Dwight McCarthy - the protagonist
Dwight McCarthy is the heroic main character of a number of Frank Miller's Sin City comic stories, including "A Dame to Kill For," "The Big Fat Kill," "The Babe Wore Red," and "Family Values." The story is that Dwight used to be a news photo journalist and photographer in love with a woman by the name Ava. Ava, however, left him for the multi-millionaire Damien Lord and Dwight's life fell to pieces bit by bit, until she made an unexpected return in "A Dame to Kill For" and manipulated him into killing Lord, at which point she attempted to shoot him to death. Dwight was, however, saved by his friend Marv, and brought to Old Town.
While in Old Town, Dwight managed to convince Gail and the girls of Old Town to put him back together, fix his face, rebuild his body, and give him a new identity. He then hunted down Ava and, revenging her back-stabbing him, killed her.
Dwight has an interesting and complex character. In the first half of "A Dame to Kill For" he is a man on the edge, attempting to keep his temper (which seems to be fairly violent) under control. After his rebuilding, he seems more 'calm' and relaxed. In the later stories, he is much more in control, both in terms of his emotions and his actions. Although he is capable of gruesome violence, Dwight actually tries to keep people from hurting each other, making him one of the few heroic characters in Sin City. Most of his involvement in the later Sin City stories revolves around him trying to assist the girls of Old Town in some fashion.
Clive Owen - behind the protagonist
British import Clive Owen's performance in the title role of Mike Hodges' sleeper hit Croupier had critics comparing him to the likes of Bogart, Mitchum, and Connery. More recently, he won the Golden Globe Award and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his work in Mike Nichols' Closer.
His recent film credits also include Beyond Borders, a romantic war drama co-starring Angelina Jolie, the Mike Hodges thriller I'll Sleep When I Am Dead and King Arthur, co-starring Ioan Gruffudd and Keira Knightley. Owen first came to the British public's attention as the star of the television series Chancer. U.S. audiences later saw him starring opposite Catherine Zeta-Jones in Jack Gold's telefilm adaptation of The Return of the Native, which aired on CBS. More recently, he starred in the BBC's Second Sight police drama, which aired on PBS's Mystery!
Owen's feature films also include Beeban Kidron's Vroom, Stephen Poliakoff's Close My Eyes and Century, Sean Mathias' Bent, Joel Hershman's Greenfingers and Academy Award-winning director Robert Altman's star-studded Gosford Park. His acclaimed stage work includes portraying Romeo at the Young Vic, starring in Sean Mathias' staging of Noel Coward's Design for Living and playing the lead role in Patrick Marber's original production of Closer at the Royal National Theater.
His U.K. telefilm credits also include Andrew Grieve's Lorna Doone, Andy Wilson's An Evening with Gary Lineker, Diarmuid Lawrence's The Echo and David Blair's Split Second. In the fall of 2001, he starred in London in Lawrence Boswell's staging of Peter Nichols' A Day in the Death of Joe Egg and in The Hire series of BMW Internet short features, in which he was directed by (respectively) John Frankenheimer, Ang Lee, Wong Kar-wai, Guy Ritchie, and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.
For more information on Clive and his work, please visit the excellent Clive-Owen.org.
* * * *
In the film adaptation of Sin City, Dwight is briefly seen in the Marv storyline, but is then the central character of the middle part of the movie. This storyline focuses on the Sin City story entitled "The Big Fat Kill" in which Dwight ends up embroiled in the cover-up of the death of a police officer.
Clive Owen will once again return to the role of Dwight McCarthy in the upcoming Sin City 2, slated for a 2008-release. Among new and returning cast is rumored to be Academy Award-winner Rachel Weisz, who might be cast in the role of Ava Lord.
Pictures
Pictures of Clive Owen as Dwight McCarthy in Sin City (2005).
Credits: Information; here and here, pictures; here.
|
|
