Age: 65
male
Sir Simon Russell Beale CBE (born January 12, 1961) is an English actor. He is known for his appearances in film, television and theatre, and work on radio, on audiobooks and as a narrator. For his services to drama, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace in 2019. He has spent much of his theatre career working in productions for both the Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre. He has received ten Laurence Olivier Award nominations, winning three awards for his performances in Volpone (1996), Candide (2000), and Uncle Vanya (2003). For his work on the Broadway stage he has received a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play nomination for his performance as George in the Tom Stoppard play Jumpers in 2004. For his role as Henry Lehman in The Lehman Trilogy, he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play and was nominated for an Olivier Award. Beale has been described by The Independent as "the greatest stage actor of his generation". Beale made his film debut in Sally Potter's period drama Orlando (1992). He continued acting in films such as Persuasion (1995), Hamlet (1996), My Week with Marilyn (2011), The Deep Blue Sea (2011), Into the Woods (2014), and Mary Queen of Scots (2018). In 2017, he starred in Armando Iannucci's dark comedy The Death of Stalin playing Lavrentiy Beria for which he received the British Independent Film Award for Best Supporting Actor. He has also appeared in the television projects The Young Visiters (2003), Dunkirk (2004), and as Falstaff in the BBC made-for-television films Henry IV, Part I and Part II (2012). He was part of the main cast of Showtime's Penny Dreadful.
Simon Russell Beale
Finis Everglot
for Finis Everglot in Corpse Bride
Suggested by nickienicks
This live-action remake of Corpse Bride, directed by Guillermo del Toro, reimagines the stop-motion classic as a breathtakingly macabre, practical-effects-heavy gothic fairy tale (Guillermo del Toro). The film masterfully splits its visual identity into two contrasting worlds. The Land of the Living is a rigid, suffocating Victorian town rendered in an ultra-matte, bloodless color palette of chalky white skin tones, charcoal tailcoats, and suffocating, high-collared gowns that mirror the social desperation of the nouveau-riche Van Dorts and the icy, aristocratic decay of the Everglots. Here, the repressed, melancholic Victor (Connor Storrie) accidentally binds himself to the afterlife during a botched rehearsal when he places a wedding band onto what he believes is a gnarled tree branch.In stark contrast, the Land of the Dead explodes onto the screen in a vibrant, bioluminescent spectacle. Bathed in a stark green cinematic glow, the underworld is a chaotic cabaret of hyper-realistic skeletal prosthetics and eccentric, larger-than-life characters. Olivia Rodrigo delivers a tragic, magnetic performance as Emily, the Corpse Bride, cascading in vibrant turquoise locks and a tattered, water-logged wedding gown. This world thrives on theatrical dark comedy, populated by a jazz-club big band led by the bare-boned Bonejangles (Sterling K. Brown) belting out brassy anthems, alongside a miniature, dueling military duo composed of a bombastic royal blue General Bonesapart (Ralph Fiennes) and a comically slow-witted, red-coated General Wellington (Gary Oldman). Driven by Jane Goldman’s sharp, emotionally sincere screenplay and Danny Elfman’s indispensable, whimsical score, the film evolves from a spooky comedy of errors into a visually stunning, bittersweet romance. It balances the suffocating prisons of high-society greed against the joyful, liberated chaos of the underworld, culminating in a spectacular, heartbreaking sacrifice.
