Finding inspiration from actors

I didn’t use to like Ingrid Bergman. For many years she stayed in my imagination as the romantic movie archetype of doe-eyed, soft-spoken women of little agency.
A few years ago I watched Notorious for the first time, and it changed my mind completely about her. There’s an early scene where her character is throwing a party.¹ After all the other guests have left she’s alone with a man she’s meeting for the first time and is visibly attracted to. As they prepare to go for a drive, he takes one last gulp from his drink, and then she takes his glass and has a sip from it. She’s a bit woozy already, and after taking the sip she lets out a soft groan. “Hawwr”. That little groan, and that scene in general, feel true to me, and I love Ingrid Bergman for it. Now I use the little groan when I want to express wooziness or exhaustion.

I have moments like that from movies and from actors that become personal or that stay with me as models of how something should be done. I don’t mean the big moments. Those are fun to bring out like your Sunday best, but in this post I mean the more subtle and pervasive things.

Cary Grant, who also starts in Notorious, is one of my comedy heroes. In North By Northwest there’s a scene in a hospital at night where he enters a room through the window. The light turns on and the woman in the bed shouts Stop!, then puts on her glasses. She takes a look at Cary Grant, then says Stop! again, only this time she says it softly with longing. He says Haaaa as in “now now dear…” and leaves.
And that’s how it’s done: you bring people in on the joke, you poke fun but don’t humiliate. Cary Grant had a gift for showing just how ridiculous a situation was, without resorting to self-deprecation, that comic device for the lazy.

Another comedy hero is Val Kilmer. Top Secret! is elevated over other spoof movies because he plays the lead at once straight and fully committed to the absurd. His Elvis-like character stuck in a spy movie owns his dance scenes and his wooden lines of dialog. Most actors would have gone for broke, but he keeps it controlled, and his dance scenes are great.²
Then in Real Genius, Kilmer plays an eccentric physics genius who can’t take anything seriously, and again his delivery is both committed and controlled. Real Genius was an important movie for me in high school. At a time when I was burying my nerd persona by hanging out with the cool kids and starting to neglect my studies, Val Kilmer’s character became an inspiration.

One of my favorite actors in recent years is Tony Leung. He’s good in comedy but is not in the same comedic class as Cary Grant or Val Kilmer. A lot of Leung’s acting is reacting to other characters, even just looking and listening. His characters are imbued with a sense of elegance and thoughtfulness.
In The Grandmaster there is a fight between Zhang Ziyi and Tony Leung that is mesmerizing, and I wonder if anyone else could have made it.³ I also wonder if any director other than Wong Kar-Wai could have conceived it.

My latest favorite actor is Jodie Comer. Like Val Kilmer, she commits to absurd comedy without overplaying it, and she’s also great in dramatic moments. She’s justly renowned for being chameleonic, and it is impressive to watch her transform. But even more special is that often she plays it plain. Many actors seem to be “acting” all the time; she doesn’t.
In Killing Eve there are many scenes where she’s just naturally reacting to the other characters: walking, watching, realizing something; eating next to a terrified Sandra Oh; listening to Fiona Shaw tell her how she was at age nine.
I’ve watched two of her movies: Free Guy and The Last Duel, and neither do her justice. I don’t think those movies are all that interested in the characters she plays. Nor, to be fair, in the other characters.

I wonder what Jodie Comer will do with her career. She’s one of the few actresses that, I think, could have pulled off Clueless as a teenager, and she’d be great in other Jane Austen adaptations. George Eliot might suit her even better.
I want to see her doing lots more. She’s so gifted, she could do anything. I hope she will get to work with the best directors and writers and actors.
What would she make with the likes of Wong Kar-Wai? And Hitchcock?