The Age of Inesonce
“Chris? Why don’t you fuck off?” - As the British version of The Office was wrapping up its Christmas special in 2003, the few loose threads had already been tied. David Brent had found peace with himself, sort of. Gareth had become the Manager, no longer Assistant To. Tim and Dawn had gotten together at long last. BAFTAs had been won. All that was left to do, the final catharsis in one of the most influential comedies of the 2000s, was for the boorish bully Finch to be summarily dismissed, not even addressed by his self-appointed nickname (always the mark of a true arsehole). There’s nothing else to say to a lad like that. We’ve all wanted to tell the smug oaf of our office off, and with his lack of comeback and face like he’d been smacked with a wet fish, Ralph Ineson as Finchy gave viewers that little window of vicarious living.
Ineson as Chris ‘Finchy’ Finch in The Office.
If you were to be asked following that finale which cast member would go on to have the strongest film career, you would have no shortage of contenders to choose from. And when the American version of The Office came around, it helped launch stars like Steve Carrell and John Krasinski into the stratosphere, with acclaim, awards and box-office receipts going to them and others. But if you’re talking about who has had the best film career, well that’s a slightly different question. And while the main cast on both sides of the Atlantic are well-paid, well-liked and have seldom struggled for work, it’s improbably Ineson who has pulled out in front to have the deepest, most varied and most interesting body of work of them all. And he can throw a kettle over a pub, what have you ever done?
In the early 90s, the Leeds native was a humble working actor, taking gigs as they came in between teaching and coaching cricket. With a harsh, stony exterior like an overcooked Yorkshire pudding, a hoarse accent straight from the Elland Road terraces and a lurching 6ft plus frame, he had the distinctive look to get booked, even if the roles were samey. Ineson has said of his early career, I didn’t really pay much mind to range, because I knew what I could sell at that point: tall, threatening voice – I played a lot of henchmen and gangster sidekicks…I was happy to learn my trade doing that, but as I got a bit older I’ve become attracted to roles that stretch me.”
Ineson has admitted that he was frustrated by being typecast in the first couple of years after The Office concluded, wanting to be seen as more than just some loudmouth sexist. In 2005, the same year that Ricky Gervais launched his next hit series Extras and Martin Freeman was headlining the big screen adaptation of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Ineson had the opportunity to show another side of himself by playing a kind and calming therapist for Shelley on Coronation Street. That deep Yorkshire accent needn’t only provoke anxiety of an incoming slur and cruel guffaws, it could be rich, soothing, like a warm mug of tea. Ineson has what his more high-profile former co-stars were lacking; range and utility. His upside as a character actor has served him increasingly well over the last decade, at a time when that kind of performer is increasingly rare on the big screen.
The character actor, someone who specialises in playing eye-catching, unusual and mostly supporting roles, hasn’t gone away exactly, but they’re definitely becoming more rarely used tools in filmmakers’ arsenals. There are a couple of reasons for this. Casting, particularly in Hollywood, is more strictly defined than ever, even in a nominally more inclusive society. Rather than having casting that's open to any look or background, you tend to have a wider selection alright, but of cleanly defined archetypes - even in grounded indie films it’s typical to have a cast where everyone is conventionally attractive and looks leading-star ready.
In the online age where information is much more accessible and we’re all in constant conversation with each other, the career trajectory of the character actor can also be a little different. Where the cinema of the 80s, 70s and earlier is littered with performers who you could see hundreds of times and never learn the name of, from the 90s onwards it became steadily more common for ‘character actors’ to become acclaimed, earmarked as ‘underrated’ and transition into leading roles. They’ve moved from that spot in the cast list after the sexy stars and into the prestigious (and lucrative) ‘With…’ and ‘And…’ spots, like the Coen’s ‘funny looking fella’ Steve Buscemi going from supporting roles through the 90s into leading his own HBO show Boardwalk Empire in the 2010s - the credibility associated with performers like him going directly to the top of validating ‘prestige’ TV. “That guy” who you see in everything, you can now Google, so now you know their name, so now they’re A Name.
It’s increasingly common for movies to use, or at least imply, an all-star cast too. It’s a trickle down effect from the biggest blockbusters - when everything is a franchise and adaptation, that means every character is someone who fans might get excited about, so every casting decision becomes a marketing decision. If you want people to lose their minds in the cinema when Blorpo finally steps on screen, they have to also recognise the person playing Blorpo. Go to the multiplex and you’ll see cardboard cutouts of characters who are in a movie for 5 minutes, played by big stars. This is how we get ‘Zendaya is Meechee’ people. This is how we get James Corden.
But being a good character actor is all about the hustle, and even in that cinematic landscape, Ineson has made it work. He’s shown up in Harry Potter and Game of Thrones, and had a deleted scene in The Last Jedi. Though he used to resent the part, his familiarity as Finchy, his dab-hand at playing a Brit bastard, also helped the actor arrive at the most successful period of his career.
The harsh horror of 2015’s The Witch is a long way from the paper offices of Slough, and Ineson’s performance as Anya Taylor-Joy’s puritan father goes a long way in maintaining the atmosphere of that film even when the spooky happenings aren’t on screen. He’s suffocating, proud but pathetic, and it’s the tension between his doomed insistence on order and the outside allure of abandon that builds within ATJ’s young witchy woman. Ineson asked director Robert Eggers why he in particular was chosen for the part, and Eggers told him that he had always had Ineson’s voice in his head when writing the character. Sez Ineson; “It made me realise that, in a weird way, the lack of self-awareness and the intense pride of William in The Witch and Chris Finch in The Office overlaps. It meant I could look at my involvement in The Office with a bit more pride, rather than the resentment I’d held for a few years.”
The Witch (2015, Dir. Robert Eggers).
Since that film’s success, Ineson has been busier than ever. In the flickering image of film, shorthand goes a long way to tell a story, and there is a lot that you can communicate quickly about a character, about a scene, about the world you’re trying to show, when it has someone who looks like Ineson in it, whether it’s the pious William of The Witch , the weary general in Chernobyl or the imposing and otherworldly Green Knight in um, the Green Knight. It could be that Ineson has finally gotten that Buscemi Bump for himself - he’s playing titular roles now!
The Green Knight is one of the best films of the year, and Ineson is the firm foundation holding it together, a diverse performer who can change the stories’ tone with seamless grace. In menacing moments, his laugh is manic, murky and mean, like he’s back making gay panic jokes in Wernham and Hogg. Then he’s introspective, open, every bit the ageless apparition in the film’s closing scenes, confronted with a terrified Dev Patel. And his comic timing is sharper than ever, shifting the prestige of an A24 film into a Christmas cracker joke with the film’s closing line.
Ineson has already featured in 4 features in 2021, and has a part in Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth to come before the festive season is out. From local productions to Hollywood, franchises to indie darlings, soap spots to working with some of the most acclaimed creatives in filmmaking, his career has bloomed like the white rose of his beloved Leeds, one of the best character actors working today, however unlikely that seemed as the occasional guest part on a BBC comedy. You can keep your Mcconaissances and your Keanussainces, we’re living in the Age of Inesonce, and below those stars in the sky is a kettle flying over a pub, shining just as bright.
