Ben Whishaw ? video

[liYA]

 

[sleuthiness]

"I love sad things."

Mentions Brando, an sp/so e45 infj.

so/sp e45 infj?

 

[Salomé]

Not a J.

From the second interview, the thing he took from Keats:
"Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason"

INFP 4w3 sx/sp?

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2012-06-30/ben-whishaw-i-never-felt-i-was-destined-for-greatness

Ask him about his role, though, and he squirms magnificently in his chair. I really think talking about himself is anathema to him. He looks like he’s being given tiny electric shocks. He will never miss an opportunity to turn the question back to you, even if you’ve asked him something so specific that he is the only person who could ever know the answer. Anyway, back to Richard II.

“I find him in some ways quite sympathetic, but that is not a view shared by many people. I find that I like his journey. It’s an interesting one. Someone being forced to confront their vulnerability. Accept their fears. Have their illusions about themselves shattered. That’s what I like about it.”

He wriggles some more and starts to rip a napkin into tiny pieces. He really reminds me of a fairy tale about a child genius who can only relax when she’s playing the violin. I wonder if he’s the sort of person who only relaxes on stage. “I think you feel really alive when you perform. Not necessarily relaxed, but very alive and open. In some ways, it’s easier to relate to another actor than it is to relate to a person in life. Do you know what I mean?”

...he also has terrible judgement. “It’s awful. I’m always wrong. To the point where I try not to bring my judgement to bear on an encounter I have with a person, I just try to take them as they are.”

This must make it hard to make a decision, deliberately holding back from judging anything? “It’s like…” he thinks for a bit… “Death is cold and hard and tight, and life is loose. So when you’re alive, you have to embrace being loose and open and free and engaged with things. To go towards closing things off or making judgements or deciding on certainties is to choose something that’s more like death. I had this big conversation with a priest who said, ‘It’s all right to be uncertain.’ I wasn’t in confession. I’m not religious at all. I don’t know even why I’m telling you. We value certainty so highly in the world. It can lead to appalling things. But without it we’d never do anything. So how do you find your way through that?” There’s a long pause. “Do you think Radio Times readers will be interested in death?” I don’t see why not.

I’m sure this is part of what makes him such a persuasive performer, that he’s a natural introvert, who wants to subsume himself utterly for the role, but then in the service of that role, must – literally or figuratively – take centre stage. “I’m maybe somewhere in the middle, between introversion and extroversion,” he starts. I make a very sceptical face. “With a tendency to introversion. There’s a strong thing of not wanting to be watched, but also not being able to help yourself.”

Goold chose Whishaw in part because of his weird, unworldly quality. “I wanted someone who had an ‘otherness’,” he says. “Someone who was poetically distant in their soul. Ben has been described as someone who doesn’t talk to you, but talks to your aura – which is true. He does have a beautiful, spiritual quality. It’s a very spiritual play and Richard has an idea of himself as a Christ figure; Ben also has this slightly messianic quality about him.” Whishaw had always loved the play, he says, even if he didn’t immediately identify with Richard’s Christlike delusions. “It’s always been one of my favourite Shakespeares. Here’s this man who has never questioned his role in the world, and then he does. His idea of himself is smashed apart and he’s forced to be… well, vulnerable. He starts off with a crown, dressed in these white robes and he ends up naked in the bottom of a well being pelted with poo.” Except it wasn’t poo, of course – not in real life. Actually, it was Weetabix. “They experimented with various things and for some reason decided that Weetabix was best; apparently it flew through the air better.

“But it’s apt in a way, because one of the contemporary parallels that we had in mind for Richard was Colonel Gaddafi.” (The other was Michael Jackson.) “If you look at that footage of Gaddafi just before he was killed, people are throwing things at him.” Whishaw pauses – again – then smiles. He has a charmingly bashful smile. But it’s also a smile to shelter behind. A smile to turn on the world if you want people to like you, while simultaneously keeping them at bay.

So. Freaking. Adorable.