Mark Strong - Hollywood's Go To Guy For Forgettable Villains

[Y 2 Jake]

You might recognize the face, if not the name. The man is everywhere. Sherlock Holmes, Robin Hood, Kick-Ass, RocknRolla, Stardust, etc. He usually occupies the/or one of the villain roles. But why? How come certain directors seem to always want to work with him? Guy Ritchie, Matthew Vaughn & Ridley Scott have all worked with him a couple of times now. The guy appears to be everywhere.

His wife is a producer so I'm assuming he might be working with her on quite of few of these projects.

You might looks at his list of credits and think there's not a memorable villain to be had in that list. But surely it's easier to steal average material.

Anybody else have an opinion on Mark Strong? I wouldn't be surprised if the answer is no.

 

[@smarkmouth]

I like him! Considering your list of movies, I'd say this;

In Sherlock Holmes, his screen time was diminished due to the plot, however I felt scenes that he was in gave me the creeps.

Kick-Ass, I dunno. I felt like the villain was written so... replaceable. It could have been any villain archetype and we would have had the same movie. Script is also important.

I don't know if he counts as a villain in Stardust, but I was entertained by the scenes with him and his brothers.

I'm looking forward to Green Lantern, where, yes, he will be playing the villain, Sinestro.

 

[TheAnimal]

Hes not bad. To be fair to him the guys he is opposite like Russel Crowe in Robin Hood, Robert Downey Jr and the Kick Ass film kid are clearly supposed to be the main guys and can easily overshadow him. I think he does his job well.

Its clearly the case of him being the go to guy when you dont want him to overshadow the hero of the film.