#postlethwaite

The excellent English character actor Pete Postlethwaite died this week of cancer at 64. 

I’ll always remember Postlethwaite best for his role as the lawyer Kobayashi in The Usual Suspects. The film is a great thriller, but it wouldn’t be nearly as effective without the scenes featuring Postlethwaite. In fact, the aura of mystery and the believability of the whole Keyzer Söze plotline are almost entirely due to Postlethwaite’s performance as Söze’s representative. Speaking in that marvelous accent, Kobayashi is able to make the other characters—and the audience—believe just about anything.

This past semester, I spent a lot of time watching film adaptations of Shakespeare plays, and Postlethwaite cropped up a couple of times. In Baz Luhrmann’s gaudy Romeo + Juliet (featuring Leo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in the title roles), Postlethwaite played Friar Laurence and distinguished himself as virtually the only actor in the cast who could convincingly deliver the Shakespearean dialogue. In Franco Zeffirelli’s Hamlet (starring Mel Gibson), he acted the part of the Player King in the play-within-the-play. Postlethwaite only has a few moments on screen, but once again, they are among the most memorable in the film.

Postlethwaite received one Academy Award nomination for playing Daniel Day-Lewis’s father in Jim Sheridan’s 1994 film, In the Name of the Father. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’ve added it to my queue. Postlethwaite also appeared in two recent films that I’ve moved to the top of my list: Inception and The Town.

Great character actors are just as rare as great stars—perhaps rarer. Pete Postlethwaite will be missed. 

was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1990. Since then he performed in these films:

Treasure Island (1990) (TV)

Hamlet (1990)

Zorro (1990) (TV episode "The Marked Man").

The Grass Arena (1991)

Alien 3 (1992)

Split Second (1992)

The Last of the Mohicans (1992)

In the Name of the Father (1993)

Anchoress (1993)

Sharpe's Company (1994) (TV)

Suite 16 (1994)

Sharpe's Enemy (1994) (TV)

Martin Chuzzlewit (1994) (TV)

The Usual Suspects (1995)

When Saturday Comes (1996)

Brassed Off (1996)

Dragonheart (1996)

James and the Giant Peach (1996)

Romeo + Juliet (1996)

Amistad (1997)

Bastard (Bandyta) (1997)

Crimetime (1997)

The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)

Among Giants (1998)

Lost for Words (1999)

Wayward Son (1999)

Animal Farm (1999)

The Divine Ryans ([1999)

The Sins (2000) (TV)

Rat (2000)

The Shipping News (2001)

Strange Bedfellows (2004)

Dark Water (2005)

Æon Flux (2005)

The Constant Gardener (2005)

The Omen (2006)

Closing the Ring (2007)

Liyarn Ngarn[16] (2007)

Solomon Kane (2008)

Criminal Justice (2008) (TV)

The Age of Stupid (2009)

Ironclad (2010)

Clash of the Titans (2010)

Inception (2010)

The Town (2010)

Killing Bono (2011)