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| John Hurt Image by Olivier Strecker, found on Wikimedia.org |
John Hurt had an impressive career spanning almost six decades. Some people might remember his on-screen performances as Joseph Merrick in The Elephant Man, or Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Personally, the live-action performances I remember him best for were his role as Garrick Ollivander the wandmaker from the Harry Potter movies, Professor Trevor "Broom" Bruttenholm from Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy movies, and Chancellor Adam Sutler from the film adaptation of Alan Moore's V for Vendetta.
Setting aside his British accent, Hurt also had a medium-ranged, scratchy-sounding voice that was very easily recognizable. Many other famous Brits worked with Hurt as well, including Tim Curry, John Cleese, Hugh Laurie, Alan Rickman, Anthony Daniels, Nigel Hawthorne and Arthur Malet.
The first voice performance I ever heard from Hurt was when my mom bought The Black Cauldron for me and my brother. (Good Lord. Children watched that movie?) In this movie, Hurt played the primary villain, the Horned King, an evil sorcerer who sought the evil power of eponymous artifact in order to raise an army of undead warriors he would use to conquer the world. Many of Hurt's lines in the movie were delivered in a low growl or a hushed tone, which managed to make the Horned King one of the scariest Disney villains ever.
I learned of a few other voice performances by Hurt when I was in college. I don't think that I knew before that time that another Lord of the Rings movie existed - an animated one, no less. In this particular movie, Hurt played the character Aragorn, the long-awaited new King of Gondor. Nobody quite understood what exactly was going on with the design of Aragorn in the animated movie, but most fans agree that John Hurt was a great choice for voicing the character. In one of his videos, The Nostalgia Critic made a comparison of the old and new The Lord of the Rings movies and said that the animated movie did a better take on the character of Aragorn. I tend to agree that the character in Ralph Bakshi's movie was closer to the depiction of Aragorn in the books. One thing I will say about Hurt's performance of the character was that he managed to make the character sound fierce and tough. I would also say that his performance as Aragorn sounded close to his natural speaking voice.
Some of the other highlights of Hurt's career in voice work include voicing the rabbit Hazel on Watership Down along with fellow The Lord of the Rings voice actor Michael Graham Cox, Mr. Mole on Thumbelina, Snitter on The Plague Dogs, the Great Dragon Kilgharrah on BBC's Merlin and narrating The Tigger Movie.
Hurt passed away on January 25, 2017. He was 77 years old.
For his services in the entertainment industry, Hurt was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2004 and a Knight Bachelor in 2015. While he didn't win, he did also receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor in the movie Midnight Express.
If you'd like to leave a like or a comment on the original videos, click on the links below:
The Black Cauldron and The Tigger Movie are available for streaming on Disney+.
Merlin is available for streaming on Netflix.
