The Julian Role...

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Why Julian gets
the roles he does...
(or, What do you do with a man this gorgeous?)

There's no doubt about it, Julian Sands' most obvious asset is also his biggest obstacle in the film industry. While it's nearly impossible for an unattractive actor to obtain a good part, it can often be equally difficult for an unusually good-looking actor to get really good parts. It all hinges on the film-industry staple-concept of suspension of disbelief, meaning that in order for the movie-going public to really enjoy a film, they must be able to forget that what is going on on-screen isn't really happening, that it's actors playing roles. They must be able to believe that what they're experiencing not only could be happening, but for the space of the film, that it is really happening.
As human beings, we have a specific range of things that we can each believe to be true. Put the wrong actor in a role, and we'll never buy it. If the character is supposed to be the object of love, he must appeal to each of us in some way so that we can believe he could be loved. If he is supposed to be rejected, to repulse us as evil or unattractive, he must have some characteristic which inspires such a reaction in us. And for good or bad, we are tremendously influenced in our impressions of people by how they look. We more easily believe that the ugly can be ugly inside, and that the beautiful to look upon must also be admirable of character.
It is such a mentality that brings us to the first of the perfect types of roles for the beautiful Mr. Sands. First of all, he is clearly a good choice for any role requiring an attractive man, one who will draw women (or men) to him, seduce without having to try to do so (thereby retaining his own purity). And as such, he also makes a perfect actor to choose for the role when there is much a woman must overcome in order to choose to let herself go with him. That may be a husband (Crazy in Love), a life which would otherwise exclude him (Tale of a Vampire), expectations of family and circle (A Room With a View), a position in career or society (Grand Isle).... Easier, more tempting to leave all of those things for a man when he is both beautiful and unconsciously seductive.
As such, he represents not only the gratification of a need for being desired by someone you find desirable, but a key to the freedom from whatever elements of your life you feel are constraining you or keeping you tied down. How hard the temptation when a man of ethereal beauty and deep, pure passion is both prize for the decision to leave it all behind, and the very thing that insists in so many ways that you do so. And this can be useful either as a trial, proving to oneself that everything you have is to be valued, even over so great a temptation (Crazy in Love), or as a clear-cut case of needing to flee from the restraints of a present life to the passion, beauty and freedom of the new life (A Room With a View).
While it is easy for us to believe that what is beautiful must be good (and often exciting, as well), sometimes beauty has another effect entirely: to make us wary, to distrust what might be on the inside, because the packaging is too good to possibly be a true reflection of the contents. This fits closely with the concept of both the fallen angel (and the related idea that evil's best defense is to clothe itself in a beautiful guise), and the concept that anything beautiful enough to be a temptation must be rejected for its ability to tempt us (from our moral tenants or a "safe" choice). This is a situation where the extraordinarily attractive actor can effectively be cast as villain or threat, most particularly dramatic in that we are repelled and attracted to him at the same time.
Thus we have an easy choice to cast Julian in the Warlock films, where the heavy religious overtones make it very clear that we are indeed talking about a sort of fallen angel (perhaps even an esteemed disciple of evil who has been rewarded for his work with such disarming good looks? a fitting tool for evil incarnate....). Actors always say that the villains are the most fun to play, and you can really see Julian having a ball with this role. We have a similar sort of role in Witch Hunt and Turn of the Screw, particularly emphasizing the inhumanity of the character by casting someone who is superhuman in terms of their physical beauty. If he looks too good to be true, then he must be unreal, artificial, and certainly not human like the rest of us, and therefore with a great potential for inhuman levels of evil.
I think there is an element of this also in casting Julian as the Phantom in Il Fantasma dell'Opera. Dario Argento has decided to remove one particular element of the traditional Phantom character in his new film: the mask which hides the Phantom's usual horrible disfigurement, and which figures so centrally in all of the previous productions (both on film and on stage). But how do you portray a figure so well-known in the world of horror without making him horrible to look at? Perhaps you choose an actor of ethereal beauty, but who also has the physical qualities of pale skin, eyes and hair, and a tall (almost gaunt) beauty, and then enhance those qualities to the extreme. You grow his hair out unreasonably long, make it look unkempt, as if the man has been so long from the world that he has forgotten about personal grooming. You make him so pale and gaunt as to call up images of ghostly apparitions appearing by milky moonlight. You also take advantage of the blazing passion in his eyes, and turn that passion into the suggestion of madness. In doing this, you've created a man we can believe the beautiful young Christine would fall in love with: someone with all of the qualities of beauty any young woman would fall for, an overwhelming passion for her and her success, and just enough of a disadvantage in the real world that he's both forbidden and the object of sympathy. And then, at some point, you draw the line for him between allowable passion and the actions of a monster, and you position him teetering upon it. It is Christine's choice whether she will hold him back from the brink or push him over it. The monster and the man of our dreams collide in one. What more attractive package could you create?
You have only to look at Tale of a Vampire to see this same concept in action. There has long been a clear dividing line between the two camps of vampire fans: those who believe vampires should be repellant creatures, the walking dead, animated corpses (the great silent film Nosferatu is the best example) and those who believe they are indeed more along the lines of fallen angels, dead, but preserved in youth and beauty, with an immortally strong ability to seduce whoever they choose as their victim (á la Anne Rice). Tale of a Vampire clearly falls into this second camp. We have the extraordinarily handsome Julian Sands, who, as we first see him, naked and quiet, sleeping in pristine white sheets, soon wakes and proceeds to have a cat for breakfast. Dark blood pours over pale skin and hair. This sits again in stark contrast to the quiet, intense scholar reading ancient texts in the library. No suggestion of an animal nature here. We're left to wonder who this man really is: blood-mad monster or thoughtful, sensitive human male. Indeed, it's rather the point of the entire film to leave us wondering just how much of him is monster, how far he would go, what he would do. Can we trust him to be human, to control the monster inside? Is he safe to fall for? Should Ann be fearful of him? This film has perfectly set us up to be torn between believing that the beautiful, refined exterior carries over to the inside of the man and wondering how a man who so revels in blood can be anything but a monster, capable of tremendous evil. Only time brings understanding.
A degree of this carries over into Julian's many roles in the mad-scientist vein. Again, we have to wonder how far the man will go in his passion for his goals. We want to believe the message the exterior is sending to us, that the beautiful man must be good inside, but his actions cause us to wonder if, indeed, we would be better served to believe that the package directly belies the contents, that physical beauty must inherently walk hand-in-hand with evil and madness. Vibes saw Julian in the role of the power-hungry scientist, looking for the ultimate power source to make it his own, and willing to do anything and use anyone to make that happen. In Doctor and the Devils, we're left to wonder how scrupulous a driven anatomist would be about obtaining his test subjects. In Boxing Helena, we see precisely how far a gifted doctor would go to keep hold of the woman he wants for his own.
This role brings me to one particular type of role that I have a hard time seeing as a natural choice for casting Julian: that of the frustrated or rejected lover. We absolutely have a case here where we have stretched the ability to suspend disbelief nearly to the breaking point, and frankly, I think it's only good acting and scriptwriting that allows us to believe him in these roles. They stand in direct contrast to the concept of Julian as an archetype for the man every woman would love to have in her life. In these roles, he is pathetic, pitiful and begging for even the most insignificant scraps of love and attention. These women seem, amazingly, able to completely ignore his looks, his passion and his natural charm and magnetism. That's the part I have problems believing. On the other hand, the characters themselves seem to fairly beg for this sort of treatment, being by and large spineless sorts of fellows who have little self-confidence (particularly where women are involved) and seem more inclined to self-pity than actually taking action to correct their problems. Only extreme and early emotional trauma even begin to explain this. That Julian can carry it off is absolutely a tribute to his acting abilities. We've seen enough of him in the opposite sort of role to know he's anything but similar to these guys. Any actor who can carry off both the Warlock and the pitiful Nick Cavanaugh from Boxing Helena deserves more than a second look.
One of Julian's best on-screen character traits, in my opinion, is an ability to be undeniable earnest and passionate. We see that a lot in both his scientist and lover characters. George Emerson is a fine example. He knows what he wants, what he needs; he knows it because he knows himself, and he goes after it: honestly, earnestly and passionately. His spider-scientist character in Arachnophobia is so passionate about what he's doing that a few significant details manage to slip right by him (namely a particularly nasty spider). The only thing that distracts his anthropologist character from his pet mummy in Chicago Hope is the equally scientifically-earnest doctor, Diane, and it's clear she's the second priority by far. In The Killing Fields, he's so earnest about covering the exploding events in war-torn Cambodia that it seems he forgets he's in danger himself, taken completely by surprise when he's held at gunpoint. Crazy in Love sees him so totally taken up in his new-found feelings for the married Georgie that he shows up at her doorstep, takes her up on her perfunctory invitation to stay for dinner (despite his protest only moments before that he had to leave), and proceeds to tell her, quite plainly, that he's fallen in love with her, and would have regretted it forever if he hadn't told her. In fact, he hustles out the door so fast when her husband shows up that you've got to laugh! How honest a reaction is that? He's made himself vulnerable by admitting his feelings, and she's told him she's happy with her husband, though she is flattered, and then he's nearly caught trying to tempt her from her husband by said husband! I'd scurry for cover!
In One Night Stand you easily forget the novelty of a male nurse in watching him so brilliantly play the devoted and caring nurse Chris. He's so professional that it's a real twist to see him later at the New Orleans-style wake, dressed in a mesh shirt and beads (along with those so-serious glasses) in very close contact with a lady-friend. But he does it so convincingly, it's easy to believe Nurse Chris knows how to let his hair down in his off-hours.
I think it is this type of role that really represents the flexibility which Julian has as an actor, as it is a part where his looks play little importance, either as a benefit or a liability to the role. I can believe a beautiful nurse, a handsome scientist, without having to consider his looks on their own. I can even believe the handsome Latvian Yuri would turn pimp in order to make his way in America. And while they're all lovely to look at, Julian and his directors have managed an amazing feat: they can put him on-camera without making him the center of attention. This man who so readily draws the eye when he's supposed to, manages quite nicely to fade into the background when needed.
And that, finally, is a quality which I think more directors need to be seeing in Julian. I think a large part of the reason he's not getting better roles in higher-profile films is a reluctance on the part of directors and casting directors to take a risk that he might distract the audience from the lead actors. He's proven in recent years (with some help from the brilliant direction of Mike Figgis) that he can indeed play a secondary character without upstaging his fellow actors, and that he can do so with the same brilliant acting skills that made him a natural choice for so many romantic and dramatic leads in the past. I think between the fear of casting an actor who's just too handsome to be believed, and the concern that he'll upstage the other actors just by being such a strong visual draw, that Julian's good looks have proven to be an unfair hindrance to him getting the best parts; parts which would in turn lead to greater recognition within the film industry and from outside of it, where the fans reign supreme. For now, he's a well-kept secret among the European film community (who are apparently more willing to take a chance) and among a small, select group of fans. But with significant roles in some more prominent films coming up in the next few years, he has a definite chance to finally become a permanent part of the upper-echelon of Hollywood actors as well.
If his fans have anything to say about it, Julian Sands will certainly be busy for the foreseeable future, as he is probably one of the actors most often mentioned by fans when they talk about who they'd want cast in their favorite roles. He's still clamored after by fans of Anne Rice's vampire Lestat, and I've seen his name mentioned on numerous literary discussion groups as a top choice for any number of characters when and if those works are brought to life on the big-screen. The challenge lies in convincing the directors and casting directors of the world that he should always be on their top list of actors to consider when they've got a really good role. The way to meet that challenge may be to make sure that projects like Death and the Loss of Sexual Innocence and Il Fantasma dell'Opera get the fair viewing that they deserve, and to make sure we clamor for more of our favorite actor when we get the chance. If persistence counts, we will surely triumph, and Julian along with us.