3 Actors Who Do Way Too Many Period Pieces

Now, I'm not saying that these guys do exclusively period pieces--they may have quite a few modern-day flicks on their resume--but we know them best as the men in tights, the women in corsets, the guys who have to wear the wool underwear. We appreciate the sacrifice, but...

(this, of course, does not count the countless older, Shakespearian actors, stage actors, or anyone else I can't immediately think of)

Keira Knightley

Oh, sure, she's got Bend It Like Beckham under her belt, but that was back in the day. The Hole, The Jacket--but who gives a shit? That's one of those movies you show up at the theatre to find, like, LOTR sold out, so you see that unstead. What we know her from, and what has been her chief type as of late, are the spunky women out of place in their stuffy British time period. Trying to repeat the success of Pride and Prejudice? Perhaps. But I'd put my money on a condition that would literally cause her legs to fall off if she ever wore pants.

Ben Whishaw


I'll say it: This guy is so pretty he might as well be a girl. And, it would appear, he digs the romanticism of late 1800s-early 1900s than our humble 21st century. While he was a semi-regular on the achingly modern Nathan Bartley, had the bittiest of bit parts, albeit very important, in Layer Cake, and starred in the crime drama miniseries Criminal Justice, he still remains best known as the obsessed title killer in Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, from 18th century France (I have made this argument, and I will not do it again), as John Keats in Fanny Brawne-centric Bright Star, and as a bizarrely-ever-present Arthur Rimbaud in I'm Not There. He was also, apparently, in The International. So says Wikipedia, so it shall be.

Cate Blanchett



A staple in what you might call prestige pics--she surely has the Oscars to show for it--The Lady Blanchett sure does seem to love the air of royalty. While subverting the hoop-shirt dress code as Katharine Hepburn (*faints from awesome*) in The Aviator, she has followed through in both Elizabeth movies (the first period drama, I think, to get a sequel), as an elf or something in Lord of the Rings, an intense Soviet sarge in that movie we don't speak of, and a ballerine-through-the-ages in Benjamin Button. As I said, these are what she's most known for, not necassarily her primary.

And, while we're here, I'll just say my theory on why Americans don't get typecast nearly as much as the British do in this category: American history does not go back very long. Since the 1700s, and for two thousand years in between, we still had British accents. Therefore, unless you want to go the maybe-dreaded Marie Anoinette route, you, my fellow countrymen, will forever be marginalized to the frontlines of human history, sports biopics, Holocaust-soldier movies, and the occasional dead president flick. Enjoy.