Name: Jonny Lee Miller.
Age: 48.
Appearance: Boring, grey, dusty. Tucks his shirt into his Y-fronts. Or wears them – the underpants – outside his suit.
Really? Jonny Lee Miller, the glamorous actor? Anarchic peroxided smackhead in Trainspotting; Edmund Bertram in the 1999 film of Mansfield Park; Dade Murphy in Hackers, in which he starred alongside Angelina Jolie … To whom he was married, briefly. He was also married to the actor and model Michele Hicks – for longer, though no longer. Plus he has been romantically linked with Kate Moss, Natalie Appleton, Jennifer Esposito, Edwina Currie …
Yeah, OK, he’s dated a lot of incredibly hot women, who cares? Hold up, was there an error in that list? Might have been. It might also have been a little dishonest.
So he has not really been linked with Edwina Currie? Not in real life, no.
In an acting role, of course! Go on then, what’s he in? The Crown.
Television is the new cinema, after all. Who’s he going to be? James Hewitt? A young Tony Blair, before The Hair? Let’s recap, shall we: dull, grey, Y-fronts, Edwina Currie. JLM is to play JM, now Sir JM, of course.
Nooooooooooooooooo! That’s pretty much what the internet said. “Have you guys ... Like … Seen a picture of John Major” one fan Tweeted. Another asked: “WHY DO YOU KEEP DOING THIS?!”
Do they mean casting someone with considerably more allure than the person they are playing? Presumably.
And do they keeping doing it? They might be referring to Gillian Anderson playing Margaret Thatcher in the last season. She won a Golden Globe for it.
I know, but Maggie had something about her, didn’t she, for some? For Alan Clark, who admired her ankles in his diaries, maybe. And for François Mitterrand, who said she had “the eyes of Caligula, the mouth of Marilyn [Monroe].” Not many miners had her pinned up on their walls, though.
But isn’t it about acting, and isn’t that what actors do? Exactly. Look at Hugh Grant as Jeremy Thorpe in A Very English Scandal. Or John Travolta pretty much being Bill Clinton in Primary Colors. Plus they can do amazing things with prosthetics and makeup these days. It will be interesting to see what they do to Jonny’s philtrum.
Philtrum? Indentation in the upper lip, quite long in Sir John.
Do say: “Angelina? The Crown casting here. Late notice, but just wondering if you’re free to play … Edwina Currie?”
Don’t say: “Jamie? Jamie Dornan? The Crown casting here. A way off – series seven or eight most probably – but just wondering if you’d be interested in auditioning for the part of … Matt Hancock?”
