I was quite excited this week to hear that fellow Swede and Let the Right One In director Tomas Alfredson has been given as exciting a project as The Danish Girl – the true-story drama that will see Nicole Kidman playing the world’s first person to have a sex-change operation.
I’m just really curious to see how the stiff-faced Aussie will tackle playing a man. She’s got some pretty amazing performances to live up to. Movie Talk’s Couch Potato has previously touched upon the genderbenders of Hollywood, but here are my personal female favourites…
Hilary Swank’s heart wrenching performance in Boys Don’t Cry:
Linda Hunt’s Oscar-winning, slightly creepy-looking Billy in The Year of Living Dangerously:
Julie Andrews giving it her usual effortless fabulousness as a woman-playing-a-man-pretending -to-be-a-woman in Victor/Victoria:
Felicity Huffman’s jaw-dropping interpretation of woman-playing-man-about-to-become-a-woman in Transamerica:
And, as a tribute to the late Patrick Swayze, I just have to squeeze in his Golden Globe nominated genderbending interpretation of Vida in To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar:
These are of course fictional, celluloid, temporary transformations by very talented actors. But as we all know, Hollywood is a truly magical place that has the ability to suck ‘normal’ people in and plonk them out all plastic fantastic with perfect figures, perfect teeth, perfect hair and perfect wardrobes. The latest in a growing line of British examples is – shockingly – Ricky Gervais!
Ok, so he’s not exactly got the hair (or the wardrobe) sorted, but the chubby comedian is nowadays sporting a much slimmer frame. From a health perspective it’s of course great that he’s taking better care of himself, but one can’t help but wonder if that was really the reason behind the recent transformation. Gervais’ international career has just started to take off and his directorial debut, The Invention of Lying, was also well recieved in Toronto last week.
I guess when the whole world is looking on, it’s tough not to give in to Tinseltown’s demands on perfection as it’s a big part of the price you pay for success.
UK release 2 October