I need to get something off my chest. It’s not a major bother, it’s not the end of the world, but after 60 years I just don’t want to have to say it again. I am not Max Von Sydow.
Look, I get it. When I first saw Minority Report, even I thought it was me playing Lamar Burgess for the first half hour or so. We’ve both been in myriad classic films, we’re both theatrically trained, and we each got totally wasted with Laurence Olivier.
But just this last week I’ve had something like 60 people walk up to congratulate me on Star Wars: The Force Awakens, or demand I tell them insider information about Game of Thrones. Even for an experienced actor with as thick a skin as I, this is getting to be a bit much. Being repeatedly reminded of missing out on these roles does hurt a little. I could have really used that cheque. Because let’s be real, no matter how far you go as a Canadian actor you still worry about bankin’ the Bordens.
This however, is just the latest instance following six decades of being mistaken for Bergman’s protege. To this day, people still come up to me and ask what it was like to play chess with Death, and to this day I have to tell them: “You’re thinking of Max Von Sydow in The Seventh Seal. I am Christopher Plummer. I played Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music.” To which they usually say “wow that role must have got you lots of ass,” to which I reply “Yes.”
I’ll admit, it irks me a little that not once on the set of Emotional Arithmetic, Nuremberg, Heidi, or Dreamscape did someone come up to him and say “hey, you’re that guy from The Battle of Britain!” Why am I the only one getting the short end of the stick here? Just once, I would like someone to go up to Mr. Sydow and say “hey, aren’t you the guy who played Mike Wallace in The Insider?”
It is, after all, easy to tell us apart. He speaks with a thick Swedish accent. I sound like a mid-century posh British man even though I was born and raised in Canada.
I admit, I am being too harsh. Mr. Von Sydow is a skilled thespian, and by all accounts a fine man. It’s just after 60 years, you can’t help but get a little annoyed by these things. But after all, what matters isn’t recognition, but great work – performances like Tobey McGuire in Prisoners, or Jake Gyllenhaal in The Cider House Rules. That’s what it’s all about.
