I first noticed Hurt’s over the top performance as the sadistic and bat-shit crazy Roman emperor Caligula in the BBC production of “I, Claudius”. Also, if you ever get a chance to watch “The Naked Civil Servant” (another Brit TV production) check it out. Hurt plays Quentin Crisp, the notorious, but hysterically funny British gay writer.

A friend of mine, a make-up artist, worked with Hurt on a movie many years ago. For the life of me, I can’t recall the name of the movie. My friend sculpted and applied a facial prosthetic that Hurt wore for the film, and when shooting was over, my friend had the prosthetic framed and hung on his workshop wall. He wasn’t normally sentimental about his showbiz work. When I asked him why he kept it, he said “I’ve worked with a lot of good actors over the years, but not that many great ones. It’s something I’d like to remember.”

Edit: in retrospect, I think what he said was “there’s lots of good actors out there, but not so many great ones…” which is when another buddy of ours piped up, “Dude, what would you do with it? John Hurt wore that on his face. John Friggin’ Hurt, man.”

Or words to that effect, anyway. It was a while ago.