Terence Stamp (1938-2025)

[beamish14]

Terence Stamp, aged 87, an actor with a remarkable career.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/a ... dies-at-87

Launched one of the greatest comebacks ever after doing Superman a decade after leaving acting as a result of a spiritual crisis. The Hit might be my favorite performance of his

[domino harvey]

Did he and Malcolm McDowell ever star together in anything? I’m always confusing the two in memory. But I can confirm Stamp was great (and actually) in the Collector and the Limey without double checking!

[swo17]

They apparently both worked on Poor Cow but McDowell's scenes were deleted

[MichaelB]

But I can confirm Stamp was great (and actually) in the Collector and the Limey without double checking!

He's bloody awful in The Limey, and bafflingly so - he's from Stepney, so you'd have thought he'd naturally have the right accent. But instead, bizarrely, it's just about the second worst attempt at gorblimey cockernee after Dick Van Dyke's legendary turn in Mary Poppins.

A quick Google confirms that it's not just me - this was Anthony Quinn (not that one; this is the film critic for The Independent) on its original release:

But it's Stamp whose face Soderbergh chooses to linger upon, and I wish I could say that he's also got a brilliant performance out of him. Sadly, and inexplicably, it's the Cockney accent which lets him down.

Born he may have been within the sound of Bow Bells, but Stamp sounds throughout like a man doing a very poor impersonation of Arthur Mullard: "Bide yer time - that's what prison teaches yer if noffink else." Gawd help us. Worse, he keeps on using Cockney rhyming slang, which he then has to explain to the uncomprehending West Coasters. The scriptwriter, Lem Dobbs, maybe thinks it's rather amusing that Wilson casually refers to his "old China", gets a blank look and follows it with "China plate - mate", but the effect is rather deadening. It's the equivalent of Tony from The Sopranos saying fuhgeddaboudit, then adding as translation "forget about it", or capisce and then supplying "understand?" At one point Wilson goes into a long and monotonous spiel trying to defend himself to a narcotics officer who's also shadowing Valentine. The cop listens to the end, then deadpans: "You're not from round here, are you?" But he doesn't sound like he's from round here either.

(I have similar problems with Woody Allen's Match Point, a film that many regard as a masterpiece, but I suspect I'd need to watch it dubbed into another language to avoid the constant screech of fingernails down blackboards as the cast negotiate some of the most tone-deaf "London" dialogue I've ever heard.)

[thirtyframesasecond]

Didn't his period away from cinema follow his role in Teorema, which was my favourite Pasolini.

[domino harvey]

But I can confirm Stamp was great (and actually) in the Collector and the Limey without double checking!

He's bloody awful in The Limey, and bafflingly so - he's from Stepney, so you'd have thought he'd naturally have the right accent. But instead, bizarrely, it's just about the second worst attempt at gorblimey cockernee after Dick Van Dyke's legendary turn in Mary Poppins.

Oh, okay, glad he died then

[Mr Sausage]

Terence Stamp, aged 87, an actor with a remarkable career.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/a ... dies-at-87

Launched one of the greatest comebacks ever after doing Superman a decade after leaving acting as a result of a spiritual crisis. The Hit might be my favorite performance of his

Just saw The Hit recently and loved his performance as a gangster whose imminent (but, crucially, not immediate) demise causes him to live completely in the moment, in a kind of bemused calm. The way it baffles the other hoods as they scramble about on their grubby mission is terrific.

[colinr0380]

So many great roles, and lines. The "There, now you're fucked" line in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert comes immediately to mind, as does his iconic line delivery in The Limey. The Limey of course used footage from Loach's Poor Cow as the flashback to the younger version of the character. And whilst Malcolm McDowell and Stamp never worked together, I guess the one thing to be glad of the late 90s resurgence in the British gangster film post-Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels was that it allowed for the older guard to get a few prominent hard man roles again, with Stamp in The Limey and McDowell in Gangster No. 1 and I'll Sleep When I'm Dead.

There is also his interesting role in one of the few British Westerns, with Blue, just before his Italian period and directed by Silvio Narizzano in his film following Georgy Girl. That's a film that I have only ever seen in its pan-and-scanned version, and would be a real coup if it could be released in its correct 2.35:1 ratio.

[tolbs1010]

Terence Stamp, aged 87, an actor with a remarkable career.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/a ... dies-at-87

The Hit might be my favorite performance of his

Easily his best performance. Wonderful in Billy Budd as well. His natural beauty is the focal point, but he conveys the correct pure innocence to contrast with Robert Ryan's Claggart (also a great performance).

He's memorable in what is essentially a one-scene performance in Wall Street.

And if he helped inspire Ray Davies to write "Waterloo Sunset", that is contribution enough in this world.

[domino harvey]

There is also his interesting role in one of the few British Westerns, with Blue, just before his Italian period and directed by Silvio Narizzano in his film following Georgy Girl. That's a film that I have only ever seen in its pan-and-scanned version, and would be a real coup if it could be released in its correct 2.35:1 ratio.

Good news: Imprint just released it

[JamesF]

Talk about life regrets - one Sunday in the late-2000s, I bought a used DVD of The Limey at a car boot sale in Bournemouth. Later that day, I was standing alone at the platform at Bournemouth station, waiting for the train back to London, when a Range Rover pulls up outside, Terence fucking Stamp gets out of the back, and waits for the train at the other end of the platform. Did I go up to him, profess my admiration and get my newly acquired DVD signed before the train arrived? No I didn’t #-o

[The Curious Sofa]

Spoiler

Terence Stamp, aged 87, an actor with a remarkable career.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/a ... dies-at-87

Launched one of the greatest comebacks ever after doing Superman a decade after leaving acting as a result of a spiritual crisis. The Hit might be my favorite performance of his

Just saw The Hit recently and loved his performance as a gangster whose imminent (but, crucially, not immediate) demise causes him to live completely in the moment, in a kind of bemused calm. The way it baffles the other hoods as they scramble about on their grubby mission is terrific.

The Hit is great and I'd agree that it's Stamp's best performance. I remember being puzzled by the bad reviews it received at the time, but subsequent assessments have been kinder.

Stamp may not have been the most versatile of actors but who cares when someone has eyes like that?

And when it comes to the 'worst Cockney accent', Don Cheadle might want to have a word.

[colinr0380]

Great news about Blue being released (kind of Stamp's equivalent of Brando's One-Eyed Jacks), and I had never even heard about Fade-In before!

Also, while I kind of detest the underlying message of Song For Marion, none of my issues with that film have to do with Stamp's performance there. In fact, he was the only thing that dragged me through the film to the bitter end. And if that isn't the mark of an effective leading man, to at least get you to the finishing line of a film that you may not particularly like all that much, I don't know what is!

[MichaelB]

And when it comes to the 'worst Cockney accent', Don Cheadle might want to have a word.

Very fair point. So Dick Van Dyke an unbeatable first, then Don Cheadle, and Stamp third.

Interestingly, the last two were in films by the same director...

As for Stamp, I never met him, but I edited a couple of back-to-back interviews into a couple of Indicator pieces a few years ago. He had excellent recall of The Collector – unsurprisingly, as it was a career milestone – but couldn't remember the first thing about The Mind of Mr Soames, despite him demonstrably playing the title role. So he kindly offered to tell us a load of random career anecdotes instead, which we were more than happy to include under the title The Mind of Mr Stamp.

There's also an amazing story told by Norman J. Warren, who was trying to get a film off the ground in the very early 1960s that was going to star three friends of his - but he couldn't raise the money because they were complete unknowns and therefore hopelessly unbankable. You've no doubt guessed who one of the friends was already, and the other two were

Spoiler

Julie Christie and Michael Caine

.

[thirtyframesasecond]

Stamp also plays The Devil in The Company of Wolves in a strangely anachronistic scene. Oh and he's the villain in Alien Nation too.

[domino harvey]

Great news about Blue being released (kind of Stamp's equivalent of Brano's One-Eyed Jacks), and I had never even heard about Fade-In before!

Fade-In was one of the first films to use the “Alan Smithee” moniker, so I’d temper expectations a bit!

[Never Cursed]

Has anyone here seen Stamp's film debut Billy Budd? Seems like an interesting-sounding film given the cast/source material/that Ustinov himself directed it, but many other stacked films have no modern profile for good reason, so

[domino harvey]

I haven’t seen it, but I remember reading that it was anticipated as an Oscar vehicle for Robert Ryan but Stamp ended up being the only one to get nommed. WA put it out on Blu fairly early on

[Matt]

Has anyone here seen Stamp's film debut Billy Budd? Seems like an interesting-sounding film given the cast/source material/that Ustinov himself directed it, but many other stacked films have no modern profile for good reason, so

I've seen it several times. It's definitely interesting, if not great. Ustinov, Robert Ryan, and Melvyn Douglas all give good performances. Stamp, as Budd, is just kind of a cipher: the pretty, empty center around which everyone else revolves. But that's as it is in the Melville story, too, and in Claire Denis' loose adaptation, Beau Travail. But it's also dramatically inert, never quite going anywhere. It's not a seafaring acting showpiece like Mutiny on the Bounty or The Caine Mutiny (which I'm sure is what the studio wanted), but also not a compelling character portrait of Claggart because Robert Ryan doesn't really have that much range. It could have been a weird, kinky movie like Jack Garfein's The Strange One, but there is a distinct lack of even unintentional eroticism in it. You're almost left wondering what anyone sees in Budd.

[colinr0380]

Clips from the flogging scene in Billy Budd also turn up during the barrage of information from the television(s) scene in The Man Who Fell To Earth too, which is kind of interesting in being about another 'beautiful and innocent' person being inevitably used, betrayed and discarded by the other men around him (I sometimes wonder if Derek Jarman's Sebastiane had some influence from the film too).

[John Cope]

Despite a phenomenal career and a series of genuinely iconic roles Terence Stamp will always be for me first and foremost the "sex therapist who operates at the edge of the law" in Lance Young's still profoundly neglected 1997 film Bliss. Among the most underrated films with among the most underrated performances of the 90's (and with Sheryl Lee essentially doing an extension of Laura Palmer for the tony suburbs).

[colinr0380]

He also completely steals the show in his scene as the grumpy guru in Yes Man

[hearthesilence]

Charles Busch has a wonderful story about his interview with him. Not surprisingly, Busch says...

He was delighted to share his memories. He said, no one ever asked him about those times. For years, journalists only seemed to know him as General Zod in Superman.

And if newspaper headlines are anything to go by, that's sadly all that most people remember about him.

[Brian C]

But I can confirm Stamp was great (and actually) in the Collector and the Limey without double checking!

He's bloody awful in The Limey, and bafflingly so - he's from Stepney, so you'd have thought he'd naturally have the right accent. But instead, bizarrely, it's just about the second worst attempt at gorblimey cockernee after Dick Van Dyke's legendary turn in Mary Poppins.

A quick Google confirms that it's not just me - this was Anthony Quinn (not that one; this is the film critic for The Independent) on its original release:

But it's Stamp whose face Soderbergh chooses to linger upon, and I wish I could say that he's also got a brilliant performance out of him. Sadly, and inexplicably, it's the Cockney accent which lets him down.

Born he may have been within the sound of Bow Bells, but Stamp sounds throughout like a man doing a very poor impersonation of Arthur Mullard: "Bide yer time - that's what prison teaches yer if noffink else." Gawd help us. Worse, he keeps on using Cockney rhyming slang, which he then has to explain to the uncomprehending West Coasters. The scriptwriter, Lem Dobbs, maybe thinks it's rather amusing that Wilson casually refers to his "old China", gets a blank look and follows it with "China plate - mate", but the effect is rather deadening. It's the equivalent of Tony from The Sopranos saying fuhgeddaboudit, then adding as translation "forget about it", or capisce and then supplying "understand?" At one point Wilson goes into a long and monotonous spiel trying to defend himself to a narcotics officer who's also shadowing Valentine. The cop listens to the end, then deadpans: "You're not from round here, are you?" But he doesn't sound like he's from round here either.

(I have similar problems with Woody Allen's Match Point, a film that many regard as a masterpiece, but I suspect I'd need to watch it dubbed into another language to avoid the constant screech of fingernails down blackboards as the cast negotiate some of the most tone-deaf "London" dialogue I've ever heard.)

This is very funny to me. From the American POV, it seems a lot like saying that Daniel Craig was awful in Logan Lucky (also Soderbergh!) or the Knives Out movies because of his weirdo southern accents. For myself, I never thought that Stamp's accent was supposed to be real or natural and always took it as a joke - it's baffling even inside the universe of the film!

It's not "inexplicable," it's an actor doing a bit. It's making me laugh just thinking about it, even though I haven't seen the movie in years.

[Mr Sausage]

I love The Limey and would love equally to save it from these criticisms, but I can't help remembering that Guy Ritchie in Snatch managed to pull off the exact joke you describe, only using genuine cockney accents. So it's still inexplicable that Soderbergh would've asked a British person to do a caricature of a British accent when the genuine thing would've worked just as well.