Now My Favorite Thing Is How The Other Actor (who Plays With Brad Dourif In The Same Scene) Reacts To

brad dourif scrungly feature analysis: eyes

from the “Boys” dourif-hottie supercut music video:

I’d love to see an artist break this down!

For now, let me write you a novel about Brad's spectacular eyes...

The Strangeness

(Skip if you want to preserve the mystery.) BD's right eye is placed a little higher, and turned up as if tugged from the outer corner. I think it's part of that subtle something that immediately sets him apart. This unique, catlike, romantic asymmetry snatches your attention.

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The glow

His striking, chameleonic blues capture light — even in B&W — which directors loooooove to exploit by lighting him obliquely:

It's a great way to crank up the eerie vibe of any scene, and I respect Star Trek for trashing that option outright with all-black contacts. (Of course, he still served an incredibly compelling outsider.)

(Edit: I put up a post just about this effect because they seriously do it all the damn time) (...because it's awesome)

Set in shadows

He has hooded eyes, deep-set and accentuated by heavy eye bags. The shadows and textures draw you in toward those luminescent irises, like picture frames that amplify each motion of his eyes.

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Contrast

Sometimes he pops them wide open, creating these huge, expressive magnets...

...Or squints lopsidedly...

...Or interrogates, challenges, threatens — alert but defensive, like a prey animal on the edge of lashing out.

He’s said he chooses roles that "turn him on" (pretty clearly in an artistic sense); many of these blend menace and vulnerability, and our boy dumps emotion into every. single. line. This can manifest as an intense, wary, combative look, with eyes wide under neutral or furrowed brows:

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Cry, baby

...And that's all before we mention the tears. He cries, of course, at will and liberally, and his eyes go red-rimmed and wet, highlighting them even more as he pins someone's soul to the wall with his gaze.

When he hovers right on the edge, they seem to shine in the dark.

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Bared

At times, his fair eyelashes almost vanish, compounding his unusual look with a birdlike or reptilian tinge.

Obviously, the shaved brows in LOTR add to this effect.

A couple more things you'll notice here: he'll hold his eyes wide open for much longer than normal, drawing out these moments and making him seem even more alien.

And when he gets up-close in someone's face (which is often), he's constantly switching his gaze between their eyes — totally fixated, as if scanning for emotional feedback. In my opinion, it adds to that vulnerability: to the object of his attention, he must seem like a predator freezing them in place... but it's also desperate, like a prey animal trying to decipher the other person's intent, all senses tuned to pick up their slightest signal. (Gríma Wormtongue and Jack Dante especially have this pathetic air about them: grasping at sources of warmth while lashing out at the harsh, unintelligible world around them, allying themselves with uncontrollable destructive forces in an attempt to establish a place for themselves........)

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TL;DR

The eyes — and how he uses them — are the standout scrungly feature, the main reason we can’t look away from this unforgettable weirdo.

The cat-eye asymmetry pulls focus;

His ice-blue irises are light traps, framed in textured shadow;

His full-bore emotional commitment ramps up the anguish and torment to an aching crescendo that's impossible to ignore.

Eventually I'll follow up on other contributing factors, but for now, I'll leave you with a couple of article snippets about The Eyes:

Imagi-Movies: Vol 1 No 2 — Winter 1993/94. Pages 11-13: "Traumatic - Brad Dourif". Link

SoHo News: November-December 1981. "Tension and mercy - Brad Dourif glowers for our sins" (an article all about his eyes! But they don't mention the asymmetry.)

[Gifs were mostly stolen from the GOAT, @exdeputysonso — with some of my own, mostly the square ones. Shout-out to @dragonsbloodsnowcone for inspiring this word vomit.]

Thanks for reading!

Brad Dourif in Millennium - S1.E13 (1997)

drew this fem!crowley a while ago and forgot to post. im simpin' hard and irrevocably

legend. role model. majesty.

nyota uhura you will always be famous to me

It's funny because if you've seen the Duck Soup mirror scenes, without their individual makeup they look very similar! Chaotic Harpo is my favorite (he has a sort of angelic innocence that surfaces sometimes, especially when he plays the harp)... but I'd have to say Chico's the hottest, with that signature rakish charm.

Chico piano propaganda:

Bonus Chico & Harpo pianigans:

I'm sure Zeppo was funny too, but next to the others, his generic male romantic lead, straight man persona never grabbed me.

In honor of Harpo have you ever done a hottest Marx brothers poll?

hm. no.

for those unfamiliar with the marx brothers, harpo plays bass, groucho does rhythm guitar and piano, chico plays lead, and zeppo plays the drums

...Hold up a god damn minute here.

THIS is the Brad Dourif Alien movie I haven't seen yet? The one everyone says is terrible?

Ya'll...

Genuinely can't stand criticisms of the second best Alien movie when it gave us glorious scenes like this

You have no right to criticize the first sapphic film I saw as a child.

I made some things...

I had a dream that I was being seduced by this gross wet war veteran exterminator.

It goes without saying, it worked 😍

Toshiro Mifune in "Drunken Angel" (1948)

Linoleum cut print of Starbug!

I’ve been absolutely obsessed with this show recently and decided to try something new and make a linoleum cut of the bug!