Sam Nell

Sam Nell's performance in "The Tudors" really stands out as one of the show's outstanding features. But I will nonetheless judge him a little harshly, which is unfair, because one of the things that makes his performance less than satisfying - and extraordinary at the same time - is how bad so much of the rest of the acting is. Nell is in a class by himself in this company, but sadly, that only makes him stick out as having too rich a character, where the others are content to play overacted (the king) or un-acted stereotypes. Nell's complexity is his virtue but also makes him less believable in a way, because when one sees a fine performance it looks almost phony because its context does not support it. It would be as if a fine organic mesculin salad were to accompany your happy meal. You wouldn't really appreciate it as much as you would in the context of a fine meal- even, paradoxically, if you wouldn't have noticed it as much beside your filet mignon and charred asparagus. That would be "fine acting" on the part of the salad: for its virtue and performance to fit seamlessly in the meal it was paired with. And one truly wishes Nell were matched with others equal, not just to his talent, but to his commitment to the role.

That said, I have to judge Nell based on his own abilities, and in some instances he seems to fall short. The conflicted, morally crippled realist that he has become- this is acted a little too consistently throughout. There are the same looks off to the side and hesitating mannerisms that convey his inner corruption, but they are maybe a little too much the same in each iteration. This makes them less the inner calculations of a twisted man poking through his mask and more the stamp of an actor trying to convey the same.

Now it is possible that my having watched the entire first season in 3 short days may have made these too consistent features more obvious than they wold appear on a more leisurely viewing. But they stuck out and disturbed me, since I really wanted to be blown away by his talent, which remains heads and shoulders above the rest of the cast (which is why I hold them to no standard and him to a high one- this is unfair, to be sure, but there it is).

I will say that his final prayer and death scene were truly moving. The line "I accept myself as I am" stank of new age superimposition on the cardinal's world view, and Nell delivered - or dispensed with - the inferior line in a way that rendered it completely inoffensive and neutral. Bravo. The rest of the prayer was equally well delivered, and I truly regretted the speed at which the editor chose to move on from the scene almost immediately after the suicide. The quick switch to the CGI landscape left us with little time to grieve the character we had come to love and also to bear the weight of such an impressive and emotional scene. I actually rewound the film and paused on the frame before the cut just to satisfy the requirements of gravity and timing that should have been there. A gross error of judgment in the booth.

So perhaps I'm not judging Nell so harshly after all. My desire is to give him great kudos for raising the quality level of what is, I am sad to say, a fairly pedestrian script and company decked out in marvelous sets and costumes. But Nell's talent is not enough to overcome the weakness of the rest of the cast. So instead of raising them up, he merely floats around, exposed on his own like the genius among fools whose greatness is not even acknowledgeable by those without wits enough to match it.

It is a real pity, because one wants so much to be taken in by his performances, and yet those whom he plays off of won't allow us to be swept up because they are so, well, bad. Perhaps this is why the prayer scene stands out- it is a proper soliloquy, unencumbered by the lesser talents of the rest, poetically, the same way his character of Wolsey comes across throughout. Life imitates art again.