Friday Night Relaxer: King Colin Conquers Ken (and the rest of the English acting world)

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On Monday during the Oscars telecast, film and music journo, Lynden Barber wrote, what I thought was a pretty incisive tweet:

Colin Firth is the Brit actor that Branagh was hyped up to be early in the latter's career 

It’s true. Let’s go back to 1989. Ken Branagh had just done Henry V; here’s how Time Magazine described him:

He is the most accomplished, acclaimed and ambitious performer of his generation. In 1984 he dazzled audiences as the youngest actor ever to play the title role in Henry V at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC ). He starred in the Masterpiece Theater mini-series Fortunes of War. He built his own repertory company and led it through sold-out seasons in London and the provinces. He has written two plays and an autobiography, Beginning. He even married his leading lady, TV star Emma Thompson. No doubt about it: Branagh has conquered Britain.
 
So not exactly damning him with faint praise.

That year he was nominated for Best Actor for Henry V (he lost to that other great English Actor – Daniel Day-Lewis).

Let’s compare him to Colin Firth – who was also born in 1960.

At that stage Branagh was directing and acting in great Shakesperian roles. He was going to be the new Olivier. Firth on the other hand at this stage had had some large roles in small films (A Month in the Country – a film in which Branagh had a supporting role and Apartment Zero), and also in some TV series, but he didn’t get anything like the review Branagh got for his acting in Fortunes of War. In 1989 he got the lead role in Valmont, that film which lost out to Dangerous Liaisons in the race of which film adaptation of the play Dangerous Liaisons would be the big hit (incidentally Valmont co-starred Annette Benning – she recovered as well).

Had you asked back in 1989 which of the two would be most likely by 2010 to be called A National Treasure, picking Firth would have had your film-knowledge chops seriously questioned.
And yet, Firth has now won 2 BAFTA Best Actors in a row (only the second person to do that), and has a Best Actor Oscar (Branagh hasn’t been nominated for an Acting Oscar since Henry V). Firth is now a “serious actor” and also rom-com gold standard (Mamma Mia! Bridget Jones, Love Actually), and Branagh’s last two roles were in the woeful The Boat that Rocked and as a standard German officer in Valkryie. Sure he may have been the best thing about Tom Cruise’s Nazi film (because there’s no doubting, Branagh can bloody-well act!), but when was the last time you heard Ken Branagh was going to be in a film and you got excited just by that thought?

Here’s Branagh’s film credits in the last 15 years:

Now look, they’re not all bad. Conspiracy is an excellent small film about the drawing up of the Final Solution (also starred Firth). Rabbit Proof Fence is obviously good. But take his role in Harry Potter – it was a bit of a joke role. At least Ralph Fiennes in the Harry Potter films is playing a character who is going to be remembered.
But he’s also a director I hear you cry! Well you think back in 1989 people were expecting this role of films from his camera:
I’m saying Dead Again showed things were a bit amiss, and Peter’s Friends almost sealed his fate. Sleuth made a mere $4.8m worldwide, Love’s Labours Lost made about $300,000. These are not films which have connected with audiences. And they are certainly not what we were expecting back in 1989 when he did this:

Now let’s look at Firth in the same time:
Now conversely, not all are great. No one is hoping for Hope Springs 2, or The Last Legion Again. But in that time he’s been in three Best Picture films, part of the Bridget Jones success, the St Trinian’s fun, the Nanny McPhee joy, and also the Mamma Mia phenomenon (in which he played a gay character, and yet I still bet most women watch not caring and assuming he could be theirs) .

Here’s the other thing – look at the number – thirty two films. Branagh by comparison has been in twenty in that time. That doesn’t sound like a big difference, but compare it since they both were in Conspiracy. Since then Firth has done 23 films to Branagh’s 6.

Branagh is hardly a working actor anymore. And he does not pick roles with the smarts of Daniel Day-Lewis (who since My Left Foot in 1989 has only been in nine roles! But, geez, look at his strike rate!):
The odd thing is that Branagh could have had Firth’s career. Branagh would have been excellent in many of Firth’s roles. The English Patient would have been well within his wheelhouse; he would have eaten up the Shakespeare in Love role.
But of course the one role that Firth has that differentiates himself from Branagh, and which in so many ways led to everything else, (especially the realms of rom-com gold standardom) is this:

It is amazing what one great role can do for your career. Take another English actor also born in 1960 (in fact one day before Firth), Hugh Grant.

Here was Grant’s film CV till 1993:
Major rom-com star? Not likely! Impromptu is a lovely gem, but Maurice? In which Grant plays one of two Cambridge “chums” who find themselves preferring each others company to that of girls. Nice film, but it suggested Grant was going to be more on the edgier side of things – something Bitter Moon suggests as well.
And then came Four Wedding and a Funeral. And here’s what came after:
Not many risks there; a few stinkers, but also a some very often watched films: Sense and Sensibility, Notting Hill, About a Boy, Bridget Jones, Two Weeks Notice, Love Actually that’s actually a Cary Grant like run of solid romantic comedy films. It also contains a hell of a lot more memorable roles than Branagh has ever had.

Firth, Grant and Branagh are now all over 50. Given their careers you would think Grant will be the one to struggle most with the move to older roles (Cary Grant did it, but he did it with suave; Hugh Grant’s persona seems to be more suited to a 30s early 40s kind of guy). Branagh of course will fit nicely into older heavier roles – but will he?

Sure he may stick with directing – he’s behind the camera for Thor which comes out later this year. But in terms of directing heavier roles, perhaps he should look over his shoulder at the two year’s younger Ralph Fiennes, who has completed his first directing gig doing Shakespeare's Coriolanus (in which he also stars). Fiennes also is rumored to be the next James Bond villain – the type of role you’d think Branagh could play as well. In fact looking at Fienne’s career since he came onto the film world, and you see another career that one would’ve thought Branagh-likely back in 1989:
Thirty four films. Some horrible (Maid in Manhattan), but many very good and very interesting, even if small – eg his role in In Bruges. (He also has the honour of being the avatar of a certain blogger).

Branagh of course is hardly struggling to make ends meet, but it just shows that for even those actors supposedly at the top, you can’t take a career for granted – though given Firth’s recent run, he probably can have a bit of a relaxer.

And may you all also have a relaxing weekend.

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