The British are coming! The British are coming! And they’re taking more and more American action roles! First British actor Henry Cavill was cast as the American-made Man of Steel in Zack Snyder’s impending Superman reboot, and fan boys throughout the U.S. cried foul! (Despite the fact that Superman is an alien/immigrant from another planet.) Then came outcry over English pretty boy Alex Pettyfer being approached to play Peeta in the Hunger Games, which is set in a dystopian United States. And now Deadline has announced Welsh leading man Luke Evans (The Clash of the Titans) has been tapped to star in the action-packed thriller The Amateur American.
The film, which will be written and directed by Ross Katz (Taking Chance), follows the twisted tale of a young American in Paris who falls into a world of intrigue after taking a job from an unscrupulous employer. Soon he’s framed for murder and on the run, trying to find the truth before he is found by the authorities.
After explaining Evans is poised to be the next breakthrough action star, Deadline’s Mike Fleming briefly ponders, “What has happened to the American action hero gene pool?” It’s a curious question. Where have all our heroes gone? Some of the biggest American action-adventure movies of late have starred foreign-born actors. While I have no real issue with this, it’s a curious trend. English-born Sam Worthington has recently been the face of several potential action franchises, including Avatar, Terminator Salvation, and Clash of the Titans, each of which proved wildly successful at box offices worldwide. So maybe he is the catalyst for this wave of overseas casting? But before him came English spy star Clive Owen, and Scotsman Gerard Butler as the six pack-packing Spartan of Snyder’s 300, and Welshman Christian Bale as Chris Nolan’s gravel-voiced caped crusader. And let’s not forget the long-list of adrenaline-fueled action flicks starring that gritty Brit Jason Statham.
Last year American strong man, Sylvester Stallone brought together a formidable fleet of action-heroes for the testosterone-charged thriller The Expendables, but many of its American stars have largely retired from ass-kicking. I’m actually hard-pressed to think of an American actor who would be considered the next Stallone or Bruce Willis. Sure, Leonardo DiCaprio led the mind-bending adventure of Inception, but I think few would call him an action hero. Johnny Depp has been swashbuckling as Jack Sparrow for years now – but his comedy capering and loose-limbed antics don’t carry the dashing gravitas generally associated with an action star. Lately, Hollywood’s been promoting Pennsylvanian-born pretty boy Bradley Cooper as a possible thrill-inducing leading man, but The A-Team tanked and Limitless is being touted as a thriller more than an action film. The only American actor that comes close to the kind of braggadocio, hard-fighting yet debonair flare that I remember from the heroes of my youth is Robert Downey Jr. With Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes (where an American plays a Brit – I do see the irony), it seems Downey manages to own the smug satisfaction of taking down the bad guys while proving a believable man of action. But the 45-year-old Downey has nearly twenty years on this upcoming crop of Brit-born auctioneers, so who will fill the void of American action stars?
Is it possible that the next wave of action heroes won’t be burly men, but rather fiery females? Last year Chloe Moretz drew notice for her convincing execution of the brutal tween dynamo Hit-Girl in the superhero comedy Kick-Ass. Then both Jennifer Lawrence and Hailee Steinfeld scored Oscar nods for their earthy portrayals of teen girls on violent journeys in Winter’s Bone and True Grit respectively. Each traversed a land of savagery, fording rivers, firing guns, and taking on the men who murdered their fathers. Soon Saoirse Ronan will hit screens as a pint-sized assassin in Joe Wright’s Hanna, and Zack Synder (who seems to be a key figure in these action hero shifts) will soon debut a cadre of weapon-wielding action heroines in Sucker Punch, with Emily Browning. And all of the above have been mentioned in connection with the soon-to-shoot Hunger Games adaptation, which centers on a teen girl who is forced to use her skills as a hunter in a kill-or-be-killed battle royale. It seems there’s a change in the wind. Maybe the muscle-bound action heroes of yesteryear are being set aside in favor of an emerging pack of vicious young women.While not all of these ingenues are American, they are all a part of an unquestionable surge in films targeted at women as well as men. (This attempt to court the rising number of female moviegoers may also explain why the new breed of action-heroes are a lot easier on the eyes than those of the ’80s.) It’s a trend that’s building momentum with the upcoming onslaught of re-envisioned fairy tales, and could mean that Ripley and Sarah Connor may not long be action anomalies, but rather recurring character types.
Man, I hope so.
What do you think about the trend of action films of late? Who do you see as an American action hero? Do you care when foreign-born actors score American roles?