Rufus' Strongest performances

[tipou]

Unfortunately no, I don't live in good old England. I am Swiss, but thanks to easyjet and a dear friend in London, I can afford to go to go there a few times a year and see three or four plays each time. I have a horrible mixture of Swiss, US-american and British in my English. [/quote]

is your first language french or english, then?

[dirtygirldiva]

So how often does Ru get on stage in cheery old London? My mom might be taking me there this summer for vacation...would be soooo awesome to see him on stage.

[sharman]

Jan 6, 2009 17:40:03 GMT tipou said:

is your first language french or english, then?

My first language is (Swiss) German, but I grew up in a biligual town, thus I speak French as well.

[dippyponge]

I have to say he was very strong in Charles II, he showed the king softer side as well as his strong powerful side. I love to see him on stage and I think that is where he really shows his talent. Macbeth was fantastic, his performance was strong. He showed us how Macbeth got pulled in by Lady Macbeth and his remorse was a work of art.
Jan in Rock n Roll was also fantastic, very strong as was his ability to change age.

As somebody mentioned, (I think it was dreamer) his acting is in his face, he shows his emotions so well and to see him live is unbelievable.
A friend of mine went to see RnR after Rufus had left the London production (she had also seen Rufus in it previously) and she said it was not even half as good.

[eleanor]

I too want to see Rufus on stage dp, it is only a dream at the moment but let's hope it comes true soon. After all, he has mentioned in recent interviews that stage work is possibly on the cards. Some Shakespeare for me please Rufus!!!

[francesca]

Until this weekend , i would have said for the lightest and most delicate of touches (deftness of comedy) TOTS
and the strongest for its range of emotion ,CHARLES 2
but after seeing VINYAN on Fri. , this must be the most powerful of his performances
.As I wrote before . this is not easy or even enjoyable ,But he makes you forget you are watching beautiful Rufus Sewell ...you are watching Paul ,lonely desperate and agonised.
A truly incredible performance
.

[vmaciv]

www.t5m.com/joel-gregory/review-vinyan-wash-out.html

I just read this review of Vinyan. As usual Rufus is praised for his performance but the movie is panned. I hope Rufus begins to select scripts that are not only daring but in touch with the audience. I really find him an excellent actor but he needs much better script selection.

Anyway here's hoping the theater project comes through and provides a better script.

[kissmekate]

Having had a veritable Ruf-athon in the last weeks, I'd like to take a shot at this thread.

Charles II is surely one of his best performances because the role has such a great scope both with regard to emotions and to his character's age - going from a relatively young, vigorous man with the ambition to win back his father's throne (and an enormous sexual appetite ) through triumphs and defeats in politics and personal life to the very end as a weary, weakened "old" man.

My personal favourite, however, is "Illuminata" where Dominique first appears self-centered and promiscuous and then turns out to be a highly accomplished actor when he performs in one of the finest, most touching endings I've ever seen. Not to forget his way of freely speaking his mind - no one curses as magnificently as he does

Of course, he's regal in T&I too (even more so perhaps than Charles II, as he shows less character flaws ) and hilariously funny as crazy Petruchio ... and sweet Ross and frightened John Murdoch and so on ... haven't really seen any bad performance by him, only flat scripts like "Extreme Ops".

[sewellme]

Overall, (exception of stage performances, for I haven't seen any yet) from what I've seen, Vinyan is the strongest for serious and TOTS in comedy.

Vinyan is where I witness he embeded deep in Paul, I can't think of any other actors that could pull the same range of emotions as good as he did. A heartbreaking man to watch as he tried to go along, hoping at some point that she'd come to except that their son is gone. I've seen actors played Paul-kind of grieving man and they seemed to be too scripted that their emotions felt like coming out of a grieving for dummies where Rufus would put his two cents here and there to make the character deeper in any aspects........It's like "A" reads manuals word per word on building a chair and "B" just takes everything out of the box and put it together his own way with "If I were a chair" in his mind, at the end you have two chairs but B's chair is more interesting because he added uplifting surprises; carved grooves on the chair head, slopes on the arm rest...exceptional! Where A's is just the way the finished picture predicted to look like.
The concept of the "Vinyan-ness" in this one is not a stranger to me, I grew up where it was an every day part of our culture pass through generations. We were tought to believe in it, yet some outgrew it and ditched it as nonsense while others as legend believes it exists. I got a little laugh listening to his comment about rituals done asking for smooth sailing on production but yet they still got crappy weather filming it. That's Rufus for me

TOTS is Rufus and Shirley feeding each other very well, it's hard to determine who's more dominating....His comedy performance in this one is so far the best; here he'd done his "If I were a full grown man with a fully grown brain but with a 6 year old soul...or perhaps vice versa?" and it worked! True I loved him as Dominique and Frank but Petrucchio is the one I'd run off and marry even without title ;D

In all of his works, he always does create and relate. I love people like this and that's why my hat"s off for Rufus Sewell.

[kissmekate]

I'm looking forward to Vinyan, that's one of the few I haven't seen yet ...

[chocolate]

I know now! I have seen all of Rufus' screen work, including Charles II and Middlemarch, the only ones that were standing (and those I saw like a thirsty man drinking water!).
Now my opinion regarding Rufus' strongest performance is: A L L . I simply cannot tell which one is the best, and I am not trying to be funny or anything. For me, all his characters are so different, and he is so different playing them, that I can not pick one; better, I can pick each and every one of them for different reasons.

I am simply in love with Charles II, though.

And with Lord Marke and Marco Venier... Giles...Tom Builder...
With Aurelio... Jacob. Paul. Petruchio. (not exactly in that order, may be all of them at the same time )
And I really dislike all the "Bad Guys" Rufus played, which is a good thing, I think! (arghhh, here I sound like Bella from twilight!)