Britboys storm Hollywood
A new generation of British actors is poised to become the toast of Hollywood. Nicknamed the Britboys, they make up the latest crop of talent tipped to land plum roles in many blockbuster movies.
May 2000
James Frain: in demand for 'character' roles
The almost unknown bunch are heading for the top and they are more than likely to have started by treading the boards at London's fringe theatres - standing them in good stead for the rigours of Hollywood.
"Everyone wants to know who the latest one is," said James Frain, the 32-year-old Englishman who plays Natalie Portman's American boyfriend in the new film Where The Heart Is. Frain completed the Royal Court play Other People by Christopher Shinn earlier this year before heading back to Los Angeles, which has become his second home.
Despite appearing in Reindeer Games, Titus and Hilary And Jackie, he is still a virtually unknown face on film. Frain, who will next star with Ralph Fiennes in the latest Istvan Szabo movie, Sunshine, added: "I don't get recognised - which is fantastic."
Of course, Burton, Olivier, Hopkins, O'Toole and Finney were the first to blaze a British trail through the US movie industry. In recent years British actors have tended to arrive in Tinseltown in pairs: Daniel Day Lewis and Kenneth Branagh; Gary Oldman and Tim Roth; Ralph Fiennes and Hugh Grant, and Joseph Fiennes and Jude Law. However, the latest batch have arrived en masse.
Those tipped for great things include Frain, Dominic West, Jason Isaacs, Dougray Scott, Ioan Gruffudd, Daniel Craig, Kevin McKidd, Rupert Penry-Jones, Ben Chaplain, Ed Stoppard, Chiwetel Ejiofor, James Purefoy and Paul Bettany.
Dominic West, 30, is starring alongside Sandra Bullock as her charming but dangerous boyfriend in 28 Days. London theatregoers may have seen him in a variety of roles at the Old Vic during director Peter Hall's repertory season in 1997.
Tipped for greatness: Kevin McKidd
Producer Ismail Merchant, who has employed Hugh Grant, James Wilby and Rupert Graves, said: "People regenerate or rejuvenate themselves in theatre. Theatre gives these actors a boost and then Hollywood is eager to devour them." Kevin McKidd, 26, a Scot who first came to attention in Small Faces and Trainspotting, played a bisexual Londoner in American director Rose Troche's Bedrooms And Hallways. He made his US stage debut at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in the play Britannicus.
His most recent stage appearance was last year in a London revival of 'Tis Pity She's A Whore. Leading that production was Jude Law, just before his role in The Talented Mr Ripley brought him an Oscar nomination and a British Academy Award, raising his film fee to the £3million mark.
Isaacs plays an evil British colonel in period drama The Patriot. Joseph Fiennes also went from the Royal Court to film fame with his role in Shakespeare In Love. "For a lot of British actors, the theatre is home. It's what they did before you knew them, as it were," said Fiennes.
Director Mary Harron, who put Welshman Christian Bale in an influential role in American Psycho, agreed that the Britpack are better schooled in their craft than their US counterparts. "That's why they're so used," she said. "These guys are really character actors, whether they are good-looking or not."
"I don't think you would ever go to see a Christian Bale performance the way you would, say, a Ben Affleck."
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