Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

The thing that makes Sir Ian McClellan;'s performance in gods and monsers so painfuil and riveting is really the same thing Peter O'Toole has been doing in pretty much everything he's done in the last ten years or so. They open themselves up so completely, make themselves so vulnerable that it's like falling with no attempt to catch oneself. It is utterly brave because it's a sort of nudity of the soul.

It occurs to me that the secret of Jonathan Rhys Meyers's success is the exact opposite. He creates fascination by revealing almost nothing but the character's surface emotion of the moment and nothing at all of himself, leaving the observer to read into the performance nearly everything. the effect is enigmatic, and constantly draws the eye.