NO NO NO NO NO, YOU CANNOT WILL NOT MUST NOT TAKE TOM WILKINSON FROM ME, NO NO NO NO NO
Tom Wilkinson, who departed for the realm of the Spirit today at the age of 75, was the greatest white male actor in the English-speaking world. He was like my Brando, my Jimmy Stewart, my Paul Muni, my James Dean, my De Niro, my Denzel, my Pacino, my Dustin Hoffman – my hero. His performance in In The Bedroom is the single greatest English-language performance I’ve ever seen by any actor of any gender on stage or screen. There are very few celebrities I love so much that I dream of meeting them in order to be able to thank them for their positive impact on my life, but he was one of them. Along with Brian Cox, Willem Dafoe, Delroy Lindo, Steve Buscemi, Patricia Clarkson, Ray Winstone, Isabelle Huppert, Charles S. Dutton, and a handful of others, he was among those who have inspired what little acting I’ve managed to do in certain isolated contexts (such as in high school and summer camp plays), and he will certainly inspire any acting I’m fortunate enough to do in the future. His performances in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Batman Begins, Michael Clayton, and Selma were all perfect too. He infused every role with what Mike D’Angelo accurately called his “craggy soulfulness”, and I’ve thought about him at least once a day, always with the utmost fondness, every day, for the past 22 years. Ave atque vale, sir, and rest easy. I’ll always, always love you.