Five Iconic Terence Stamp Performances

With the passing of the acting legend, we kneel before Stamp and pick out five of his best roles.

Terence Stamp has died, and while that’s not entirely shocking – the London-born actor was 87, which is a good run by any measure – it does tend to put you in a thoughtful, melancholy frame of mind.

Stamp was a remarkable actor. Possessed of a steely gaze and cheekbones you could fell a sapling with, he brought gravitas and pathos to every character he portrayed. His presence elevated lesser material and he absolutely shone when polished by a director who understood that his hawkish demeanour was only half of the equation.

Stamp’s real gift as an actor was empathy. He brought out the humanity in the vilest villains, the hardest of hard men. In his best roles, he displayed, fleetingly but indelibly, an incredible vulnerability, even when playing characters capable of unspeakable monstrosity. There’s an axiom as old as the hills that says the key to playing a bad guy is to not play them as a bad guy – nobody is the villain of their own story. Stamp’s body of work is a masterclass on the theory.

So, these are my favourite Stamp roles in chronological order – I am no fan of ranked lists. But every single film here is 100% worth your time – great movies built around great performances from one of the best to ever do it.

Billy Budd (1962)

Terence Stamp‘s first film role scored him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination right off the bat, which speaks volumes, I feel. Directed and co-written by Peter Ustinov, this adapts Moby Dick author Herman Melville’s final novel. Set in the late 1700s, Stamp is the titular character, an optimistic stammerer who is pressganged onto a British navy ship, where he earns the ire of the sadistic master-at-arms, John Claggart (Robert Ryan), whose vendetta against the gentle sailor inevitably builds to a court martial and tragedy. Stamp is angelic here as an innocent sacrificed on the altar of discipline.

The Collector (1965)

Stamp’s next leading role is pretty much the diametric opposite of his breakthrough. Adapted from the brilliant and controversial novel by John Fowles that has traumatised countless high school students (is it still on the curriculum? Drop me a line), William Wyler’s film has Stamp as Freddie Clegg, a shy, disturbed butterfly collector who graduates to kidnapping when he imprisons young art student Miranda Grey (Samantha Eggar) in the cellar of his country home. He promises to free her in 30 days, but is convinced he can make her fall in love with him. What follows is a nerve-shredding and unsettling psychological battle that trucks in themes of class, gender, and power, all anchored by Stamp’s chilling work as the unreadable Clegg.

Superman II (1980)

Superman II may be campy by today’s standards, but Stamp plays it absolutely straight as megalomaniacal would-be dictator General Zod. First introduced on the screen in 1978’s Superman, Zod and his minions were dispatched to the Phantom Zone in the film’s opening sequence, only to escape in time to menace Earth in the sequel. The costume may disco chic, but Stamp’s Zod is imperious and intimidating, his eyes alive with the bright madness of fanaticism. It’s that ferocious will that makes him a match for the Man of Steel more than any Kryptonian super powers.

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)

In his review back in the day, Roger Ebert noted that the heart of the film is “a middle-aged person trapped in a job that has become tiresome.” That person is Stamp’s Bernadette Bassenger, a recently widowed trans woman and drag performer who finds herself on a road trip to Alice Springs with fellow performers Tick (Hugo Weaving) and Adam (Guy Pearce). While Weaving and Pearce are hugely entertaining and revel in the flamboyance of their characters, Stamp takes a different, quieter tack. Bernadette’s weariness, her sheer exhaustion at dealing with the hand she’s been dealt by life, is palpable. Stamp was reportedly reluctant to take the role, feeling it was too different from his prior work. We’re so lucky he changed his mind.

The Limey (1999)

Steven Soderbergh‘s sunshine noir stars two icons of the ’70s: Terence Stamp and Peter Fonda. The former is Wilson, a recently released English criminal who heads to Los Angeles to investigate the suspicious death of his long-estranged daughter (Australia’s own Melissa George). The latter is record executive Terry Valentine, her former lover. Their collision is inevitable, but this elliptical meditation on age, loss, regret, and memory eschews rote genre nonsense. Soderbergh incorporates footage of a young Stamp in Ken Loach’s 1967 film, Poor Cow, contrasting it against the rage-filled, hardened man we see now, offering us two stunning performances for the price of one.