Clive Owen Children of Men (2006)
Clive Owen (born October 3, 1964, Coventry, England) starred as Theo Faron in Children of Men (2006).
Children of Men is the role Owen has called the one he's most proud of
Owen had been a working English screen actor since the late 1980s but only broke into international leading-man status in the early 2000s — Croupier (1998), then a supporting role in Gosford Park (2001), then his Oscar-nominated turn in Closer (2004). When Cuarón (in Children of Men) cast him as Theo, Owen was at the moment of his greatest commercial leverage and could have taken any number of more conventional leading roles. He chose Children of Men.
"It's the film I'm most proud of. It's a film that means more and more as time goes on." — Clive Owen, The Hollywood Reporter (2017)
"Working with Alfonso was probably the most thrilling experience of my career." — Clive Owen, Rolling Stone (2016)
Owen's Theo is built on subtraction. He spends the first thirty minutes of the film walking through London with his face arranged in advance to receive nothing, his hands shaking slightly, his coffee laced with whiskey. Roger Ebert located the performance precisely:
"Owen makes Theo into the most Hitchcockian of heroes — the unwilling man who finds the strength to do what is right." — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (2007)
The role's central technical demand was the long takes (see The Long Take). Owen had to deliver sustained performance across four-, five-, and six-minute single shots with no edit to hide behind — most famously the car ambush, in which he is in the back seat for the duration of Julian's death and his own escape, and the Bexhill stairwell, in which he walks (and is shot, and falls) through six minutes of staged warfare while carrying a baby that is sometimes a doll and sometimes real.
"You can't fake your way through a six-minute take. You either have it or you don't." — Clive Owen, Rolling Stone (2016)
Owen's career around 2006
| Year | Film | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1998 | Croupier | Mike Hodges; international breakthrough |
| 2001 | Gosford Park | Robert Altman ensemble |
| 2003 | I'll Sleep When I'm Dead | Mike Hodges reunion |
| 2004 | Closer | Oscar nomination, BAFTA, Golden Globe |
| 2005 | Sin City | Frank Miller / Rodriguez |
| 2006 | Children of Men | The performance he names as his career best |
| 2007 | Shoot 'Em Up | Action satire |
| 2009 | The International | Tom Tykwer |
| 2014 | The Knick (TV) | Steven Soderbergh |
| 2018 | Ophelia / Anon |