Film critics have a habit, and not an especially good one, of describing biographical performances as a kind of magic trick, a vanishing act. We marvel at the “transformative” process that turns one famous person, for two hours or so, into another. We describe their crafty, makeup-aided mimicry as “uncanny”, a kind of supernatural channeling. And we speak of actors “disappearing” into these roles, as if the true mark of a great performance is our failure to see the artist behind it. It’s a perception that pervades the industry itself, winning glittering prizes on a near-annual basis for highly recognisable actors doing their best to make themselves less so: Gary Oldman’s latex-swaddled Winston Churchill, Meryl Streep’s starched-and-pressed Maggie Thatcher, Rami Malek’s bucktoothed, lip-synching Freddie Mercury.
Yet some of the most…
