I watched Factory Girl last night and let me tell you, it was strange watching Guy Pearce play Andy Warhol. In most of his movies I’ve been able to think, say, “That’s Leonard Shelby, that’s Adam Whiteley, that’s” whatever his other characters were named, etc. etc. But seeing him play Warhol, a real-life historical figure I’m fairly familiar with, was so weird, because on one level it was Guy Pearce but on another level it was supposed to be Warhol and I just couldn’t get my mind around it for some reason. Same when I watched a clip from Genius, which has Pearce playing F. Scott Fitzgerald. I saw it more as Guy Pearce playing Fitzgerald than actually Fitzgerald. But I didn’t think of him like that in The King’s Speech, probably because I know nothing about his character as a person/historical figure in that one.
I don’t know how accurate his portrayal of Warhol was (I’m not THAT familiar with him), but I absolutely loved the speech inflections he gave him, that coolly-interested-and-yet-still-detached tone of voice, and I even loved the way he held himself in character- particularly during the art gallery scene when he met Edie, when the guy puts his arm around his shoulders but Pearce/Warhol is standing there clasping his hands, body angled away from the guy. There was something very personally familiar about that body language. And his way of speaking is frighteningly easy to rub off onto me.