Bitch We Got Problem – Peter O'Toole/Eli

Is Eli Cross to be trusted? In a world of post Vietnam War paranoia, specifically that of veteran Cameron, it is hard to tell. Cameron’s complicated life spins further into a blurring of his reality, a film set and behind the scenes drama - all encompassed in an actual movie!

As a director, Eli takes his work very seriously and perhaps too far. As Cameron flees the law, stumbling on to a film set and witnesses the death of a stuntman, it is as if he has wondered into Oz. Instead of throwing him off set, Eli embraces him, both to take the ill-fated stuntman’s place and to keep the on-set incident under wraps. Suddenly, Cameron is transported from one war to another, learning new, risky skills to evade the law, but all the while feeling hunted down by a suspected megalomaniac of an auteur. If Eli can allow the death of one stuntman, what is to stop him sacrificing a fugitive, dime-a-dozen nobody?

Peter O’Toole as Eli Cross makes for a perfect movie villain. At this point in his career, he has transitioned from theatrically trained, Shakespearian savant and classic movie star to … take what you can get. Yet he is the type of actor who at this stage, when they do take what they can get, gives it their all. His handsome looks and distinctive features have with age afforded him the natural ability to stand out, along with that grandiose style of acting. He commands the frame in the same way a director commands his cast and crew.

Eli is the visionary, magnetic and the loudest voice in the room, the one with free reign and the final word on how his work of art should be done. Along the way, various characters will interject their concerns, anxieties, suggestions and critique. Eli’s ability to manipulate, humiliate and flip to tyrannical outbursts keep them in check, but his enigmatic draw can make them believe they have agency in the creative process and that he surely does care.

When Cameron discusses his qualms about Eli’s intentions, he is often dismissed and told he is indeed paranoid, but still manages to plant a seed of doubt in those who say he just doesn’t understand how movies are made. Soon everyone involved will be questioning reality.

The role was made for Peter O’Toole, not just because of his talent for making a character like Eli larger than life, but because perhaps in reality Peter was channeling a darker part of himself. His marriage had ended around the time The Stuntman was made, with accusations that he was a mentally cruel, jealous drunk of a husband. It is somewhat fitting that the layers of this particular film speak to that of how we perceived persona through an actor’s performance in fiction, the one they display in public and the one they keep at a deeper level, leaving you unsure exactly which layer is real.