Tom is playing Loki for a third time in Thor: The Dark World, which will hit cinemas later this year.

As he collected his golden popcorn award at the MTV Movie Awards, he praised the cast and crew for making the movie such a memorable experience.

"I loved this film. I had the best time making it, and you know, obviously I'm not from this country as you can hear, but you were very hospitable to me, and I would like to thank Joss Whedon [director] first of all," Tom said in his acceptance speech. "Thank you, Chris Evans. Thank you to Sam Jackson. And absent friends, Scarlett Johansson, Robert Downey Jr., Jeremy Renner, my brother from another mother, Chris Hemsworth, and a special thank you to Mark Ruffalo for smacking me like a ragdoll."

READ MORE: http://www.tv3.ie/entertainment_article.php?locID=1.803.874&article=100773

James Mason: The audacious Odd Man Out turns Britain’s biggest star into furniture in his own film BY MIKE D'ANGELO (AV CLUB)

In Scenic Routes, Mike D’Angelo looks at key movie scenes, explaining how they work and what they mean.

Imagine that you’re at the multiplex to see your favorite actor’s latest star vehicle. Doesn’t really matter who it is, but for the purposes of this exercise, let’s stipulate that it’s somebody very famous, a take-charge personality. Liam Neeson would be perfect, but it could be Matt Damon, Denzel Washington, Daniel Day-Lewis, whoever. Anyway, he’s playing the leader of a gang or a criminal organization of some kind, and early scenes show him planning a big heist. Maybe he and his confederates have noble motives for the robbery. Not important. What is important is that you came to see Neeson (or Damon, or whoever) do his badass thing… but his character is shot during the holdup, badly wounded, abandoned by the rest of the gang. He’s bleeding so much, he can barely stay conscious. And while he’s physically present for much of what follows, it’s only in the way that, say, Tim Roth is physically present for the first half of Reservoir Dogs. The actual movie is about the various people who come in contact with him, virtually none of whom are played by similarly well-known actors.

Sound plausible? That’s the gist of Carol Reed’s 1947 classic Odd Man Out, which stars James Mason—the most popular British actor for four years running at the time of its release—as IRA leader Johnny McQueen. (His group is called “The Organization” throughout, but it’s Northern Ireland, so who are we kidding?) Mason gets shot 14 minutes into the two-hour picture, and is only intermittently awake and coherent from that point forward; the drama revolves entirely around random citizens, mostly embodied by stage actors Reed drafted from the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. It’s a portrait of a community, exploring the ambivalence of people who sympathize with Mason’s cause, but not necessarily with his methods. In its finest, thorniest scene, a couple of middle-aged women gradually realize that the “accident victim” they’ve taken in won’t likely garner them awards for Samaritans Of The Year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqctI12CBzo

READ MORE: http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-audacious-odd-man-out-turns-britains-biggest-s,92587/

Tarantino: Idris Elba Not in ‘Django’ Because He’s a Brit January 6, 2013 | Posted by ABS Staff (ATLANTA BLACK STAR)

I know, we said no more Django Unchained posts. However, this isn’t so much a Django Unchained item (no critique nor praise of the film here), as much as it is a nod to several conversations and debates that you folks have had in various comment sections of this blog, relating to the casting of black British actors in roles as African-Americans (and vice-versa, or as Africans) whether on TV or film, as well as the, shall we say, “accent problem.”

So I thought it was worth sharing and elaborating on, as well as connecting it to previous conversations, regardless of where you stand on the matter.

In an interview with the U.K.’s Sun newspaper, while plugging the film across the pond, where it opens on the 18th of this month,Quentin Tarantino stated, while, Idris Elba was one of the actors he looked at for the lead role eventually played by Jamie Foxx, “he never stood a chance of getting the part,” because “he’s British.”

Tarantino said. “Yeah, Idris is British and this is an American story. I think a problem with a lot of movies that deal with this issue is they cast British actors to play the Southerners and it goes a long way to distancing the movie. They put on their gargoyle masks and they do their phoney accents and you are not telling an American story any more. They are just making hay of it, whether it be James Mason in Mandingo or Michael Caine in Hurry Sundown, they get British actors to do this.”

The first thing that I thought was, if he never really stood a chance of getting the part, why even look at him for the part in the first place…?

Although, I’ll say that while Idris did an excellent job portraying Stringer Bell in HBO’s The Wire, pulling off the accent rather well – so much that most audiences, and even many of his fellow Brits didn’t even know he was British – you might recall he did have some difficulty with his southern accent in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus last summer.

READ MORE: http://atlantablackstar.com/2013/01/06/tarantino-idris-elba-not-in-django-because-hes-a-brit/

The magnificent British actors of the past century

It's a Saturday night, the wind is howling outside and there is another rainstorm heading for Florida.  And I began to think about all of the wonderful British Actors and Acresses I have loved my whole life.  This site, and the actors here, are a continuation of a brilliant acting tradition somehow peculiar to the British.  I know I've missed quite a few but here are some of my favorite men:

The one and only Lord Laurence Olivier