Arnold Vosloo: charming scoundrel

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

If you asked him what he could do in Hollywood, he would, without hesitation for a minute, answered that he could perfect the image of a scoundrel with jewelry. He could not even dream of such a role as Imhotep. The film "The Mummy" was a huge success, which changed his life instantly and forever. He calls himself a misfortune in disaster films. So, Arnold Vosloo is a cinematic hellfire with a sweet smile.

No life outside the stage

June 16, 1962 in a family of theater actors in Pretoria, a baby was born, who was named Arnold. His parents were John Vosloo and Joanna Petronella. Their family has another child - Arnold's sister Nadia. Due to the special work of the parents, the family often moved from one city to another.

The boy studied at the most ordinary school and was the same as the rest of the guys. But Arnold Voslu showed remarkable talent as a dramatic actor. This could be seen even in the boy's childhood, when he actively participated in any school productions.

Villain or romantic hero?

After military service VosluHe graduated from acting classes in his native Pretoria. A little later, he became one of the members of the troupe of the State Theater of South Africa. If then someone had told him, an actor performing on the stage in the role of a romantic character, that in the future he would become an invincible hero of horror and action movies, he would never have believed it. Arnold Vosloo would have thought he was being laughed at.

Nevertheless, in that period of his life, he played a lot in Shakespeare's plays. For the role of Don Juan, he was even awarded three national Dalro awards. This award recognizes significant achievements in the arts and literature of South Africa.

Attention! Camera! Motor

His film career started just as successfully. Perhaps this was not only the talent and excellent diligence of the actor, but also the fact that he had a reputation as a serious and intelligent person. At home, without exception, all the films in which he starred were loved by viewers of different ages, and critics were quite favorable towards him.

From time to time, American film groups visited South Africa in order to shoot action-adventure films in such an unusual and beautiful exotic place. For the films, they needed local youth with some artistic talent. Arnold Voslu, whose films are now very popular, was the best fit. So, practically without leaving his native country, he managed to make useful contacts. And at the very beginning of the nineties, Vosla was invited to work in the theaterUnited States.

After Arnold Voslu became an American citizen, he began to slowly act in films. At first he was offered small roles, with which he successfully coped. The first was the character Guevara in the historical drama 1492: The Conquest of Paradise. In Russia, this film is not well known, but Voslu shared the same set with Sigourney Weaver and Gerard Depardieu, which added to his experience.

This is how Arnold Voslu started his career. His biography in those years was replenished with the action movie Hard Target. The actor got the role of the "right hand" of the main character's antagonist. Perhaps due to the fact that the character was rather bloodthirsty, Voslu was assigned a "villainous" role. A little later there were "Conquest of Paradise" and "The Red Shoe Diaries 2".

The role of Imhotep is a business card in the world of big cinema

The year 1999 was getting closer and closer. The year in which Arnold Voslu, whose films are still loved by millions of viewers, literally woke up not just famous. He became a world-class star. This year, the first part of the Mummy trilogy was released. Unpretentious, at first glance, the story became overnight a world masterpiece. The plot is simple. Somewhere out there, in the Egyptian desert, a few daredevils are looking for the treasures of the pharaoh, on which lies a terrible curse. Not far from the treasure lies the mummy of a priest who was executed by the most terrible Egyptian execution for the murder of the pharaoh. The ancient Egyptian priest Imhotep and the pharaoh's concubine Angsunamun fell in love, which should never have happened. When the ruler of Egypt learned abouttheir connection, the priest killed him. To save her beloved, the concubine sacrificed her life, confident that Imhotep would resurrect her. But nothing happened: at the very last moment, the servants of the pharaoh seized him. The priest was sentenced to Homeday - this execution has never been used, it is so terrible. They cut off his tongue and closed him alive in a sarcophagus, releasing scarabs there. Making their excavations, the gold diggers disturbed the peace that had reigned in the tomb for many centuries. And the mummy rose to take revenge and plunge the world into a realm of nightmares.

One of the best decisions of the creators of the picture was to invite the priest Arnold Vosla to the role of the lover and risen from the ashes. Subsequently, it was said that this film became his hallmark. By the way, to match that era, the actor had to shave his body twice a day. Many viewers later said that this film ignited their interest in Ancient Egypt, despite the fact that the creators of the picture made some mistakes in the field of Egyptology (for example, the cat was never a guard in the world of the dead, the jackal god Anubis escorted the soul into it).

Arnold Voslu was great in this role. The actor's personal life has developed more successfully than his on-screen character. The first time he married Nancy Mulford, with whom he lived for three years. But a divorce followed. The second time he entered into a marriage union only after seven years. In 1998, Silvia Ahi became his wife.