The curse of playing Orson Welles on film: who survived and who didn’t?

Welles at work on 'War of the Worlds,' 1938.

Orson Welles was far more than just an oversized body who, in his later, sadder, more pathetic years, breathlessly promised timeliness in the sale of a certain wine. ‘In Vino Timeliness’ should have been their motto. Everything about Welles was oversized: his hubris, his talent, his voice (which was, according to biographer Simon Callow, Welles’ true gift), and, of course, his ego. That ginormous ego was what found Welles, at the tender age of 24, making his film debut with Citizen Kane, still considered, 80 years on, the greatest filmmaking achievement of all time. Put that in your pipes and smoke it, everybody who’s made a movie since 1941.

But that ego had been with him a while. Maybe since birth. At 5 he would entertain his father’s friends with poetry recited from memory. At 16, he wrote (with his schoolmaster) and also illustrated a series of books called “Everybody’s Shakespeare;” published in 1934, they are still considered by some to be the definitive source for staging Shakespeare’s plays. Upon graduation, Welles went to Ireland and, legend has it, crossed the country by donkey, stopping in at the historic Gate Theater in Dublin, where he talked his way into the company (much as, in the upcoming Me and Orson Welles, Zac Efron’s character talks his way into Welles’ own theater company). Welles’ baroque approach to acting seems to have been already fully formed. In his first role at The Gate, which was, outside of school, his first role anywhere, the 19 year old played a decrepit old man. Of course that voice, that gift from God, didn’t hurt.

Welles' Macbeth, through the Federal Theater Project.

Welles made his Broadway debut the next year, playing Tybalt in ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ which, at the time, was the most successful staging of the play in its history. But Welles didn’t stick around to finish the run. Instead, he formed his legendary collaboration with producer John Houseman, creating The Mercury Theater, and cementing their status with the notorious, and wildly successful, “voodoo” ‘Macbeth’ in Harlem, a Broadway production of ‘Julius Caesar’ that Welles staged as a fascist parable, and, of course, his ‘War of the Worlds’ radio broadcast that lead to panic in New Jersey, which says a lot about New Jersey (though a new production of the show in 1949 in Ecuador resulted in riots that caused at least six deaths, which says a lot about Ecuador). Today, we’ve all seen Shakespeare taken out of context; it’s old hat to us. “Next!” we shout. “What have you don’t for me lately!?” But Welles was one of the first, if not the first, to think of staging Shakesy like that. And he apparently started thinking of doing it…. in high school. While I was waiting all night in the Banister Mall parking lot for Loverboy tickets. Sweet.

It’s the ego that’s most often overplayed by actors who embody Orson Welles onscreen. Over the years, there have been many portrayals, and none of them have been terribly good. But newcomer Christian McKay, in Richard Linklater’s upcoming film, Me and Orson Welles, changes the game. He’s good, the best thing in the movie (it helps to have a black hole like Efron at the center of the picture; people on the periphery stand out that much more. What is it they say? “If you want to look thin, hang out with fat people”?). Here’s a look at McKay and four other actors who have played Mr. Welles over the years. Sometimes playing Orson was just about as dangerous as being Orson.

Vincent D’Onofrio, in Ed Wood.

Back when Vincent D’Onofrio, you know, acted, back before he latched on to the teet of Broadcast television, the man was assembling one hell of a filmography. With a debut under the care of that other film genius, Stanley Kubrick, as the pathetic Private Pyle in Full Metal Jacket, D’Onofrio seemed destined for greatness. It seemed he could do anything. Remember Men in Black? I’ll be focusing on that soon in another post; I have a good story, heard right from the horse’s mouth. D’Onofrio is actually pretty damned good in this scene, and he certainly looks the part, but there’s something crucial missing that would have made him a better, or at least less awkward, Welles: his voice. Unhappy with D’Onofrio’s voice (the actor lacks Welles’ timber), Tim Burton tapped voice-over actor Maurice LaMarche to dub a more Wellesian tone into D’Onofrio’s maw. D’Onofrio was so upset with Burton’s decision that he went on to write, direct, and star in, as Orson Welles, his own 30 minute short film, Five Minutes Mr. Welles. It’s kind of painful to watch.

Angus Macfadyen

Angus Macfadyen, The Cradle Will Rock.

After a debut (as writer-director) as biting as Bob Roberts, all eyes were on filmmaker Tim Robbins. Then came Dead Man Walking, and Academy Award kudos (much of it deserved), and oft-repeated phrases like “The sky’s the limit!” But after The Cradle Will Rock, nobody really said that kind of thing anymore. Based on another crazy true tale from the life of Orson Welles (this time played by Saw’s Angus Macfadyen), the movie was an absolute mess, nearly saved by an inspired ending. But it was frankly one of those “day late and a dollar short” deals. With the previous hour forty-five he’d pretty much lost his audience. And Macfadyen, who has been very funny on Californication, seemed to look at all aspects of Welles’ personality and play but one: the bluster. I don’t think there’s a line in the movie that he doesn’t shout.

Liev Schreiber, RKO 281.

Schreiber’s approach to Welles was to not even attempt an impersonation, and I think it was a wise choice which nevertheless had an unfortunate result: he could have been playing anyone. Ironically then, as a film, RKO 281 is probably the best portrait of Orson Welles we have.

Guérin as Orson Welles as Harry Lime.

Jean Guérin, Heavenly Creatures.

It’s hardly fair of me to include Guérin in this list as a serious contender. The French-Canadian actor doesn’t look much like Welles and, since all he says in his one scene is, “Bwaahhh!” a couple of times, he doesn’t really sound much like Welles either. But, like D’Onofrio, he played Welles on screen not once, but twice. I’m not exactly sure what it was about Welles that made Jackson decide to use him in this film as a sort of ghoul, but that’s the role that Welles, or rather that Harry Lime, plays in Heavenly Creatures (it probably came from Pauline’s real diaries). In a move reminiscent of The Purple Rose of Cairo, though certainly not romantic, Guérin come off the screen and, in a neat post-production trick, mimics the black & white look of The Third Man while chasing the film’s two murdering pubescent pseudo-lesbian tweens. And, like D’Onofrio, after embodying Welles, Guérin has done very little else that has mattered.

Christian McKay as Welles circa 1938.

And finally there is relative newcomer, Christian McKay, in the rather mediocre Richard Linklater film, Me and Orson Welles. Not only does McKay look like Welles, circa 1938, when Welles was the King of Broadway, he sounds like Welles (with no dubbing). The English actor has the timbre of Welles’ bass, and the rhythm of his voice, and embodies the man more completely than any actor before him. RKO 281 was a far better picture than this is, but McKay’s work in Me and Orson Welles is more satisfying than what Schreiber did, and it’s more than imitation; it’s an embodiment. The actor manages to play Welles by capturing his essence, particularly his ability to seduce everyone around him, and he never gets bogged down in an impersonation.