SPOTLIGHT! And it's on.... Sean Biggerstaff!

SPOTLIGHT, my newest segment, is about actors or actresses you should really be aware of.

I'm pleased to announce that the first (and foremost!) entry goes to Sean Biggerstaff. For those of you who know me, you know I can never say enough about Cashback or The Winter Guest (although as much as I talk about Sean in that movie, I'm actually saying more about Emma Thompson... but I digress).

I swear to God, the UK feeds their kids some secret drug that makes them superior to everyone else. All the talented actors and actresses come from across the pond. Hey, UK, can you send us some of that stuff over here? We're really lacking (not counting Donald Sutherland, Morgan Freeman, and Kevin Spacey. I was going to list Cate Blanchett and Judy Dench, but, oh, they're from the UK, aren't they?).

Anyway, Sean Biggerstaff made himself known to me when I saw the first Harry Potter movie. For those of you still scratching your heads, he played Oliver Wood. And he was quite the commodity in my eyes, because as an American child I was taught only three things about Scotland (his home country):

1. It's the land in which men wear skirts.
2. There's a dinosaur in a lake.
3. Sean Connery created the universe.

So to see someone that young command a five-minute scene with such relaxed confidence and good humor was pleasantly surprising. (But remember that I was thirteen at the time, so it was mostly "OH MY GOD, HE HAS A SCOTTISH ACCENT!" But looking back, I can appreciate the actual acting now.)

I was fortunate enough to stumble upon www.imdb.com a couple of years ago, so one day after re-watching that scene in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, I wandered on over to IMDB to see if Sean had any other films out.

He did. Former fashion photographer-turned-writer-director Sean Ellis put out an Oscar-nominated short called Cashback, which was then made into a feature-length indie film of the same name. Starring... you guessed it! Sean Biggerstaff.

(Sidenote: I can hear the girls giggling over his last name. Yes, it's riotous, great, we're done, moving on.)

I purchased Cashback (for an obscene amount of money... more than $19.99, I can tell you that much) on Amazon.com, because I couldn't find it for the life of me in stores. Apparently Best Buy only caters to huge blockbusters like Pirates of the Caribbean instead of wonderful sleepy films like Cashback. Well, boo to them. Anyway, I watched it one afternoon while straightening my hair. It required a second watch.

And a third. And a fourteenth. Because it was good. I could go into the cinematography and the directing choices, but as great as those were this movie was all about Sean. His portrayal of Ben was genuine. It's what I love most about his acting, of what little I've seen. He has this knack for just sliding into character and making the performance so believable that I have trouble discerning him from the character he's playing. It happened with Oliver, it happened with Tom (The Winter Guest), and it happened with Ben. Within the first ten minutes of the movie, I felt as if I, too, had insomnia and hadn't slept in forever. And I was totally and completely certain that Ben was indeed an artist just coming out of a break-up who was so unsure of what to do with all of his newfound free time (time he would have once spent sleeping) that he joined the graveyard shift at a supermarket.

Whew.

Reader's Digest version: Sean became Ben, inside and out. End of story.

Sean just played the lead in the BBC drama Consenting Adults, all about the life of Jeremy Wolfenden, and is in an upcoming movie, Hippie Hippie Shake, alongside Sienna Miller and Cillian Murphy about counterculturalist Richard Neville's misadventures in London at the end of the 1960s. It sounds like a promising premise. Everyone loves the 60's.

But back to Sean.

I really hope to see more of him sometime soon, and I hear that his stage work is phenomenal. Maybe one day I'll be able to see him in an off-Broadway play, or even on Broadway! Wouldn't that be something?

Sean Biggerstaff has fast become one of my favorite actors, right up there with Donald and Alan. He's just too talented not to be. A lot of people aren't aware of him (until I mention Oliver Wood, and then comes the collective "Ohhhh..."), and they should be. So my advice is to re-watch the Quidditch scenes in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, rent The Winter Guest, buy Cashback, and petition to bring him to American shores so we can see him on stage.

Sean? Here's to you and your illustrious career!

Sidenote 1.5: I wrote him a letter not too long ago. I've become that which I hate: those annoying fangirls. Ugh. Whatever, he's so cool that he deserved it.

Sidenote 2: I won't even lie. I'm in the middle of writing a screenplay, and I'm writing one of the main characters for him. Good thing the Writer's Guild isn't going on strike or this would be a waste of time. Oh, wait...


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... You guys have no idea what I'm talking about.