RIP John Hurt

It was sad to hear that John Hurt has passed away. This is a great loss for the acting world. It's easy to remember him for his role in genre franchises. Harry Potter fans remember him as the actor who played Olivander. Alien fans remember him as Kane. Doctor Who fans like me are likely to remember him as the War Doctor. But let’s not forget that there was so much more to his career than these roles. 

For me personally, his best role was his take on the Emperor Caligula in I Claudius. While John Hurt may not have had the physical presence of Brian Blessed’s Augustus or George Baker’s Tiberius, his Caligula stands out through the power of his voice. He plays the genuinely unhinged, switching from kind to cruel in an instant, alternating between being funny and frightening in his callous attitude to others. The scene where Caligula climbs into bed with his dying grandmother was well judged by Hurt, along with all of the other suggestions by the actor to make the character more distasteful.

Another notable performance was as Quentin Crisp at different stages of that man’s life in The Naked Civil Servant and An Englishman in New York. There was also Merrick in The Elephant Man and as Max in Midnight Express. I could go on just listing his different notable performances. He was always great to watch and always lifted the quality of whatever it was he starred in. My heart goes out for his closest friends and family.