Latest news with #characteractor
The Guardian
13-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Kenneth Colley obituary
Kenneth Colley, who has died aged 87, after suffering from Covid and pneumonia, was a character actor widely admired by both the press and public for his screen roles over 60 years, from the Imperial officer Admiral Piett in two of the original Star Wars films and Jesus in Monty Python's Life of Brian to historical figures such as Nelson and Napoleon, and two Adolfs, Hitler and Eichmann. He described his parts as 'mad and bad', while critics variously commented that the sad-eyed actor had 'a defeated look if ever there was one' and he could 'make your spine tingle with pleasure'. He is embedded in the minds of sci-fi film fans as Firmus Piett, a role he landed after Irvin Kershner, director of The Empire Strikes Back (1980), the second in the first Star Wars trilogy, said he was 'looking for someone that would frighten Hitler'. Piett was the commander of Executor, Darth Vader's flagship super star destroyer employed in the Empire's quest for galactic control. George Lucas, the Star Wars creator and producer, had not intended to feature an Imperial officer twice in the first trilogy, but Colley made the character of Piett human – 'You can't just play a uniform,' he said – and Star Wars fans wrote in demanding to see him again. So Lucas brought him back for Return of the Jedi (1983), adding scenes to the original script. But Colley's run ended there, with Piett commanding the entire Imperial fleet at the Battle of Endor and perishing when a Rebel starfighter destroys the Executor's command bridge. He remained a firm fan favourite at Star Wars conventions over the following decades. Colley also gained cult status as Jesus delivering the Sermon on the Mount in the 1979 film Monty Python's Life of Brian. He had previously appeared with individual members of the Monty Python team in the movie Jabberwocky and on TV in Ripping Yarns (both in 1977). He was also much admired by Ken Russell and was part of the flamboyant director's unofficial repertory company for 22 years. Colley started as Hitler in Dance of the Seven Veils (1970), a BBC musical biopic that outraged Richard Strauss's family with its sex scenes and depiction of the composer as a Nazi sympathiser. Then came film parts as Modest, Tchaikovsky's younger brother, in The Music Lovers; Legrand in The Devils, brilliantly cinematic, but controversial – and censored – for its tale of a philandering 17th-century French Catholic priest, witchcraft, nudity and sexually repressed nuns; and a bearded king for a fantasy sequence in The Boy Friend (all 1971). In further Russell musical biopics, Colley was Krenek, a journalist posing challenging questions, in Mahler (1974) and Frédéric Chopin in Lisztomania (1975). He played the dour teacher Mr Brunt in Russell's film version of The Rainbow (1989) before returning to TV as Alfred Dreyfus, a wrongly jailed 19th-century French officer, in Prisoner of Honor (1991) and the composer John Ireland in The Secret Life of Arnold Bax (1992). Colley was born in Manchester, to Jessie (nee Hughes) and Ernest Colley, a labourer. When he was 14, a teacher at South Hulme secondary modern school asked him about his career ambitions, and he said he wanted to act. On leaving school, he went through jobs as a commercial art assistant, bus conductor and warehouse operative, but his dream never faded. 'One day, I told myself that I was 23 and I had to stop wasting my time,' Colley recalled. In 1961, he headed for London and knocked on theatrical agents' doors, but failed to impress. Nevertheless, he landed his first theatre job as an assistant stage manager with Bromley repertory company, where he started acting. He also made his screen debut, as a corpse, in the BBC sci-fi series A for Andromeda (1961) in the middle of an actors' strike that meant most Equity members were not available for work. Moving on, he joined the newly formed Living Theatre company in an old school building in Leicester (1961-63), alongside actors such as Jill Gascoine. His performance as Jimmy Porter in John Osborne's anti-establishment play Look Back in Anger led one critic to write: 'Kenneth Colley burns with sardonic rage.' While television quickly recognised his talents as a character actor, with appearances in dramas such as The Avengers (1963), as well as the role of a fellow steel worker playing pranks on Dennis Tanner in Coronation Street (1964), Colley continued on stage with the company at the Unity, a London East End venue with roots in the workers' theatre movement. He played Wick there in another 'angry young man' play, Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs (1965), written by David Halliwell and directed by Mike Leigh. He reprised the role at that year's Dublin theatre festival and in the West End of London the following year at the Garrick, before taking small parts with the National Theatre company at the Old Vic in 1968. Later stage roles included Cleet in Cromwell (Royal Court, 1973) and Benedick on tour with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Much Ado About Nothing (1979). In films, he played Michael Crawford's chauffeur in The Jokers (1967) and a Soviet colonel in Firefox (1982), alongside Clint Eastwood. He first played Hitler on television in Jean Benedetti's BBC play These Men Are Dangerous (1969). His other small-screen parts included Charles I in Revolution: Cromwell (1970), the 'accordion man' in Pennies from Heaven (1978), an SS officer in the 1983 TV movie The Scarlet and the Black, starring Gregory Peck, Eichmann in Wallenberg: A Hero's Story (1985), and the title roles in I Remember Nelson (1982) and Napoleon's Last Battle (1990). Colley also gave a standout performance as the manipulating Duke of Vienna in the 1979 BBC Shakespeare production Measure for Measure and enjoyed a starring role as Ken Uttley, owner of a removals firm, in the comedy-drama Moving Story (1994-95). In 2016, he played the doomed mob boss Vicente Changretta in Peaky Blinders. In 1962, Colley married Mary Dunne; she died in 2018. Kenneth Colley, actor, born 7 December 1937; died 30 June 2025
New York Times
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
How Jon Bernthal Became Hollywood's Most Dependable Bruiser
When Jon Bernthal was cast as a petty drug dealer in 'The Wolf of Wall Street,' Martin Scorsese's 2013 white-collar crime epic, the actor wasn't even supposed to have many lines. But Bernthal went into that film intending to take his shot. So he came in for a wordless B-roll scene in which the script had him lifting weights in a backyard, asked the second-unit director to mic him and riffed for 45 minutes. Scorsese wasn't there that day, but here's what he saw in the footage: a shirtless Bernthal curling dumbbells, tormenting some teenage boys with a baseball bat and peacocking his virility. 'Bring some of them chicks around here sometime,' he says. Then Bernthal makes a brilliant little decision about his tough guy's whereabouts. 'Hey, Ma, we got chicken or what?' he yells toward the house. 'Ma!' There was no 'Ma' in the script. No one even said he lived with his mother. The role introduced Bernthal as an excellent character actor. Since then, he has become the guy who shows up onscreen unexpectedly, delivers the most memorable performance in a scene or two and then vanishes. This is perhaps why he's so often playing dead men in flashbacks. He's the dramatic center of gravity in FX's 'The Bear,' appearing just once or twice per season as the deceased family patriarch, and the tragic romantic in the 2017 Taylor Sheridan film 'Wind River.' Bernthal was so good in 'The Accountant,' an improbable 2016 Ben Affleck-led movie about an autistic accountant turned gunslinger, that the filmmakers made this year's sequel a two-hander. Bernthal has had leading roles too, most notably in 'We Own This City,' the HBO miniseries about Baltimore police corruption in which the actor's performance was criminally overlooked. But for the most part, he has carved out a career of supporting roles. So it made perfect sense when he told me that one of his favorite movies is 'True Romance,' Tony Scott's 1993 adaptation of Quentin Tarantino's first script. Christian Slater may have been the lead, but it was the supporting characters played by Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt and Dennis Hopper who stole the film. 'There are so many people who are in it for a scene or two,' Bernthal said, 'but you could have made a movie about any one of those characters.' We were having breakfast in Ojai, Calif., where Bernthal lives. The previous day, he returned from New York where he was promoting 'The Accountant 2.' Before that he was in Greece and Morocco, filming a role in 'The Odyssey' with Christopher Nolan, which is perhaps the greatest honor that can be bestowed on a dramatic actor these days. In front of him was a pile of egg whites, spinach, fruit and gluten-free toast. 'I'm like a gorilla,' he said. 'I eat a lot.' Most actors, once they get lead roles, are advised to turn down anything smaller. But Bernthal is allergic to strategizing about how to become a leading man or listening to agents and managers who want to find him a 'star vehicle.' The only real mistake he made in his career, he told me, happened because he let that sort of thinking get in his head. But he has switched agents since then. He knows he has become the guy who everyone calls for a favor, but then again 'The Bear' was a favor. And that turned into one of the most rewarding experiences of Bernthal's career. The intensity he brought to the role won him an Emmy, and now he has even co-written an episode in the upcoming season. 'I can't imagine deciding what you're going to do in this super-tenuous field while being so dependent on some businessman's strategy,' he said. Image Jon Bernthal, right, with Jeremy Allen White and Abby Elliott in the 2023 episode of 'The Bear' that earned him an Emmy. Credit... Chuck Hodes/FX, via Everett Collection Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
