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In fact, give me tall, dark, handsome and intelligent immediately!  Okay, I admit: David Strathairn is my dream man. Bar none. All the rest I have chosen before this date are mere playthings of my imagination. David has been my perfect man for twenty-one years now, longer than any of my marriages and long-term relationships combined. He is, I have no doubt, the finest actor of our generation -- and I don't want to hear any "character actor" qualifying crap from anyone either. He's a star. His roles and movies prove it. He's just too smart and his work is too subtle for the Moronic Majority that composes this fine country of ours.
To show you the depth of my devotion: I have even practiced pronouncing his name, just in case I ever get the opportunity to whisper it in his ear (though one would hope we would be on a first name basis by then). It's "Struh-THAIRN." I swear this is true. I heard him say it once on an audio book he was reading - and if listening to his voice while you drift off to sleep doesn't inspire sweet dreams, than, baby, you're hopeless.
Broken Vows (1994) A Dangerous Woman (1993) O Pioneers! (1992) Big Girls Don't Cry...They Get Even (1992) Son of the Morning Star (1991) Without Warning: The James Brady Story (1991) Judgment (1990) The Feud (1989) Day One (1989) |
I adore this man for very deep
reasons that go beyond his intelligence. First up would be his
shoulders. He wears a tee shirt better than James Dean ever dreamed
he could. Second, would be his versatility, which to me -- deep
in my fantasy land -- means he is deep as shit. He can play
blue collar, wealthy, sympathetic, mean, creep, savior, academic,
rural -- you name it. He can do it. That man can inhabit a character
and give it a soul of its own better than anyone else on this
planet. Thirdly: what a great face. He has aged into a major
52-year old looker. Next up: that hair. There is so much of it.
And, man, he makes gray look good. Finally: David Strathairn
can brood better than anyone in film today. And you know how
devastatingly attractive brooding can be. Go see him in Limbo
and you will understand. It was all I could do to keep from disrobing
in the movie theater (we writers lead interactive fantasy lives).
He has been in a zillion movies,
including many of my favorites: Return of the Secaucus Seven,
L.A. Confidential, Passion Fish, Bob Roberts, Lost
in Yonkers, Dominick and Eugene, Matewan, At Close Range,
Brother from Another Planet, and Silkwood. He is,
in fact, John Sayles favorite actor, too. Thank god for John
Sayles. 
I'll also have you know that
we share a deep personal connection: for the past two decade,
he has shown an amazing ability to pop up playing a character
that exactly emulates the man I am dating at the time. I'll never
forget the scene when, as bookstore owner Moss Goodman on The
Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, David, in all his rumbled
and absent-minded glory, hands Molly his shoe as proof
he is returning from a long trip and will come back to her. He
was a ringer for a sculptor I was madly in love with at the time,
one just as peculiar, inarticulate, goofily-charming -- and divine.
This phenomenon has manifested itself many times over the years
though not, I am most happy to say, during his Dolores Claiborne
period.
Yes,
he's taken. Of course he's taken. Isn't that the point?
He's been married forever and is rumored to have two sons and
to live in upstate New York. Hmmm... I wonder how old those sons
are by now?