The grav­i­tas of Ving Rhames

The thing with Ving Rhames is the voice.

It’s how we’re first intro­duced to him in Pulp Fic­tion, where Quentin Taran­ti­no shoots him ini­tial­ly from behind, the back of his head and its now icon­ic plas­ter (band-aid, if you’re Amer­i­can) the only visu­al ref­er­ence we have for crime boss Marsel­lus Wal­lace, until then a phan­tom fig­ure spo­ken about in anec­dote and fear. While the back of his head tells us pre­cious lit­tle, it’s the voice that fills the knowl­edge gap: his deep dis­tinc­tive bass telling Bruce Willis to ​“Fuck Pride” while Al Green’s con­tra­dic­to­ry falset­to fills the room.

The voice is also how we’re intro­duced to Rhames in his first major fea­ture role, direct­ed by Paul Schrad­er in 1988’s Pat­ty Hearst, a hard-to-find film worth seek­ing out for myr­i­ad rea­sons, chief among them Rhames’ dic­ta­to­r­i­al turn as the leader of the Sym­bionese Lib­er­a­tion Army who cap­ture, rad­i­calise, and then release the epony­mous heiress. Schrad­er is in expres­sion­is­tic Mishi­ma mode at the start of the film, shoot­ing in hazy mon­tage while Rhames intones over the images, only half-seen in shad­ows, stand­ing in door­ways, lit just enough for us to know that he is absolute­ly jacked as beams of light bend around his sweat-streaked muscles.

As cin­e­mat­ic intro­duc­tions go, it’s a moment that makes us sit up straight in our seats. By the time Schrad­er shoots him in the cen­tre of a dark room punc­tured by bul­let holes, Rhames is ser­mon­is­ing, mod­u­lat­ing his voice like a great singer, his pro­nun­ci­a­tion odd and pow­er­ful, motored by an abnor­mal cadence that webs his words in rage and spit: pig becomes PEEI‑g, Amer­i­ca is Ameri-KAH. If the film sags in the mid­dle, it’s because that’s when Rhames dis­ap­pears, tak­ing much of the elec­tric­i­ty of the open­ing hour with him. This would become a com­mon theme through­out his career.

Rhames played sim­i­lar roles in the years lead­ing up to Pulp Fic­tion: short, force­ful appear­ances for icon­o­clas­tic direc­tors, appear­ing for a cou­ple of boom­ing, bom­bas­tic scenes before ced­ing stage to the stars: Lt. Reil­ly in Bri­an De Palma’s Casu­al­ties of War (where Rhames’ off­screen voice is the first thing we hear); a haunt­ed Viet­nam vet in Jacob’s Lad­der, and cop-killer Ran­dolph in David Mamet’s Homi­cide. In Mamet’s film, Rhames is again shot most­ly in dark­ness for his key scene, his voice rever­ber­at­ing around a dank cel­lar while he tow­ers above a wound­ed Joe Mantegna.

Then came Pulp Fic­tion, which doesn’t need reca­pit­u­lat­ing here except to say that it’s strange it didn’t send Rhames stratos­pher­ic the way it did Sam Jack­son or Uma Thur­man. Or maybe it’s not. Despite his dom­i­neer­ing pres­ence – after his voice, the next thing to notice is just how impres­sive­ly Rhames manip­u­lates his body and the author­i­ty it demands; it’s no coin­ci­dence that he is often cast as a leader or pater­fa­mil­ias of some sort – Rhames is a sup­port­ing play­er at heart, rarely receiv­ing top billing and seem­ing­ly unboth­ered by it.

A true char­ac­ter actor who trained at Jul­liard, Rhames’ big moment of indus­try recog­ni­tion came at the 1998 Gold­en Globes, where Rhames won Best Actor for his por­tray­al of Don King in the TV minis­eries, Don King: Only in Amer­i­ca. King was a rare lead role for Rhames, and his Best Actor nod is the only time he has ever won a major award for his art (he was nom­i­nat­ed for an Emmy for the same role). In his accep­tance speech, Rhames did some­thing unusu­al: he gave the award to Jack Lem­mon, say­ing ​“I feel like being an artist is about giv­ing, and I’d like to give this to you.” Awards mean lit­tle, of course – Brain De Pal­ma has nev­er even been nom­i­nat­ed for an Acad­e­my Award – but it’s notice­able that Rhames has only ever been hon­oured for his tele­vi­sion work despite deliv­er­ing a bevvy of sup­port­ing per­for­mances seem­ing­ly ripe for Oscar nominations.

After his Globes moment, Rhames con­tin­ued to do what he had always done, and despite Pulp Fic­tion – and his old acquain­tance with De Pal­ma – get­ting him the Mis­sion: Impos­si­ble gig that he still holds to this day, his work in the after­math of Pulp was more of the same, includ­ing small turns for Soder­bergh and Scors­ese. The lat­ter pro­vid­ed one of Rhames’ finest, the actor wild and charis­mat­ic as Mar­cus, a cig­ar-chomp­ing Chris­t­ian para­medic who brings some much-need­ed lev­i­ty to Bring­ing Out the Dead, a pro­found study of grief and depres­sion that finds time for Rhames to hold a hilar­i­ous and impromp­tu séance in order to try and bring a char­ac­ter called I.B. Ban­gin’ back to life.

Before those two per­for­mances, though, Rhames helmed John Singleton’s Rose­wood, an under­seen and impor­tant film that stands as the only exam­ple of the actor as a true lead. Here Rhames plays hero­ic as a war vet­er­an (again) who inspires the tit­u­lar town to self-defence against white invaders. But it’s anoth­er per­for­mance for Sin­gle­ton that serves as the best pré­cis of Rhames’ art, by turns swag­ger­ing, ter­ri­fy­ing and tender.

That film is Baby Boy, where Rhames plays Melvin, the new boyfriend of the tit­u­lar character’s mom. As with Pulp Fic­tion, Rhames enters the frame filmed from behind, his sig­na­ture shaved head sweat­ing. In place of the Pulp Fic­tion plas­ter, there’s a nasty scar, striped across his skin like fat through a steak. Jody (aka Baby Boy, played by Tyrese Gib­son) marks Melvin as a thug, and gives him the req­ui­site short thrift, set­ting the macho ten­sion that car­ries through the film and into real life, too – Tyrese has said ​“I was not act­ing in Baby Boy…Ving Rhames def­i­nite­ly trig­gered the shit out of me. I don’t like [him] to this day.”

Despite allu­sions to his past as a gang­ster, Melvin is pre­sent­ed as reformed, and used accord­ing­ly as an impos­ing but com­ic fig­ure at first: he goes from being dressed in an osten­ta­tious wine-dark suit replete with pur­ple fedo­ra before a date, to hav­ing ath­let­ic, hilar­i­ous sex with Jody’s mom after it (“your gon’ give me a cav­i­ty”), to cook­ing break­fast naked but for socks and slid­ers the next morn­ing. But then the pres­sure between him and his new step­son pops its lid, and Melvin has the ana­con­da of his arm around Jody’s neck, telling him what he used to do to boys like him in prison. As a sin­is­ter lit­tle coda to the choke­hold, Rhames licks Tyrese’s bald head before let­ting him go, an inspired piece of actor­ly impro­vi­sa­tion, fun­ny and savage.

As not­ed through­out this piece, with Ving Rhames, it’s often the voice that direc­tors high­light and audi­ences remem­ber. And yet his best moment in Baby Boy – maybe in his whole career – is silent, dur­ing a word­less scene between Melvin and Jody, as Rhames com­mu­ni­cates only with his eyes as he grace­ful­ly, insis­tent­ly moves a gun away from a sui­ci­dal Jody’s face, wip­ing it in a rag as he backs out of the room. The look he gives Jody – the way that his dead­ly body slumps and soft­ens to con­vey del­i­ca­cy – tells him that they have reached some­thing approach­ing amnesty, and, more touch­ing still, that all is going to be okay through his support.

Rhames’ career has for a long time now been made up of the Mis­sion: Impos­si­ble impri­matur and DTV work, to the point that Baby Boy, way back in 2001, might’ve been his last tru­ly great per­for­mance. But that’s no mat­ter. Step­ping aside after doing some­thing aston­ish­ing is just what Ving Rhames does.