Let's just forget about Basic Instinct 2, okay?

#3--David Morrissey

Recent movie-watching has not been going that well for me. Apparently, there's this movie called The Big Lebowski that everyone loves...except for me. I hated it with a bloody passion, and according to my husband and a co-worker, this hatred is some sort of film heresy. And Iron Man? I thought that maybe because of the presence of the uber-talented Robert Downey Jr., I might have actually found a superhero movie I could actually like. Nope. Fell asleep midway through. Ghost Town wasted the talents of Mr. Seona Dancing and Greg Kinnear. "Do you still like movies?" my husband has asked. Yes, honey, I do.

There have been two recent film highlights, both made for British TV and both starring my #3 on the list, David Morrissey. The first was The Deal, a docudrama tracing the complicated, often contentious relationship between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and the second was State of Play, a gripping political drama that spanned six episodes.

In The Deal, Morrissey's Gordon Brown was a perfect foil to Michael Sheen's Tony Blair. Thanks to the alleged Granita Deal, Brown, the less charismatic of the two politicos, had to endure years of being second banana while Blair schmoozed with Oasis and was namechecked by bands like !!!. (Somehow, "Shit Scheisse Merde" would lose some of its zing if the couplet read "Shit Scheisse Merde/What would George Bush do if he met Gordon Brown.") The Deal was a prequel of sorts to The Queen, which we all know won Dame Helen an Oscar and also starred Sheen as Tony Blair.

I don't know if I have enough superlatives for David Morrissey's performance as MP Stephen Collins in State of Play, and I also don't want to say too much. It's difficult to describe how good he is without giving away too much of his character arc.

State of Play is currently getting a Hollywood do-over, with Ben Affleck in the Morrissey role. I don't dislike Affleck--he did fantastic work in the extremely underrated Changing Lanes--but I can't deny that I don't think about Jennifer Lopez's handpuppet singing "I love you, Ben/You almost make me forget about tacos!" Thanks, Trey and Matt.

Unfortunately, David Morrissey is probably best known in the States as that guy who starred opposite Sharon Stone in the ill-fated Basic Instinct sequel. He was also in the apparently craptastic The Reaping. Hopefully, his agent can get him better work on this side of the pond.

Hubby Netflixed The Other Boleyn Girl a couple months ago. I didn't watch it, but since then I've learned that TWO guys on this list (Rylance and Morrissey) were in it.

Useless trivia: Morrissey was given an honorary fellowhip by Liverpool John Moores University. I once dated a guy who attended LJMU. Unlike Morrissey, he was not a native Liverpudlian. ("Liverpudlian" might be my favorite demonym.)

Surname-related anecdote: I went to high school with this guy who was totally obsessed with The Smiths. How obsessed was he? In our yearbook, his picture is listed under "Steven Patrick Morrissey." How dense am I? When I first saw the name, I didn't look at the picture. So then I got all excited! "Wow, there's a guy named Steven Patrick Morrissey who goes to my podunk school! How cool is that!" Then, I, uh, looked at the pic...and I had been Rick Rolled in a 1990's way.