By Marianne Gray
The love affair between Hollywood and the President
of the United
States shows no signs of abating.
George W Bush was recently sworn in as the 43rd president but over
the past eight or nine years Hollywood has been inaugurating
countless White House contenders, real, fictional, and actual -
presidents playing themselves.
Those who have engaged in the process of demystifying the
presidential office are members of the select Presidents' Club,
reserved for those actors who have played the chief executive.
Celluloid presidents come in various idealised images, from scumbags
to squeaky-clean nice-guys. At the moment we have the Channel Four
series The West Wing, with Martin Sheen playing fictitious Democratic
president Josiah Bartlet.
Next week we see another screen version of the president with Bruce
Greenwood as John F Kennedy in Roger Donaldson's gripping Cuban
missile crisis-based movie, Thirteen Days. Next month Jeff Bridges
stars as a fictional president in Rod Lurie's heavily Oscar-nominated
The Contender. So, what does an actor bring to the presidency?
Bruce Greenwood says: "Implicit in this question is 'What does an
actor bring that a real president doesn't?' and the only answer is a
certain amount of inauthenticity. It's entirely different with a
fictitious president whose characterisation is essentially a grab-bag
of choices dreamed up by the actor and the director, along with the
generally requisite characteristics of authority, charisma, political
expertise and people-skills and, hmmm, fine tailoring. Strangely
enough, there was some spillover from 'being' the president. Not very
many get the opportunity so the role becomes an orchid. Because it's
rare, people endow the role and anybody who's in it with a
specialness. But my closest friends continue to give me no respect
whatsoever!"
