What makes us Brits so good at being bad?

Due to various reasons I am currently a fixture upon the family sofa catching up on some missed film viewing. So far I have overdosed on marvel, star trek reboot and a few other worthy causes. But what has become blantantly obvious, is if you want a good guy, there are plenty of eye candy candidates, who seem to be recycled in multiple films. But if you want  a decent bad guy, get a brit.


This is an age old tradition in big Hollywood blockbusters, notable mentions must go to the late greats, Christopher Lee and now Alan Rickman. Both were capable of playing both side of the coin, but they will always been memorised for roles where they stole the s re en being bad. Now a days this custom seems to have past the baton to Benedict Cumberbatch in Star Trek and Tom Hiddlestone in the MCU who totally steals it as Loki. It's not as if America is short of its own  capable actors with this duplicity, Tommy Lee Jones, Williem Defoe and James Franco jump to mind as me than adequate, yet the studios seem to love to box us Brits into these roles. Why? Is it due to our ability to bring a shakespearin quality to a comic figure, or just our accents, we will never know.

Don't get me wrong I am not begrudging the quality of our actors or resenting them work, just the predictable pattern of Hollywood casting. I always remember the film critic Barry Norman summarising the remake of the fugitive, and how it would have been 10 times more dramatic had Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones swapped roles, thus making the audience actually doubt the leads motive. The same question would be made if they swapped the casting of say Loki and Iron Man in the MCU or god for bid, cast the likes of Chris Pine, the entire Hemsworth family or Chris Evans in a complete different role. These are all good actors who are being limited by the studios need for eye candy as a good guy.

Sure films are meant to be escapism, and in this day and age we need the fantasy as much as ever, but come on folks, we have a brain. We don't need to be treated like audiences of old, where John Wayne was always the cowboy with a heart, and Cary Grant would sweep us of our feet. Where all the women need rescuing by an godlike like creature, by putting the Brit back in his gaol. We are far more refined in our tastes, we need a puzzle to be caught up in, stereo type to be challenged, and maybe cheer when the good guy turns bad and the bad guy wins the girl.

Yes a lot of the problem comes from the business that the studios need to make money from what can be hugely expensive investments, but it also comes from the sidelines, the media hype of magazines and Internet feeding the audience glossy images of perfect men with their tops off and women who look like they never have a bad hair day. This always adds to the monetary value of turnover. But it devalues the skill of the jobs of acting and directing, by assuming that the audience wouldn't buy into the fact that these people could still charm and entertain if the roles were reversed. I mean think back to the first ever star wars film, the most charming character was Han solo, who right to the end of the film could have gone either way. The role made Harrison Ford's career, and thrust him into heartthrob status, yet he was far from the textbook hero, more rogue. The same quality that has totally revived Robert Downing Junior's career playing Tony Stark /Iron Man.

So maybe the studio system needs to embrace this, and mix up the casting a bit, give us less Hollywood hero vs British bad guy and just give us more dubious rogues.