How M/M via DS Non-Ironically Ruined My Life Meme: 27 Tuxes
"My vanity requires an audience."
Day 23 - Describe what you feel will be the main attributes of Dan Stevens' post-Downton career.
It is a (cautionary) tale of two Morris Townsends (and two Matthews as it turns out). No, it was not Dan Stevens who spoke these words (though the sentiment is appropriate enough, so I could not resist), but rather Ben Chaplin, the last man I saw play Morris Townsend in the 1997 film adaptation of Washington Square (which really was an adaptation of an adaptation: it actually was adapted from The Heiress instead of the original Henry James novella).
When the trades first reported that Dan Stevens was set to make his Broadway debut as Townsend in yet another Heiress revival, I thought back to Chaplin's turn in Agnieszka Holland's film (which I quite liked as it happened). And then I wondered ... whatever happened to Ben Chaplin? An affable British actor who, like Michelle Dockery et al., trained at Guildhall and then got his start on television (sound familiar yet?), his first starring role was on Game-On (BBC) as ... Matthew . (Okay, sound really familiar?) After impressing many on Game-On, he bailed before the start of the second season for greener pastures (I know, I know ... uncanny).
It is a common enough tale, I suppose. At least in Chaplin's case, though, the greener pastures were real, not imaginary. He was offered the lead in the under-the-radar 1996 rom-com The Truth About Cats & Dogs opposite Janeane Garofalo and Uma Thurman. He went on to win a role in Terrence Malick's acclaimed The Thin Red Line (1998). (And it is time for more six degrees of separation: Malick went on to make The Tree of Life [2011] in which he cast ... Jessica Chastain. But I digress. Again.)
But over time, Chaplin faded into obscurity. Oh, he still works and I dare say his work pays the bills. But he had limited success in parlaying those few Hollywood forays into a bona fide career in feature (A-list) films (or even a return to television in a seminal role). If you were to ask most worldwide audiences who Ben Chaplin is, I doubt two out of ten people could tell you.
And in a few years' time, I am fairly confident we will be saying the same thing about Dan Stevens, who, unlike Chaplin, left his leading-man television role for ... a minor part in a film with no really big names attached to it (Benedict Cumberbatch is not there yet -- if he ever will be). He is reportedly in talks with Liam Neeson about doing a future thriller, but it is down the road a bit (and in this biz, it is probably best not to count one's chickens).
I guess the real question is how much Stevens' decision to leave Downton when he did will determine what kind of career he has. And in the long-term, I really do not think it will have much impact one way or another (just as Chaplin's decision to leave Game-On probably had little to do with his later success or lack thereof). In the end, Stevens will probably settle into a career very similar to the one he always would have had. ... Either way, I do not think he is destined for greatness (not as an actor at least). But to say that he left Downton to strike while the iron was hot is a fallacy. His post-Downton irons are lukewarm at best. At least while he was on Downton, he had the novelty of being attractive to folks who otherwise would not have given him the time of day. Can you imagine him being cast under the direction of Moisés Kaufman -- with the likes of Jessica Chastain and David Strathairn -- if his only credits had been The Line of Beauty, Sense & Sensibility, Hilde, etc.? Can you imagine the Man Booker Prize calling him up had he been nobody greater than the forgettable Edward Ferrars (Cambridge pedigree or no)? We all know the answer. It was Downton -- the cultural phenomenon -- not Stevens' performance as Matthew Crawley or any prior role which won him these opportunities. And as Downton recedes into his past, so will the high-profile magazine spreads, red carpet events and sugarplum parts that ostensibly dance in his head at present.