My Adorable Gentleman

James Wilby as Dr. Alan Protheroe in Dark Room. (1999)

James Wilby as Michael Evans and Judith Scott as Laura Sims in Screen One: Tell Me That You Love Me. (1991)

James Wilby as Dundine in Dutch Girls. (1985)

James Wilby's 2000's roles: Part two.

Chicklit (2016): Geoffrey The Secret Diary Of A Call Girl: Season 4, Episode 4: (2011): Henry The Sense of an Ending: (2017): David Ford Inspector Lewis: Expiation (2004): Hugh Mallory Silent Witness: Nowhere Fast, part one (2006): Matt Gibb Jump Together: (2001): Nathan Little Devil: (2007): Adrian Bishop Father Brown: The Cat Of Castigatus (2018): Sefton Scott Foyle's War: They Fought In The Fields (2004): Major Cornwall Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire (2006): Ofonius Tigellinus

"Shut up, Mabel! There is nothing going on between me and Isobel."

From the shooting script of Gosford Park by Julian Fellowes.

Freddie being a tryhard.

James Wilby and Claudie Blakely arrive at the Gosford Park premiere in 2001.

James Wilby as Milord Runbiff in Caccia Alla Vedova (The Siege Of Venice) in 1991.

Director James Ivory on actor James Wilby, 1/3: casting Maurice (1987)

James Ivory in Conversation: How Merchant Ivory Makes Its Movies, by Robert Emmet Long (University of California Press, 2005), p.213

I think James Wilby was perfect for Maurice: I can’t think of Maurice Hall without James Wilby, to be honest. (Then I think of him as terrible Charles Wilcox in Howards End, killing poor Samuel West’s Leonard Bast, and marvel at his range). Typical Hollywood producers…they always think the big names will make a film better. They even asked Christine Edzard, the director of Little Dorrit, whether they thought she could get Richard Chamberlain into the film. As if Derek Jacobi, Alec Guinness, and Cyril Cusack among others, weren’t enough.

Oh, Julian Wadham…he (and his lovely voice) impressed me a great deal with his Arthur Clennam in the 2001 BBC radio adaptation of Little Dorrit. Wonderful actor as well.

I also think Wilby was perfect as Maurice. Did you ever see a movie he did called A Summer Story with Imogen Stubbs? It was a tragic little tale, but beautifully done. I loved him in that. But yeah, it was so hard to watch him as Charles Wilcox. I can’t help but always be just a little pleased when he gets arrested! He was also a horrible person in Gosford Park.

I love Julian Wadham. He does have a lovely voice and so very handsome!

Richard Chamberlain! In Edzard’s Little Dorrit? I adore him, but he’s all wrong for that production definitely. Stupid producers!

@sphinxyvic (sorry about the belated reply!)

I rather like villainous!James. :) As James Ivory says in one of my companion quote-posts to this one, he brings a comic ridiculousness to Charles Wilcox. (IMO we should be pleased/relieved when CW get arrested!) He’s also hilariously villainous as (electricity charlatan) Charles Broadwick in Ripper Street S2 – and, in some of his other villain roles, hot (e.g. The Woman in White).

Must admit I’m less keen on A Summer Story – but it’s very popular with James’ wider fans here. ;) I just don’t think it’s a very good film (visually or in the direction), resulting in a less assured, precise or compelling performance from James than we get in Maurice.

The main thing that bugged me is that the outcome of the cross-class romance is a total cliché compared to Maurice. As an audience, we’re expected to accept it as ‘natural’ (or even romantic) that the ‘country wench’ will be abandoned by the gent’leman and die in childbirth. Megan is a great, spirited character, and I got NO sense of why ‘Mr Ashton’ didn’t try harder to find her. He just seemed a wet blanket and I spent the second half of the film wanting to slap him. As the story is by John Galsworthy, my guess is that the original point was to show that Ashton is a spineless product of social forces (from the moment he’s separated from Megan and his fellow upper middle classes show up)…

James’ own comments about A Summer Story weren’t entirely flattering; he dismissed the sex/love scenes as a ‘soft-focus romp’, LoL. He knew that in Maurice he’d been part of something incomparably better.

Julian Wadham is fantastic as Pitt in The Madness of King George. :) And hilarious in his brief moment as Maurice’s stockbroking partner, gawping when Alec turns up at Maurice’s office while blowing smoke out through his nose. (A Tumblr friend pointed out the smoke-blowing, but I’ve forgotten who… sorry…)

Kit and Angela in Mother Love (1989), he being silly after some tranquillizer but both very much in love. Just before Kit’s rather serious operation.

Yay :) Shamelessly rebloging myself here because my post has the ‘sensitive content warning’ removed AT LAST! :)

YAY! Time for a celebration reblog!!!! :)))  It should really have been a ‘yummy content warning’… ;-)

James Wilby and Fiona Gillies as Kit and Angela, very happy together in Mother Love (1989)

James Kit knows well that a swimming bath frog is a perfect gift to win a girl’s heart ;D

James Wilby & Fiona Gillies in Mother Love (1989)

James Wilby as Alfred Redl in A Patriot For Me (posted by Nicola Stephenson who played Hilde) in 1995.

Many many gifs of James Wilby and Rupert Graves reunited at the BFI Flare 2024.