January 9, 2007

Character Actor Countdown: Imelda Staunton

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5.

Imelda Staunton.

What better day to honor the next character actor on our countdown then on her birthday: Imelda Staunton, born on this day in London, England in 1956.

Staunton actually had a fairly quiet 2006 - with an appearance in a British TV adaptation of The Wind in the Willows and a forgettable Steven Seagal movie that will go unmentioned, but she's in the new film Freedom Writers, as an obstinate school administrator opposite Hilary Swank's energetic teacher, and will soon be seen in the next Harry Potter film, taking umbrage at Harry as his new nemesis Dolores Umbridge.

While Staunton is most familiar to movie audiences in fine supporting roles as maids, nurses and various "Mrs."s and Ladies, she gained worldwide critical acclaim - and an Oscar nomination - as the titular character in Mike Leigh's Vera Drake. The real-life Drake was a selfless caretaker who became an abortionist, finding her beliefs and practices clashing with the morals of 1950s Britain. Staunton was key to the film's success, so effortlessly does she fall into this role - at turns, lovely and heartbreaking, it's an utterly captivating performance.

Some other highlights:

  • She was a flustered hen (Bunty) in Chicken Run;
  • The foster mother Mrs. Sucksby in the underrated adaptation of Sarah Waters' Fingersmith;
  • The beleaguered matriarch of an eccentric clan in My Family and Other Animals (which I reviewed previously here);
  • Viola's (Gwyneth Paltrow's) protective nurse in Shakespeare in Love;
  • Maria in Twelfth Night;
  • And one of my favorite of her films, the maddeningly not-on-DVD Antonia and Jane, in which Staunton played the plain (and goofy) Jane of the title;
  • She's also appeared multiple times with Emma Thompson and one of the more underrated occasions would have to be the recent kids' film Nanny McPhee; Staunton played Mrs. Blatherwick.


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    Posted by cphillips at January 9, 2007 1:31 PM
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