James Spader

[Leo]

he's different from Kevin spacey but his characters have some of the same sleazy elements.

 

[IdleRich]

He's become a very different type of human being. Like he gets to live two lives.

That's the very positive way to look at it.

 

[IdleRich]

Look at the first picture Version posted. Imagine looking like that. Imagine what you could do.

It's never crossed my mind before particularly but seeing all these pictures of him makes me think he looks quite a lot like the young David Hemmings.

 

[IdleRich]

surprised no one's mentioned "secretary", with Maggie Gyllenhaal. creepy sexy time.

In my head this is the point after which he completely disappeared. Strange cos I thought that was a film that was critically well-received and presumably (really I've no idea) at least moderately good box-office, but after that I never heard of him again or thought of him in fact until he popped up on my screen as the ancient evilish mastermind character in The Blacklist.

 

[william kent]

 

[craner]

Wall Street!

 

[craner]

It's an interesting exercise, using Wikipedia and Google Image to connect the dots of his physical decline. Like, in Secretary (2002) he still looks recognizably Young Spader and (in fact) he is 42 in that film, my age now. Then he spends 4 years in the TV series Boston Legal, and in this role his face gets fatter and rounder and his belly starts to grow beneath the expensive suits. This is the red meat of his 40s, but, crucially, he still has his hair. Maybe, if you watched the series carefully, you could see it thinning out. Then there's some stage work (off camera) until her reappears in 2011 in The Office and then after that The Blacklist. Now the hair has almost gone and the physical ruin is almost complete, and all of us stare at our mortality.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

All girls loved him in the 1980s

not just girls, I'm sure

young Spader was good-looking in the way you can describe a man as beautiful, as you say gorgeous

the feathered hair, angelic features, full lips - a Botticelli come to life as idyllic 80s WASP yuppie

not that male beauty automatically equates to queerness, but you see what I'm getting at

that element approaching androgyny - with his hair slicked back a la Less Than Zero he looks not totally unlike a young, blonde Tilda Swinton

there's an element of gender and sexual ambiguity that he (courageously, for the times) leans into, or at least doesn't deny

even without the sexual element it's interesting as a softer take on yr typical post-Miami Vice Don Johnson 80s image of white yuppie male virility

i.e. compare to this to that first pic @version posted

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

there's a kind of interesting resolution of the Johnson-Spader dialectic of 80s white yuppie male virility

that being Willem Dafoe and William Petersen in To Live and Die in L.A.

which is general kind of a darker, more adult (i.e. not 80s network TV) take on Miami Vice

William Petersen is basically doing a darker, more adult version of Don Johnson shoulder pads etc rugged masculinity

and Defoe has that evil preppie thing going on, but because he's Dafoe and not Spader, the vibe is full-on weirdo rather than sensuous or louche

and tho they're both coded as hetero - especially Petersen - there's definitely a sexual undercurrent to their cop chasing master criminal relationship

i.e.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I'm pro-fat Spader btw

he was a great delight in Lincoln, stole every he scene he was in

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

he's different from Kevin spacey but his characters have some of the same sleazy elements

Spacey was never beautiful, and his creepiness is never sensuous (excepting American Beauty but that's specific and deliberate)

it's kind of interesting to reflect on, knowing that Spacey was an actual closeted queer person and (unrelated) actual creep offscreen

 

[craner]

I'm pro-fat Spader btw

he was a great delight in Lincoln, stole every he scene he was in

That's what I mean, his screen charisma is still amazing. Robert California was a fantastic, polymorphously perverse, dark comic creation.

 

[yyaldrin]

i've never heard of james spader but is this the beautiful men thread now?

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

i've never heard of james spader but is this the beautiful men thread now?

it can be if you want it to be, boss

hit us with that male beauty

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

how is this not a young Tilda Swinton

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

 

[craner]

There's something about the physical decline of Spader that goes to the heart of our existence. It says something profound and poignant about time. It's existential.

 

[craner]

Young Spader is a lot prettier than Tilda Swinton.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Robert California was a fantastic, polymorphously perverse, dark comic creation

it's interesting in the same way Eastwood deconstructing his own mythology in Unforgiven is

much less grave, of course

but as only old grizzled Eastwood could have done that take Eastwood archetype

only fat Spader can do that take on young beautiful Spader

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Young Spader is a lot prettier than Tilda Swinton

I don't disagree