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Somehow I managed to forget for many years that Richard Roxburgh played Dracula in Van Helsing, despite having something of a crush on him back in the day. I somehow (I forget how also) got reminded of this very recently, which meant having to track down Van Helsing. Watching that again seemed to confirm something that I think I was only ever subconsciously aware of: that he was probably the major inspiration behind one of my vampire original characters, Grigori. (The weird thing is I love The Hound of the Baskervilles with Roxburgh as Holmes. Realistically at this point he's probably my favourite portrayal of Holmes. But he looks so different in Van Helsing that I just... never registered it was him I was thinking of for Grigori)
I also got reminded that he also played Moriarty in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which I realised I really needed to see again because though I had seen that many years back I had no memory of how Moriarty was portrayed in it. As far as I can find out Roxburgh is one of only two actors to have played both Holmes and Moriarty and possibly the only one to do so in screen adaptations. The film isn't great (though actually more entertaining than I remembered, even though, to put it succinctly, Sean Connery and his acting really gets on my tits) and has really no other connection to Sherlock Holmes but he's actually my second favourite portrayal of Moriarty (the first, of course, is still Jared Harris). I love his use of disguises and the switching between accents and his smugness in it. Also I can't help noticing that Moriarty's plot in A Game of Shadows is not entirely dissimilar to Moriarty's plot in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Anyway despite not writing my original fiction for many many years now, I've been thinking about it again due to finding a load of handwritten notes and extracts for that which I've been sorting through, rewriting any decent and possibly useable bits into notebooks so I can get rid of the scrappy bits of paper they're currently written on. It's sort of making me want to go back to that and totally rework it BUT this time I really would like to make it a Sherlock Holmes crossover of sorts, with Moriarty and Moran in it as vampires. If I do that I would also, for possibly extremely obvious reasons, like to remove some of the Russian elements and put in a lot more about Ukraine. I mean most of the Russian stuff that is in it was always more historical Russia and also related to Slavic folklore, some of which is probably not exclusively Russian anyway, and some of which I can't exactly remove but I'm not that bothered about removing all of the historical/folklore stuff. But when Russia now seems intent on wiping Ukraine out of existence I would really like to remove any more modern Russian elements and put more Ukrainian elements into my fiction (and though I haven't figured out how, this could fit somehow with Sherlock Holmes; Odesa is referenced in the Sherlock Holmes stories after all). I don't know if I actually have the energy to do this but who knows.
And yes in case you wondered I do still have a thing for Richard Roxburgh as Dracula even after all this time.
I also got reminded that he also played Moriarty in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which I realised I really needed to see again because though I had seen that many years back I had no memory of how Moriarty was portrayed in it. As far as I can find out Roxburgh is one of only two actors to have played both Holmes and Moriarty and possibly the only one to do so in screen adaptations. The film isn't great (though actually more entertaining than I remembered, even though, to put it succinctly, Sean Connery and his acting really gets on my tits) and has really no other connection to Sherlock Holmes but he's actually my second favourite portrayal of Moriarty (the first, of course, is still Jared Harris). I love his use of disguises and the switching between accents and his smugness in it. Also I can't help noticing that Moriarty's plot in A Game of Shadows is not entirely dissimilar to Moriarty's plot in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Anyway despite not writing my original fiction for many many years now, I've been thinking about it again due to finding a load of handwritten notes and extracts for that which I've been sorting through, rewriting any decent and possibly useable bits into notebooks so I can get rid of the scrappy bits of paper they're currently written on. It's sort of making me want to go back to that and totally rework it BUT this time I really would like to make it a Sherlock Holmes crossover of sorts, with Moriarty and Moran in it as vampires. If I do that I would also, for possibly extremely obvious reasons, like to remove some of the Russian elements and put in a lot more about Ukraine. I mean most of the Russian stuff that is in it was always more historical Russia and also related to Slavic folklore, some of which is probably not exclusively Russian anyway, and some of which I can't exactly remove but I'm not that bothered about removing all of the historical/folklore stuff. But when Russia now seems intent on wiping Ukraine out of existence I would really like to remove any more modern Russian elements and put more Ukrainian elements into my fiction (and though I haven't figured out how, this could fit somehow with Sherlock Holmes; Odesa is referenced in the Sherlock Holmes stories after all). I don't know if I actually have the energy to do this but who knows.
And yes in case you wondered I do still have a thing for Richard Roxburgh as Dracula even after all this time.
