Before Andrew Scott: Who else has played ‘Ripley’?
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Tom Ripley is back and in a big way. First introduced in Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 psychological thriller novel, Ripley is a sociopath, murderer, and con artist. He’s also the character Highsmith identified with-no wonder she wrote four more novels featuring Ripley. A 2023 New York Times article stated, “her concepts are daring, her portrayals of men in the throes of personality disorder and psychopathic leanings are equally repulsive and propulsive…she was a lesbian who identified more with men; an ardent pursuer of pleasure, especially in her youth…a raging antisemite…she could never hold on to happiness.”
Andrew Scott, the “hot priest” of “Fleabag,” is the latest actor to play the character described as having “an elusive sexuality,” in Netflix’s “Ripley,” a handsome, black-and-white limited series from Oscar-winning screenwriter/director Steve Zaillian (“Schindler’s List”).
More from GoldDerby
WGA Awards 2024: Best prediction scores by our Editors and Users
'Hacks' stars and producers prep for show's overdue Season 3 return by defending why women are funny
Metro Boomin and Future's path to Grammys in 2025 with their collab album 'We Don't Trust You'
Ripley’s a small-time con man living in a seedy room in New York City scamming anyone he can to survive. As luck would have it, he’s hired by a wealthy man to travel to Italy to convince his prodigal son, Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn), to return home. Ripley ends up killing Dickie and assumes his identity in Rome.
Scott’s Ripley is a cipher, almost devoid of his own personality. No wonder he finds it easy to assume someone’s identity. NPR’s review noted “in this version Tom is not the kid who never meant to end up in a terrible situation and might have lived a perfectly normal life if not for collision with Dick’s father…This version of Tom is pure con artist from the opening frames…much of it specifically by pretending to be someone he’s not.” Though Ripley is 25 in the first novel, he’s older in this version; Scott was 45 when he began filming. Making Ripley older also ups the ante; it makes him more desperate when he arrives in Italy,
The first adaptation of “Talented Mr. Ripley” was done live in 1956 on “Studio One” anthology series starring Keefe Brasselle, best known for the 1953 turkey “The Eddie Cantor Story.” Franklin J. Schaffner, who would win the Oscar for 1970’s “Patton,” directed.
The stunning Alain Delon, the blue-eyed French superstar, was the perfect age to play Ripley in Rene Clément’s terrific sun-soaked 1960 classic “Purple Noon” also starring Maurice Ronet as Dickie. “Purple Noon” had disappeared, though, until Martin Scorsese had it restored and re-released to rave reviews in 1996.
Though “Ripley” harkens back to the noirs of the 1940s and 1950s, a 2012 A.V. Club article noted that “Purple Noon” is a “daytime” noir “drawing a bracing contrast between the sun-kissed beauty of Italian waterways and city squares and the restless, deceiving, murderous habits of a man desperately clinging to his new social status. ‘Purple Noon’ is as sinister and amoral as the darkest crime thriller-that it looks like a travelogue makes it all the more unnerving.”
Matt Damon is all preppy, boy-next-door as Ripley in Anthony Minghella’s 1999 “The Talent Mr. Ripley,” which makes his murder of Dickie (Jude Law) even more terrifying. A recent New York Times piece noted that Damon’s Ripley is “less of a schemer, his cruelty tends to be improvised, the result of emotional torment rather than sociopathic planning. This Ripley isn’t a criminal at the start, merely someone who stumbles into the elder Greenleaf’s life and gets sent to Italy by chance.” The film earned five Oscar nominations including supporting actor for Law.
Ripley is also front and center in two adaptations of 1974’s “Ripley’s Game,” the third novel in Highsmith’s series. Wim Wenders’ acclaimed 1977 “The American Friend” finds Ripley living the high life in Hamburg, Germany involved in an art forgery scheme. Bruno Ganz plays a dying picture framer who refuses to shake Ripley’s hand, and Ripley doesn’t like being slighted.
John Malkovich earned strong reviews in the 2002 thriller, “Ripley’s Game”. Roger Ebert said that Malkovich is “precisely the Tom Ripley I imagine when I read the novels” adding Malkovich gives “one of [his] most brilliant and insidious performances; a study in evil that teases the delicate line between heartlessness and the faintest glimmers of feeling.”
“Ripley Under Ground,” starring Barry Pepper, is based on the second Ripley novel, has remained under ground so to speak. It sat on the shelf for a couple of years before it premiered at the 2005 AFI. Reviews were poor with Variety stating Ripley adaptations rise and fall on “the casting and the talented Mr. Barry Pepper is not capable of pulling off the demonically complicated and murderous con artist.”
Make your predictions at Gold Derby now. Download our free and easy app for Apple/iPhone devices or Android (Google Play) to compete against legions of other fans plus our experts and editors for best prediction accuracy scores. See our latest prediction champs. Can you top our esteemed leaderboards next? Always remember to keep your predictions updated because they impact our latest racetrack odds, which terrify Hollywood chiefs and stars. Don’t miss the fun. Speak up and share your huffy opinions in our famous forums where 5,000 showbiz leaders lurk every day to track latest awards buzz. Everybody wants to know: What do you think? Who do you predict and why?
SIGN UP for Gold Derby newsletters and updates
Best of GoldDerby
Sign up for Gold Derby's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
