Martin Landau and Johnny Depp as Bela Lugosi and Edward D. Wood Jr. in Ed Wood - Tim Burton (1994)
I saw this movie when I was 14 years old. My friend had a sleepover birthday party. She loved Tim Burton, I loved Johnny Depp, and most of the rest of the kids at the party had fallen asleep by 11 p.m. She put this on and we watched it. By the end of the film, she was asleep, and myself and another girl were up watching. I couldn't take my eyes off of the screen. But see, I wasn't captivated by Johnny Depp.
I was captivated by Bela Lugosi.
I didn't know who Bela was other than I'd heard his name as a famous horror actor. I knew the man I was looking at was ACTING Bela. But the sheer pain and depth and hope and desperation and sickness in the performance of that man soaked into my brain and held on for years. I fell in love with both him and Bela that night, at 14, and they have stuck with me in ways I have only just started to realize.
Martin Landau dug into my soul that night. I have only just begun to realize how much of that performance I still carry. The man was a legend. He was light and power. He did not act. He was.
