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The New Rodent Review

Why I wanted to be British

    As with many Americans I have long had a fascination with the British. And I don't mean their food or their history, I mean their actors.  That's right I am fascinated by a country that makes its actors and actresses into Lords and Ladies, Knights and Dames. In England you aren't just a Larry Olivier, your Sir Laurence. Not plain Judy Dench, but Dame Judy.
    They have changed what for centuries was a shameful profession. They took the theatre a place full of prostitutes and drug addicts and elevated it into something Arthurian in quality. Can't you just imagine a Round Table where Sir John Geilgud hob nobing with Sir Gwain, or Sir Ian McKellan hitting on Sir Lancelot. It makes me almost sad I will never be British.
    I know not every British actor is a knight or a dame. You will never see a Sir John Cleese or a Sir Dudley Moore. But even a boy from Scotland can become Sir Sean. I know as an American we should be immune to this sort of desire for royal title. One of the things which makes us so special is our disposal of the last vestiges of feudalism and doing away with nonsense like the Divine right. But I think even in America we can admit the men and women elevated to the lofty levels of dragon slayers or great generals, must be worthy of some respect. And the British are so classy about the whole affair. You have to have some legs to become Sir Ian Holm or Sir Ralph Richardson.
    The  whole point of the exercise is to recognize the value of some guy in tights pouncing about yelling dialogue that was corny when it was written. And there is the recognition that what they do is hard, damn hard. Yes, I enjoy being an actor, but you all need to realize that being an actor is to open yourself to constant scrutiny. Not just by others but also opening yourself to the sort of self-examination that only great poets and priests may understand. This is not a job that is easy and comparing an actor to a dragon slayer or a general is no stretch of my or any actors imagination.
    Sir Alec Guinness died this week. I have a list of ten favorite movies and he is in three of them. It is no stretch of the imagination when you compare Sir Alec to a dragon slayer. In Star Wars he battles his way into a space fortress, a jedi knight of the first order, and he faces off with Darth Vader.  In Bridge on the River Kwai, he follows the rules and then dies when he realizes he has let the rules blind him. The true goal of his life was to fight a war and he dies as the bridge he fought to build is blown-up. I know its corny but in a world without dragons the only knights slaying anything are in the movies.
    I know that I will never be Sir Scott, but the fact of the matter is I can always play a knight. And if that performance inspires anyone to make the hard choice or to slay their own Death Star, then I will be a hero. They never remember the actor, they only remember the performance.