Lindsay Duncan Movies
All that glitters is not Hollywood gold, Scottish actress Lindsay Duncan believes. Although she could easily command million-dollar paychecks for performing in big-budget American films, she prefers acting in new or vintage stage plays and in screen adaptations of classic novels. So she does Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Henry Fielding, and Oscar Wilde. But her loyalty to literary giants such as these is not without its rewards: She won the 2002 Olivier Award as best actress for her performance in Noël Coward's Private Lives, a 1988 London Evening Standard Award as best actress for her performance in Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and a 1987 Tony nomination as leading actress for her performance in Pierre Cholderlos de Laclos' Les Liaisons Dangereuses. However, she is not averse to accepting an occasional fun role in a major Hollywood film. For example, she was the voice of protocol droid TC-14 in Star Wars, Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. For her ability to bring to life characters of every description, whether futuristic robots or here-and-now reprobates, critics agree that she is one of Britain's most talented actresses.Duncan was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on November 7, 1950. After studying at London's Central School of Drama, she labored in mostly unheralded theater roles before graduating to television productions in the 1980s. These productions included On Approval (1982), Reilly: The Ace of Spies (1983), Dead Head (1985), and Traffik (1989). In the 1990s, well seasoned and ready for limelight drama, Duncan picked herself a bouquet of choice roles that put her on prestigious London stages, in movie theaters from Liverpool to Los Angeles, and in the living rooms of television viewers throughout the English-speaking world. One well-known production that exhibits her talents is the 1999 TV miniseries Oliver Twist, in which she portrays Elizabeth Leeford, a woman so evil that the devil himself would fear her. Duncan also appears in the 1999 film adaptation of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park in dual roles as the heroine's mother and drug-addicted aunt, in the 1997 TV miniseries A History of Tom Jones: A Foundling as Lady Ballaston, in the 1996 film adaptation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream as Hippolyta and Titania, and in the 1993 TV miniseries A Year in Provence as the wife of author Peter Mayle. Her real-life husband, Hilton McRae, is also an actor. They have one son, born in 1990. ~ Mike Cummings, All Movie Guide
This unadorned biography of playwright Joe Orton (Gary Oldman) charts his bawdy, dangerous relationships. Alfred Molina plays Orton's brutish lover, Kenneth Halliwell, a pathetic figure who becomes horrific and then tragic before the film is over. The hilarity of scenes from such Orton plays as Loot and What the Butler Saw is evenly balanced by the bleakness of the playwright's tormented (and tormenting) off-stage existence, which ended suddenly at age 34 with half a dozen blows to the head from a hammer. Prick Up Your Ears is based on the book by theater critic John Lahr, who is played in the film by Wallace Shawn. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Oldman, Alfred Molina, (more)
- 1983
Two strangers with almost no common ground are stuck travelling across Europe together in this British comedy. Sally (Lindsay Duncan) is an ardent feminist from London who, with the help of two of her closest friends, builds her own car. Sally and her comrades are to attend a conference on women's rights in Germany, and they intend to drive the new vehicle there as a symbolic gesture. However, when the time for the symposium rolls around, her friends are unable to attend, and Sally doesn't care to drive that far on her own. Searching for a travelling companion, at the last minute she settles on Harry (Stephen Rea), whom she's told is a leftist gay man. However, Harry is not the person Sally thought he was; he turns out to be a bullheaded and thoroughly heterosexual football supporter who regards the women's movement as little more than a joke. Will these two make it all the way to Germany without killing each other? ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stephen Rea, Lindsay Duncan, (more)
- 1980
This made-for-television British comedy is was adapted from the play by Frederick Lonsdale. Wealthy English widow Maria Wislack (Penelope Keith) decides to take beau Richard for a vacation on a Scottish Island, as a sort of trial marriage before going through with the real thing. While there, Maria and her friend Helen decide to spice things up by swapping their respective partners and the comedy ensues. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide
Made for British television by filmmaker Mike Leigh, Grown Ups is a detailed slice-of-life drama about a married, working-class couple in Canterbury, England. The film begins with the young couple, Dick and Mandy, moving to a new, rather small home and becoming neighbors to Mr. Butcher, an abrasive, ill-humored man who they once had as a schoolteacher. This rather awkward living situation soon becomes even more uncomfortable, thanks to the near-constant presence of Mandy's older sister, Gloria. (Gloria is portrayed by Brenda Blethyn, who 17 years later would win recognition and an Oscar nomination for her work in Leigh's Secrets and Lies.) Gloria's eccentricity and desperate, child-like neediness leads her to become increasingly dependent on the young couple, showing up at all hours and rarely leaving. Her behavior grates on the already sour Dick and comes to test Mandy's patience as well. When Mandy's efforts to politely discourage her sister's visits prove fruitless, the extended family is forced into a painful, emotionally charged confrontation. Leigh purposefully alternates the film's more immediate dramatic elements with careful, real-time portraits of daily life, giving equal weight to both traumatic arguments and extended conversations about home decor and vacuum cleaners. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- 1977
Fifty secret agents and civil servants, all apparently healthy and robust, have died of unknown causes over a two-year period. Steed (Patrick MacNee), Gambit (Gareth Hunt) and Purdey (Gareth Hunt) investigate the health farm where all of the victims had worked out before their untimely demises. Cult-movie favorite Caroline Munro appears as a health-farm employee who may or may not be in on the sinister plot. Clips from previous episodes of The New Avengers) are seen during Steed's drug-induced flashback. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Patrick Macnee, Gareth Hunt, (more)
