Billy Zane can make charm feel threatening, and he embraces the heightened acting that pulp invites. We rate the commitment, though Titanic shows how easily a screenplay can use his force to make the same point once too often.
Fi1m perspective
In Titanic (1997), Billy Zane gives Cal Hockley enough force to make the screenplay’s repeated explanations unnecessary. James Cameron keeps insisting on how we should judge the people on either side of the class divide. Zane leaves little doubt about Cal, which makes that insistence tiresome. We were frustrated by how little room the writing gave him once his character had been established. The performance does its job in a film we warmly recommend, but there is scarcely an opportunity to suggest something we have not already understood.
His breakthrough came as the menacing Hughie Warriner in Dead Calm (1989). Small parts in Back to the Future (1985) and Critters (1986) had come first. There were alternatives to villainy: Shelmerdine opposite Tilda Swinton in Orlando (1992), then the title hero of The Phantom (1996). The latter gave his taste for heightened, self-aware acting a suitable comic-book setting. We value an actor willing to embrace that sort of material without apologising for its tone.
After Titanic, villainous typecasting limited the offers of heroic leads, while his career moved towards lower-profile films and character work in features and television. That is no reason to judge all his work by Cal. The ability to combine charm with menace is worth having, even if casting him as another villain can become an easy decision. His willingness to play at a heightened pitch also needs material that welcomes it.
Cameron’s film is the useful caution here, precisely because so much of it works. Kate Winslet supplies conviction where the dialogue is weak; Zane faces a character whose broadness leaves less to work with. His force cannot make Cal more complicated than the screenplay allows, and asking him to do so would confuse an actor’s task with a writer’s. We would welcome more parts that let his charm complicate our first impression rather than confirm it. For a different introduction, try The Phantom, where he gets to be the hero.
Biography
Billy Zane is an American actor, also credited as William George Zane Jr. Born on 24 February 1966 in Chicago, Illinois, he attended the American School in Switzerland and Harand Camp of the Theatre Arts before graduating from Francis W. Parker School. He has an older sister, the actress Lisa Zane.
Zane began his screen career with a role in Back to the Future (1985). He played Shelmerdine in Orlando (1992) and Cal Hockley in Titanic (1997). Other credits include John Justice Wheeler in Twin Peaks (1990) and the title role in The Phantom (1996).
