Most Distinctive...Rutina Wesley

PEOPLE IN HOLLYWOOD LOOK ALIKE. Moving on.
This week's Distinctive Face is Rutina Wesley.

Wesley has bounced into a tiny spotlight from out of nowhere. She was in one pretty crappy movie in 2007, and a couple of TV shows, before landing the role of Tara Thorton in HBO's True Blood in 2008. Her no-nonsense, also-alcoholic character is tormented by the writers. Everything that could go wrong with her goes wrong. Her mother's an alcoholic, her brother's a drug dealer, she gets kidnapped, beaten, possessed, used, misused, and abused. And Wesley is beautiful throughout. She does an incredible job of portraying Tara as both strong and vulnerable. She's a survivor.

Possibly because she's freakin' buff.

The entire cast of True Blood was nominated in 2009 and then 2010 for outstanding ensemble performances, awards which Wesley was included in. Overall the show has garnered eight Emmy noms, four Golden Globe noms, three Grammy nominations, and a total of 35 nominations counting every other guild and awards ceremony for TV ever. Check out any top ten list of Best Shows on Television, and this one is one it, guaranteed. The show is written by Academy Award winner Alan Ball (American Beauty) and has emerged as one of HBO's strongest shows since Sex and the City and The Sopranos. It runs in the summers and takes 9-month-long breaks between seasons, but that hasn't stopped viewership from rising from 2 million in its first season to 3 and then more than 5 million viewers last summer. The show's fourth season is set to premiere this June.

"Watch my shoooow!"

The show's ad campaign is so incredible that it will soon get its own article by yours truly on this blog, but let me just say that the marketing team behind this show is incredible. I mean look at this tagline:

Ah chuckle chuckle, that's a good one. This is a teaser, I'll write you a whole thing about it soon. Well back to Tara- er, Rutina.

"Hey just chillin', lookin' gorgeous in this weird
dress thing"

She's amazing. I don't get how Anna Paquin wins an Emmy for her performance and this girl here gets no major award nominations, because Wesley here is wonderful.

OH.Right.

Well if you can stomach a lot of violence, gore, sex, language...pretty much anything and everything considered offensive, and you want to see a good show, check out True Blood. The entire cast works together so well, and a show set in the redneck South rather than the Upper East Side or LA is wonderfully refreshing.

IMDb

Most Distinctive...Colin Firth

 

Some celebrities look freakily alike. Case in point: the two brunnettes on the above left may look like the exact same person, but the far left is actress Jennifer Morrison, and next to her is actress Ginnifer Goodwin. They even creepily have the same name. On the right there are Kirsten Dunst and Emilie de Ravin, who also look strikingly similar. I'm just saying. The appreciation of a truly distinctive face is legitimate. And without further ado, I present Colin Firth...

"Hallo, I'm aDOrahbly British"

A little over 15 years ago, Colin here starred in a TV mini series called "Pride and Prejudice" based on the Jane Austen novels. He played Mr. Darcy, and ever since then he's been the adorably painfully British guy in pretty much everything. From Bridget Jones' Diary to What a Girl Wants to Mamma Mia! Colin has been British, British, British. There's this scene in the aforementioned miniseries in which dearest Colin jumps fully clothed into a pond and takes a swim on account of the hot weather. The comments on the YouTube video make it seem like he stripped down naked and danced on a pole for the viewers. The ladies just love it.

Look how cute he is when he's making his "Mr. Darcy
disapproves" face!

See, the thing about Colin is that he's not Brad Pitt. He's not the suntanned California boy, or the hot werewolf, or the cute Irish guy, or whatever. In fact, it's hard to find a picture of Colin looking anything but intellectual. Trust me, I tried.

But isn't this piano playing in B&W sexy?

No, Colin is the serious man, so him jumping into a pond is hot. One reporter described his fans as an "alarming following among the good women of middle England, many of who seemed about to rip this mild-mannered fellow's flowing white costume-drama blouse from his back and do unspeakable things to him." Poor Colin, all he ever did was be a stiff-upper-lip-Brit with a heart. And now his fanbase consists of lonely women who like to read. But that's probably better than illiterate screaming tweens, like the teen idol fans, right? Don't answer that. Let's just move on.

"I'm very serious and well-dressed"

I have to search for pictures of the week's Most Distinctive, and believe me, I had trouble finding normal pictures of Colin. Not because he makes faces or something- he actually mostly just looks terribly serious all the time. No, it's because Colin can't sit like a normal person.

"Wot? This is a completely normal way to sit on a pahk bench"

I thought this was a fluke. But no, if Colin Firth is sitting down in a photo, he inevitably looks awkward: Look, it's funny

"I'm in a bawth tub!"

"Wot do you mean 'relax'? This is how I olways sit in my bed whilst on a bus"

Seriously, go back up and look at that picture of him playing piano. Doesn't it look like a weird way to play piano? It is. But he's just so British that it doesn't matter. Let's have another picture of him looking serious

You know you're a serious, lonely woman
who likes to read a good book if this photo
made you sigh and mutter "Oh Colin, you're
so dreamy". 

Colin Firth has been giving us his best performances ever with the smaller independent films he's been doing lately, and his recent collaboration with director Tom Ford for Single Man. His latest film The King's Speech scored Firth twenty-one best actor nominations from every major and minor film festival and guild and whatnot. He didn't just score the Academy Award on Sunday night for his performance, but he's also nabbed the BAFTA, the Golden Globe, and the SAG award. While he was once discounted as "just" a romcom actor, Firth has been bashing critics over the head with great performance after great performance in the last couple of years. No wait, that's not very British. Ummmm, he's been politely and humbly accepting  dozens of awards for his performances in the last few years and graciously giving the credit for them to everyone but himself. Aw, how adorable. Here, watch his acceptance speeches this year at the Oscars and the BAFTAs just so you can get understand what I mean when I talk about how British he is...

Oh Colin, let's read books together