Wallace Shawn is One Scary Guy
Don’t laugh until you’ve seen “Marie and Bruce”.
He looks positively cuddly, doesn’t he? With that goofy, cheerful grin and sly way of being just self-deprecating enough. Affable comes to mind. Too many of us only know of Wallace Shawn from his scene-stealing turn in the “Princess Bride” — incontheivable! — and that’s a pity because the guy is formidable. And it shouldn’t be surprising given his father, William Shawn, edited The New Yorker from 1952 until 1987.
Grow up in that environment and try to read comic books.
Prior to recently seeing Lili Taylor do an outstanding interpretation of Shawn’s sucker punch of a monologue, “The Fever”, my knowledge of his work pretty much stopped at his acting in such gems as Louis Malle’s “Vanya on 42nd Street”, Andre Gregory’s unforgettable “My Dinner with Andre”, and Shawn’s delicious turn as Diane Keaton’s former lover in Woody Allen’s “Manhattan”. Oh, and Allen’s recent “Rifkin’s Festival” in which Wallace Shawn was the lead. Seeing his riveting performance in 2013's “A Master Builder” clued me in to his harder, more sinister and serious side.
But after enjoying Lili’s superb rendition of “The Fever”, my fellow culture maven and partner in life and art and I were compelled to seek out more of Shawn’s work both on film and in print.
