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Character and Actor Merge in These Illustrations of Hollywood Icons

These portraits pay tribute to the many faces of Bill Murray, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Tom Hanks.
Bill Murray. All images courtesy of Timba Smitts

Illustrator Timba SmittsRole Models is a series of actor portraits that amalgamate their most famous roles. You’ve got Bill Murray split into three of his famous personalities—Steve Zissou from The Life Aquatic, John Winger from Stripes, and Peter Venkman from Ghostbusters. Meanwhille, Arnold Schwarzenegger is a Frankenstein’s monster constructed from Conan the Barbarian, the Terminator, and Julius in the 1980s comedy classic Twins. The portraits are a tribute to the versatility of some of Hollywood’s biggest players, but they're also a personal movie-watching history.

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“I started out thinking about and reflecting on all the movies I’ve ever loved, old and new, the actors that star in them and the characters they portrayed,” Smitts tells The Creators Project. “Then I began considering which films and characters have had a direct influence on me as a person. I wasn’t picking actors, characters or films that have wide commercial appeal— for me, the series is more autobiographical than that.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger

A movie buff—he's the creative director of movie magazine Little White LiesSmitts is fascinated by how our cinematic experiences shape us. “I started thinking about the idea of what would happen if someone took all these films away, as if they never existed,” he says. “How would this affect my personality or my life as I know it—like those scenes in Back To The Future where Doc and Marty erase the past to change the future. Anyone who knows me well enough would know that sometimes half of what I say is either said in some voice-over style of a film character—Arnie is a regular. Without these movie stars and their films, I ask myself, how different would I be?”

The Role Models series is more interested in the differences between famous characters than their similarities. The contrast between Twins and The Terminator, for example, is pretty stark. “I’ve always been fascinated with the art of acting, and respect actors for being able to play such wonderful and varied characters in their films whilst remaining themselves at the same time,” Smitts says. “Role Models is definitely about highlighting this juxtaposition, fused with the surreal experiment of creating new characters by combining some of my favourite roles together to form an exquisite corpse.”

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Salma Hayek

Smitts has always wondered whether actors feel a sense of loss when filming wraps on a movie—surely their connection to their character is personal enough that it’s hard to say goodbye. “We all know that the character lives on forever within the movie itself…but in a duplicitous way what I’m exploring is whether an actor continues to show certain traits of their movie characters forever in the real world,” he says.

Morgan Freeman

In the age of Netflix, there’s something special about the movies. Role Models is a celebration of something that’s starting to feel a little bit old school—queuing to buy tickets at a cinema, or popping your favourite DVD on and re-watching your favourite cult classic. For that reason, it feels a little nostalgic.

Tom Hanks

“Because TV now moves so quickly to keep up with the demands of people’s shorter attention spans, this is starting to speed up the creative process,” Smitts says. “And less time is given to fuss over the little details which I love about traditional Hollywood filmmaking—where the director can spend the first act or more introducing a single character, place and all the smaller details so you connect with it on a more meaningful and longer lasting level. I personally love that slower pace over the throwaway nature of TV, regardless of the series’ production value or hype.”

He does admit to loving Stranger Things, though.

You can find out more about Timba Smitts here and follow him on Instagram.

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