4. John Ballard - Elizabeth
No relation to futuristic pessimist J.G., John Ballard is an emissary sent by the Pope to give Elizabeth a good shoeing direct from God. So, hes a religious nutter who loves a good bit of murdering, which sounds quite good; its just that hes superviolent to the exclusion of having any other characteristics. That said, this role was his first chance to get in amongst a gifted ensemble cast, which in this case featured Blanchett, Gielgud, Attenborough, Rush, and Eccleston among others.This was a big event film after five years of either TV work or arthouse flicks, so perhaps his willingness to just go along with it was borne out of a sense of getting up another rung on the ladder. Hes also only in three scenes and so its understandably quite tricky to get much in the way of nuance during such a tight timeframe, but all he really does is walk quite purposefully along dark passageways before either stoving someones head in or swooping into a chancel. This role did at least serve some notice of Craigs skills when it comes to a juicy torture scene; he really takes a convincing battering. However, its a mark of how little room the role gives for extemporisation that its genuinely really hard to give a toss as to whether he gets disembowelled, stretched on the rack, or just made to watch The Invasion again.