My favourite movie star . . .Marlon Brando by Brian Cox

Marlon Brando was the liberator of the modern actor. He was a pioneer. There's a quote from Jack Nicholson, "He gave us our freedom."

That's right. But the problem for him was he didn't like the business of acting. It plagued him. He didn't have enough respect for it. He felt it was easy.

Brando wasn't in the theatre very long, but the second play he did, A Streetcar Named Desire, set a precedent for post-war American theatre. It was electric. Here was a guy who looked like a stagehand, who walked on stage and broke all the rules. His line readings were odd because he had this ear.

On film he had this wonderful way of making things seem spontaneous.

There was an unpredictability about him and a danger. I've learned a lot about the stakes of acting from watching him. Terry Malloy in On The Waterfront (1954) is quintessential. He's playing an inarticulate IrishAmerican stevedore and, of course, everybody thought that was Brando, inarticulate - after all he had played an inarticulate Pole in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). Both those performances are very different though.

One is a narcissist, and the other an ex-boxer who has been battered to hell. But if you look at him as Fletcher Christian in Mutiny On The Bounty (1962) it's astonishing; very dandified, foppish.

Brando wasn't afraid of playing that which is not pleasant. He made his characters real. His only problem was with the acting profession. He cut off his nose to spite his face. Brando was gifted, there's no question. He was so gifted he took his gifts for granted. I don't think he's the greatest actor of the 20th century, but he was the great revolutionary actor.

Brian Cox has starred in many plays and films, including Manhunter and Troy. He is next in Burns, released in 2006

Copyright 2005 SMG Sunday Newspapers Ltd.
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.