Jacobi and McKellen as grand marshals of New York City's 2015 pride march.
All Good Omens (show) fans will know Derek Jacobi as the Metatron. His brief role on Doctor Who is also getting a lot of mention in recent posts, but I'm not going to talk about any of that.
Like his Vicious co-star Ian McKellen, Jacobi has had a long and illustrious career in theatre, television, and film. McKellen and Jacobi met when they were at Cambridge.
I'm not a huge fan of the Daily Mail, but this article, an interview with the two actors, is quite interesting. I'll just quote this part:
Jacobi says he came out to his mother when he was at university. âShe said, âAll young men, go through this phase, donât worry.â I remember saying, âDonât tell Dad.ââ He doesnât know to this day if she did. âI think she did, but I donât know. But they were wonderful, my parents, not much was said but they kind of knew, they got it.â
McKellen hasnât heard his friend talk of this before. âThatâs the first time Iâve heard that,â he says, genuinely moved. âI never came out to my family. Biggest regret of my life.â It turns out he didnât even come out to Derek at university, even though itâs always been reported that he had something of a crush on him.Â
âYes, I did fancy Derek, but I didnât act on it, God, no. It was illegal, remember. I do get on my high horse about it, because it was so difficult. There were no gay clubs you could go to. No gay bars, no gay newspaper, nothing. What there was was a bit sleazy, I suspect. One of the reasons I became an actor was that you could meet gay people. Even then everything was difficult. When you went to America they asked, âAre you now, or have you ever been, homosexual?â I lied on the form. It was a different world.â
I want to talk about Vicious for a bit, the ITV britcom in which Derek Jacobi and Ian McKellen play an aging gay couple, (respectively) a homemaker, Stuart Bixby, and an actor, Freddie Thornhill, for fourteen episodes.
Freddie (McKellen) tells Stuart (Jacobi) about a part he's hoping to get.
I had to add these for the Broadchurch reference.
It's a law that British actors of a certain age play this part.
I couldn't find one with Michael Sheen and the skull, but here he is in the role.
McKellen did the part again at 81 in an age-blind production.
Jacobi's big breakout was the titular role in I, Claudius on the BBC in 1976.
In the '90s, Jacobi played amateur sleuth and 12th century monk, Brother Cadfael on the ITV series.
I had watched some of Vicious before, but, spurred on by Jacobi's reappearance on Good Omens, looked for it again and watched both seasons a couple of weeks ago. Because I love a good fancast and Jacobi and Sheen (at least as Aziraphale) remind me a little of each other, I couldn't help but think that Jacobi and McKellen in their youth could have played a version of Aziraphale and Crowley. (There have been a couple of posts noting this about Jacobi, and that he might have been up for the part if it had been done soon after the book came out.)
Jacobi, left, and McKellen, right (obviously).
I also think that Tennant and Sheen could have pulled off playing Freddie and Stuart in a flashback.
An even younger version of Freddie and Stuart does appear in the series, however, played by Luke Treadaway and Samuel Barnett.
Also good casting! They do a great job playing McKellen and Jacobi playing Freddie and Stuart.
Shoutout to this post by @ember-knights, that suggested Good Omens fans should check out Vicious for a glimpse of what life in the South Downs cottage might be. And also to other posts mentioning Vicious and Good Omens in the same breath, as well as comparing Sheen and Tennant to Jacobi and McKellen (which I probably reblogged but can't find right now).
Cast of Vicious: Frances de la Tour, Iwan Rheon, Philip Voss, Ian McKellen, Derek Jacobi, Marcia Warren (Wikipedia). (Yes, the upstairs neighbor (Rheon) does go on to play Ramsay Bolton on Game of Thrones. He's a sweetheart in this, though.)
Now, I don't think Crowley and Aziraphale are the same as Freddie and Stuart, by any means. Freddie and Stuart say quite cruel things to each other. The characters become deeper in the second season; itâs a little sweeter than the first. I enjoy the bitterness of the first season too, though. It is funny, and Good Omens fans may enjoy watching it if only to see Derek Jacobi (who plays the Metatron) in a comedy role and a role that's sympathetic, especially if they are not familiar with his large and impressive body of work.
I don't think Aziraphale and Crowley's life in the bookshop as a couple, not just a group of two, or life on the South Downs, would be exactly like this, but there are somehow some similarities that I don't even know how to begin to pinpoint or explicate.
Crowley and Aziraphaleâs affection is always so palpable and thatâs not always clear with Freddie and Stuart. Crowley and Aziraphale are so loving that, even when they're bickering, it's joyful, even when they're arguing, even when they're coming apart (temporarily) at the seams, their love is undeniable. I donât even think their breakup was toxic; although they were desperate at that point and hurt each other badly, it wasn't what they wanted. Sometimes it's that way.
And, lest I'm putting you off Vicious here, the Ineffable Husbands are a high bar as love stories go, but you will get to see some love and affection between Freddie and Stuart too, and I'd really love to see these actors work together more. (I am happy with how the show ends up, by the way.)
Toodle-loo! Hope everything is tickety-boo with you.
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