The subversive talents of Dan Stevens

If he wanted to, Dan Stevens could be a huge Hollywood movie star; a proper leading man for the ages. He’s conventionally handsome, after all, with light eyes and sandy brown hair – physical conventions shared by rising star du jour Glen Powell. At the same time, he’s chameleonic in his capacity to portray different archetypes; the rugged adventurer, the clean-cut American war hero, the love interest, the mysterious benefactor, the Disney prince. He embraces different accents as if he’s trying on costumes at a wardrobe fitting, slipping in and out of each character with ease; in Cuckoo, he has adopted a light German lilt, as convincing a part of his ensemble as his wide-rimmed glasses or carefully carved wooden bird call flute.

Off-screen, Stevens is charming and charismatic; a clip of his good-natured amusement in response to a newscaster’s unwitting innuendo has gone viral on social media. For Letterboxd, he named Withnail and I and Being John Malkovich as his favorite films alongside The Muppet Christmas Carol. In another life, it would be Dan Stevens Summer, with Tiktok fancams dedicated to candid interview clips and thirst traps, and his name attached to headline a new tentpole blockbuster. However, his resume reflects a different path than many of his contemporaries, with a focus on independent work and collaboration with auteur filmmakers experimenting with genre. With his recent turns as the mysterious Dr. Koenig in Tilman Singer’s Cuckoo, as well as the criminal cop Frank in Abigail, Stevens showcases perhaps the most important weapon of his arsenal: a sustained dedication to genre cinema which has accepted his versatility in kind.

It’s important to note that the breakout role which served to establish Stevens to both British and American audiences was as the uptight heir-apparent Matthew Crawley in Downton Abbey. We were first introduced to Matthew as a reluctant upperclassman, unashamed of his own status of humble solicitor and imbuing his character with a certain affability. Much of his screentime is spent attempting to woo the de facto protagonist of the show, Mary Crawley – that is, when they’re not arguing about who is more fit to inherit the eponymous estate. Such a fraught will-they-won’t-they dynamic served to propel their narrative forward for the first few seasons of the show, and in this role as a love interest, Stevens seemed comfortable playing second fiddle.

With wide, watery blue eyes and blonde hair finely cropped and coiffed, Stevens conveyed a naïveté about the reality of life as a gentleman, one which eventually hardened into a world-weary romanticism. It was strategic, then, when Adam Wingard cast Stevens as the mysterious “David” – the usage of quotation marks a pointed one – in the low-budget independent thriller The Guest (2014), now celebrating its tenth anniversary. Though his departure from Downton Abbey had been abrupt and, at least narratively, quite tragic, Stevens’ shift away from English heritage shlock served as a kind of rebirth for his career.

Such a transition was accompanied by a dramatic physical change. Perhaps the charm of Matthew Crawley was in the character’s capacity for wit, or his honor and loyalty toward his family, but not necessarily for any abundance of shirtless scenes. For The Guest, however, Stevens initially lost nearly thirty pounds, before then packing on enough muscle to be reasonably convincing as an American soldier.

At the beginning of the film, David arrives on the doorstep of the Peterson household, a family whose son was recently killed in action. He claims to be their son’s best friend paying his respects and a photo of the two on the family’s mantlepiece seems to prove his story. However, the daughter Anna Peterson, played by Maika Monroe, remains wary while the rest of the Peterson family begins to accept this mysterious man into their home. Of course, it helps that David is also polite, endearingly genial with a good ol’ Southern boy nature; it’s a nimble performance by Stevens, as he threads the needle between charming and sinister.

Wingard is on record as saying that Stevens’ physical change serves a thematic purpose; David functions as the femme fatale to Maika Monroe’s noir detective, trading shadowy shades of black and white for the neon-lit house parties and Halloween mazes which offer the film its visual flair. The scene where David emerges from the bathroom shirtless – in a cloud of steam with a towel wrapped around his waist – is perhaps the most significant of its kind. It’s certainly a scene of eye candy first and foremost, but as David manoeuvres around Anna in the tight hallway of the modest Peterson house, Anna’s eyes stay trained on his slick six-pack, and there is a classic tension between physical attraction and trustworthiness.

The decision to cast Dan Stevens in such a role is what facilitates this tension; even American audiences recognize the actor and associate his signature baby blues with kindness and warmth; we are initially drawn in by his familiarity. It’s the same quality of charm which David uses to first disarm the Peterson family, and then to infiltrate their home. We know Dan Stevens; we like Dan Stevens. We are as surprised as anyone when he turns violent, deftly navigating action sequences with an athleticism we haven’t seen from him before. Stevens’ transformation is more than simply physical; to accurately embrace a true Southern accent, he steers away from stereotypes and lowers his register to a softer, deeper drawl, which complements his increasingly sinister nature. The Guest is effective in the way it lays bare the shiny, attractive facade of the American war machine, which belies something more cruel and violent; as ambitious as such a project might be, it is Stevens’ performances which elevates the material.

Admittedly, Stevens’ appearance as the Prince in Disney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast is something of an outlier in his filmography. From his Downton Abbey departure onward, Stevens’ career had been punctuated by the likes of Nacho Vigalondo’s Colossal, Alex Ross Perry’s Her Smell, Gareth Evans’ Apostle, and Maria Shrader’s I’m Your Man; assured, ambitious auteur films. His casting perhaps served to capitalize on his popularity at the time, following a well-received turn in Noah Hawley’s eclectic FX show Legion; however, the role showcased the rare dualism which Stevens has possessed throughout his career, an ability to play both the beautiful prince and the tortured beast. If nothing else, Stevens manages to push through the film’s nightmarish CGI and offer something which resembles a grounded performance at the center of the film, where otherwise stale performances pervade familiar story beats.

This is the same dualism which Stevens wields as Dr. Koenig in Cuckoo, who welcomes new families to the idyllic Resort Alpschatten in the Bavarian alps. While he comes across as likable to parents and children, it is only the teenage daughter Gretchen, played by Hunter Schafer, who seems suspicious of such effusive amiability. As the film descends into increasing chaos, alternating layers of Dr. Koenig’s courtesy and cruelty are slowly revealed; a memorable scene briefly showcased in the trailer shows Gretchen recovering from a car accident, with Dr. Koenig visiting her in the hospital under the pretense of concern. Despite Gretchen’s eye nearly swollen shut, her head wrapped in a bandage, her arm in a sling, he lowers his voice to nearly a whisper as he tells her, “I wouldn’t want you to get hurt even more,” while inching forward toward her hospital bed.

Stevens has emphasized in a recent interview with Vanity Fair that, “We can still shoot this incredibly…difficult scene, but everybody’s still friends at the end of the day and nobody needs to have months of therapy afterwards.” If this year has proven anything about Dan Stevens, it is that he possesses the generosity of a team player; often, his best work shines the brightest in an ensemble of equally dedicated performers.

Published 20 Aug 2024

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