Comic-Con Armitage?

All images in this post are screencaps from this excellent video by GiztheGunslinger.]

Richard Armitage at his microexpressional best: as Heinz Kruger in the car chase scene from Captain America. This is going to be such a pleasure to watch in slomo cap once we have the blu-ray files.

I was reading Vanity Fair this week while breakfasting and saw this article about the most recent ComicCon in San Diego (where Captain America was screened, and where we speculated that Richard Armitage might appear, though he did not). James Wolcott is a brilliant writer. Neat observation about celebrity behavior at the event. The piece is an attempt to recreate the atmosphere of the huge setting, especially the largest convention venue, Hall H. Wolcott observes that the sneak previews hold everyone’s attention, but that the celebrities are a mixed bag:

“There are those who bring a full compartment of charisma, such as Colin Farrell … whose movie-star walk converts every drab stretch of corridor into a red carpet, and Charlize Theron, sarcastically reminding everyone that she’s ‘an Oscar-winning actress,’ so don’t mess with me. But there are others who look as if they’re being tugged on a leash of contractual obligation, their hello handwaves employing minimum wrist effort. … Still others have been through this charade so many times before at so many different festivals that they can’t fake it anymore, such as that weary campaigner Kristen Stewart … who hunched semi-sideways through much of the panel. … The returning favorites are those who truly speak the Comic-Con language because they are part of that culture, not simply doing a parachute drop. Pop lore and gothic gore are the garlic air they breathe. … no one had thicker rapport … than producer-director Guillermo del Toro, who didn’t talk of cinema strictly in terms of product, technique, and toys-for-boys but of gargoyle archetype and devouring appetite…” (p. 170 of print edition).

Richard Armitage as Heinz Kruger in Captain America. The way the shadows catch the architecture of his eyebrows make him look doubly villainous here.

In turn, this article reminded me of a post from one of my favorite professorial blogs from earlier in the summer, about attending a Comic Con in Chicago to get an autograph from Julie Benz:

“There she was, on Autograph Alley, with a line of fans eager to make their way up to her signing booth.  And she kept at it, as far as I could tell, all day: smiling, enchanting, being herself. … Was it simply the context in which I happened to see her …, not at all as glamorous as I had been expecting, indeed, the very opposite of glamorous, quite common, really?  There Christopher Lloyd was in a t-shirt, and Felicia Day looking quite ordinary (albeit chipper).  And even Patrick Stewart, albeit clearly the most professional of the lot, just an ordinary man in a nice shirt.”

And that quote, in turn, reminded me of an interview I read with Patrick Stewart in which he (as Richard Armitage has been) was insistent on speaking well of fans:

Stewart won’t, no matter how much I cajole him, be rude about Trekkies, the more – shall we say – obsessive breed of devotee.”The ‘loony fans’, as you call them, are a tiny minority who are given far too much significance by you and your colleagues,” he rumbles. “Our fans range from ex-Secretaries of State in the States – and at least two Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – numerous senior political figures, and academics in their legions. I know one vice-chancellor of a university who set his meetings around Star Trek episodes.“

Richard Armitage as Heinz Kruger in Captain America.

Anyway, what occurs to me while reading these pieces and thinking about them is that Richard Armitage is now desirable ComicCon material — after Captain America and The Hobbit, he’ll be someone that people in the milieu of ComicCon fans want to meet. Realizing this gave me a weird jolt of mixed feelings. On the one hand, I thought, “Well, if he did that, it would be a lot easier to meet him. Hundreds of people among the thousands who fantasize about it could fulfill their dreams.” Then I thought, “Uch, but even aside from the general problem of what fans want being a half hour to have coffee with him, doing it would be like going to a zoo to observe a lion in a cage.” And then I thought, “It seems like an especially extensive version of the red carpet, just exactly the sort of thing Richard Armitage is on record as really disliking.” And then I remembered this piece, in which he mentions that he doesn’t especially like signing autographs on the street.

Of course, there’s also the maxim that they don’t pay actors to make the film, they pay them to promote it. So I found myself wondering if this is the sort of thing that Richard Armitage will do one day. He’s certainly capable of talking about his roles in interesting ways, and also of appearing like an ordinary guy. But is this the kind of thing he’d be willing to obligate himself to do contractually? It seems like part of the territory with this kind of film. But I can’t imagine he’d like it all that much. In fact, I sort of imagine that he’d dread it.

***

Dear Mr. Armitage,

As always, I support you doing exactly what you want to do with your life and your career. But if doing this sort of thing makes you unhappy or uncomfortable in any way, I beg you not to do it, even for the sake of politeness. My feelings will not be hurt.

Your friend,

Servetus

~ by Servetus on September 26, 2011.