New “Background Check: Jemima Rooper” piece is up at Maxim’s Dirty Briefs blog. She’s a talented lady (which is my first criterion in attraction) who is usually found kissing other women (which is Maxim’s) in respectable dramatic productions (which is theater’s). Caution: the rest of the post is vintage blue movie lesbian scenes from Black Dahlia, so…yeah.
It’s lost in their site redesign now so, read on. Don’t be offended if you’re British. I wrote most of this to tease my English editor and dear friend Nick Leftley:
Maybe it’s just our American ears, but Jemima Rooper ought to be the name of a nosy landlady in a 1970s sitcom with terrible lighting. Instead, the “Boy Named Sue” effect has given us a funny, bewitching-eyed lass who frequently plays smoking-hot lesbians. You might have spotted her as the (lesbian) Elizabeth Short’s (lesbian) roommate in The Black Dahlia. But if you did spot her there, please don’t tell anyone. Detectives are currently investigating the whereabouts of the person who watched that plodding misfire adaptation of a great book.
Look for her instead in next year’s Hotel Caledonia, opposite a (lesbian?!) Jaime Pressley — it’s a horror-comedy set in Scotland, which is exactly where horror and comedy become indistinguishable. “Yes, yes, Maxim,” you scoff, “it’s all fun and lesbians until someone loses an eye. What about the soul of this bewitching-eyed creature?” To which we answer, calling a woman a creature is way creepier than ogling her sex scenes. But then, to cheer you up, we continue to extoll her virtues: namely, being a born actress behind that sultry gaze, a smart dame, and a classy creature. Ah, dammit, now we’re doing it. Lady. Classy lady.
This being-a-good-actress thing is the primary result of acting in England, where the industry recognizes talent, rather than America, which recognizes the ability to sell tabloids. She is further enticing to our crushing hearts by speaking with a British accent, which is one of the side effects of growing up in Great Britain. The other, if you were wondering, is having a deceptive name like Jemima Rooper. Another example would be Eustace Nonnyrotter, which was Bear Grylls’ real name until he killed it and ate its heart to survive.* And who can forget Nigel Scoffington Tippleshire III, better known as Johnny Rotten? Then again, we have pictures of Jemima Rooper’s vintage blue movie. We’ve forgotten everything else.
*Please don’t kill us Bear Grylls.