Pete Postlethwaite has died aged 64 after a long battle with cancer.
I can vividly remember the first time I saw Postlethwaite on the big screen.
It was 1996 and I had gone to see "Brassed Off" at the Odeon Cinema in Glasgow. A low budget British comedy/drama based on the true story of a brass band attached to a coal mine in the North of England and that made a series of visceral attacks on the policies of the Thatcher government of the 1980's in relation to the coal industry, trade unions and the communities that depended on both. At the films end Postlethwaite delivers an impassioned speech...
I could tell that this meant something to Postlethwaite, that he wasn't just reading lines from a page and that he was doing something more meaningful than "method"...he believe what he was saying. He was using his "name" to deliver a message that he hoped people would heed. In short, the man had principles.
There are other examples of such principles throughout his life, both on screen and off it but today I think it fitting that we remember too that he was a terrific actor who lit up the screen in a variety of films from the likes of "In The Name of the Father" where his more natural and realistic style highlighted the failings in the performance of Daniel Day Lewis to his performance as Kobayashi in "The Usual Suspects" which despite, or because of, a fabulously over the top accent managed to see him hold his own against every other big name on the screen.
MyFilms would like to send sincere condolences to his wife, children, family and friends. He made a lot of people very happy and he will be missed.
Rest in Peace Pete.
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