The Human Stain |
Wentworth Miller’s first major role in The Human Stain had journalists and critics, female and male alike, gushing their praise. However, The Human Stain was not a box office hit and critics were largely divided into two extremes, either loving it or leaving it. The film features actors like Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman, but it was Wentworth Miller’s performance that captivated audiences.
Wentworth Miller embodies simple qualities like humility and courteousness. His is also expressive, intense and graceful, bringing his own brand of magic to his performances. Even in interviews, Wentworth’s insightful nature and mellifluous manner of speaking have a spellbinding effect.
One interviewer described him as “luminous” and “the sort of creature you don’t usually encounter in your waking moments.”
Another reviewer described him as having “a voice like polished oak and panther-like movements…neither the camera nor we in the audience can break his distant yet hypnotizing gaze."
In The Human Stain Wentworth smoulders as the young Coleman Silk, delivering an astute performance, struggling with the limitations that ultimately dictate the life transforming choices the character makes.
Wentworth Miller was born in England but grew up in Brooklyn, America. His father is African-American, Jamaican, German and English, while his mother is Russian, Dutch, French, Syrian and Lebanese.
Wentworth put his love of acting aside when he entered Princeton University completing a degree in English Literature. While at university he sang in an acapella group, travelling around the United States and even Europe.
Upon graduating he realised his passion for acting and cinema had not diminished. Deciding to get involved in behind the scenes work he relocated to Los Angeles, initially working as a development assistant. For a year and a half Wentworth worked for a small company that made movies for television. His duties included faxing, filing, changing light bulbs, walking the boss's dog, and buying the boss's lunch. It was also the same place where he would decide to seriously pursue acting. Spending weekends at the office because he didn't have air conditioning, he would “set up camp and raid the company kitchen.” Wentworth would watch all the footage that there was on video from various production sites. That’s when “the juices started flowing”, and he decided to quit.
He began temping to get by, and landed spots on shows like ER and a role in the sci-fi miniseries Dinotopia. But work was sporadic and he continued to temp, even spending four months writing out contracts for known actors. In total he worked as a temp for approximately six years.
Wentworth’s first major film, The Human Stain, now has him mingling with the very same people he got coffee for during his years of paying his dues.
Nevertheless, he is grateful for having seen both sides- “The road has been what it's been and it's taken me as long as it's taken to get here and I don't regret a second. It doesn't get any better than this."
Wentworth Miller has a natural proficiency for acting, diligence and enviable patience. This all attests to the beginning of a long and prosperous career for the highly unique actor.
The Human Stain
The Human Stain is a film that did not receive the recognition it deserved and yet still managed to leave an imprint on the cinema world. It was not a commercial success, but these days that’s a pro with commercially successful films predominantly being “block busters” or more accurately brain busters.
What is unfortunate is that many reviews insisted on revealing the films secret and thereby lessened the impact for viewers.
The Human Stain is based on the novel of the same name by Philip Roth. The producer, Tom Rosenberg, described it as one of the “great American novels”, however, primarily it explores the issue of identity making it cross continental.
The Human Stain features Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Gary Sinise and novice Wentworth Miller. It is directed by Robert Benton of Kramer vs. Kramer fame.
The film centres on Coleman Silk (Hopkins) and the choice he felt he had to make in order to gain freedom. Subsequently he harboured a secret that shaped and ultimately overshadowed his life.
For almost fifty years he was successful at concealing it, but he failed at preventing it from eventually destroying his life in one brief moment.
Amidst his loss he is confronted by the enclosure he has created for himself whilst trying to escape one enforced upon him.
Overcoming his grief he finds solace in his friendship with author Nathaniel Zuckerman (Sinise) and affair with the younger Faunia Farley (Kidman). Faunia proves to be more than just a diversion, drawing Coleman into her own unresolved past.
The different story lines within the film are cleverly intermingled. The actors give engaging performances, especially Wentworth Miller in the pivotal role of the young Coleman Silk.
It is Miller as the young Coleman who takes us through the events that led him to make the life altering decision.
Apart from examining identity, The Human Stain also explores relationships made out of necessity and the strength of friendship. Some of the films best scenes are between Coleman and Nathaniel as the two men forge a bond out of destitution, which then grows into something much more significant and powerful.
Evotic | 
