Poetic pests and colonial revenge **

Jeremy Northam is one of the most distinguished actors to emerge from Great Britain in recent years. The Shakespearean-trained thespian won an Olivier Award (the UK equivalent of a Tony) for his performance in the play The Voysey Inheritance, and he earned critical raves for his deft turn as Mr. Knightley in last year's filming of the Jane Austen classic Emma. So what's he doing in Mimic, a flick about giant mutant insects terrorizing the subways of New York? Speaking from New York, Northam explains what besides a paycheck would draw him and other quality actors (Oscar-winners Mira Sorvino and F. Murray Abraham, Charles S. Dutton and international star Giancarlo Giannini) to what looks at first like an urban version of Them! "Guillermo (Del Toro, the director and co-screenwriter) is the linchpin to the whole thing. When you meet Guillermo, he's got a fierce creative imagination, endless boundless enthusiasm. He loves actors. He's seen thousands of films, read thousands of books. "When I first met him for this - the script has changed a great deal since then - I thought, 'Are we sending this up?' And he said, 'Absolutely not! We're not being ironic about it in the slightest. We're gonna take what is conventionally a B-movie genre and see where we can go if we play it absolutely straight.' He was quite seriously - I absolutely mean this, it will sound ludicrous to some people - genuinely in search of a kind of poetry. I think, at times, he's found it. I think the film is incredibly beautiful."

Northam states that Mimic presents its human population differently than a typical creature feature would. "I was interested in the fact that these were not standard action movie heroes or heroines. Mira and I had the opportunity of painting, in however small a way, a relationship which was under a certain amount of stress and starting, through the process of the movie, to learn how to love each other in an unconditional way." During one scene, a domestic frustration sends Sorvino walking out the door before Northam can finish talking to her. "It's a tiny, tiny little thing, but it's not what you'd normally see in an action movie because we play it like a domestic drama. At the start of that scene, it's like a romantic comedy. There are different textures and colors. It's not all one thing," he says. While Northam is happy that Mimic allows him and the other actors to explore the human side of the story, he is willing to give the people who bring the monsters to life their due. He says, "They made you believe these things were alive after a while. It was like acting with another actor. (During) the scene when I'm trapped in the subway and the thing crawls over me, it was so easy to imagine it because I'd just done a close up to it. It looked like it was, and I'm not joking, smelling me!"
Even if he had to share the spotlight with a bug, Northam enthusiastically states, "It's fun to do as an actor to play great big, simple feelings and emotional journeys that tell a big simple story because one doesn't often get the chance to do it. And you're dealing in this film with this nightmarish world where your imagination is deeply engaged, and it reminds you of your dreams." Mimic isn't the only recent film that Northam recalls with fondness. He has a small part as a judge in Steven Spielberg's Amistad, a drama about an 1839 revolt by West Africans who had been captured from a British protectorate and then forced onto a slave ship. The Africans mutinied, and the legal ramifications of the incident touched on many factors that led to the Civil War. While Northam is happy to be involved, he's hesitant to reveal too much. He demurs, "It's difficult to talk about it without giving away the story, and I don't think Steven Spielberg would like that if I did." On working with Spielberg, he recalls, "He's an incredible enthusiast and frighteningly knows everything you've ever done. He was doing the sound edit for The Lost World and cutting the dailies he'd just done on Amistad and planning for Saving Private Ryan all at the same time." While he's worked with Hollywood's most successful director and played the hero in Mimic, Northam is also known for menacing Sandra Bullock in The Net. Like several British actors, Northam has been typecast as a villain. When asked why British performers (from Basil Rathbone to Claude Rains to Gary Oldman) often get relegated to the ghetto of villainy, he quips, "Is this a metaphorical ghetto? Where would it be? Silver Lake? Santa Monica?" According to Northam, British actors have played a lot of heavies at home. In addition, much of the reason for the casting is cultural. He explains, "I think it has something to do with contemporary American culture which is very open, very emotionally uncluttered. You meet people in this country, and they're likely to tell you their life story in the first five minutes in the most charming way. English people are not like that. 'Englishness' is almost a byword for an uptight reticence. I think in this current climate openness, sometimes wrongly, is equated with honesty, and reticence is equated with 'two-facedness,' and that suits itself to villainy." He laughs and adds, "Maybe it's some kind of colonial revenge. The old Europe is not seen as a particularly positive place in American movies. Old Europe can be seen as a mess, and Thank God everyone left!"
Dan Lybarger