Russell Brand

Russell Brand arrived as a stand-up and a television presenter, and the role that made him visible in Britain was hosting Big Brother's Big Mouth on E4, a job that mostly required him to talk faster than anyone could edit. The verbal style, ornate, Victorian, filthy, arrived fully formed and never really changed.

Screen acting gave him precisely one part that fitted. Aldous Snow, the rock star in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, let him use the stage voice while attaching it to a character the film was allowed to laugh at, which is the difference between a persona and a performance. Get Him to the Greek promoted Snow to the lead and is the better showcase, funnier and sadder, though it runs short of ideas before it runs out of running time.

Hollywood then spent several years trying to build vehicles on the strength of that one character. The Arthur remake in 2011 is the ceiling of the attempt and it is not high. Elsewhere he was decoration: Rock of Ages, Bedtime Stories, St Trinian's, Death on the Nile. The most durable work turned out to be voice acting, where the accent does the job without the camera watching him improvise. He is Dr. Nefario across the Despicable Me films and Minions: The Rise of Gru, Creek in Trolls, and E.B. in Hop.

Acting has since become a sideline. He is described now as a podcaster and media personality, and the recent credits are talk shows and interview formats rather than films.