"I think there is something that has brought maths to the fore...I think probably because we live in a world with so many lies, and so much lack of truth, that it has become quite sexy to think of the one thing we have which is the only language that is truthful. There's no way of disproving that two plus two equals four, and therefore, take that to the ultimate, much more complicated areas, and you're dealing with something which is truthful." That's one of the world's greatet character actors, John Hurt, talking to the BBC about his role in the new "mathematical detective story" The Oxford Murders (in an interview that the Beeb headlined, "John Hurt Explains Why Math Is Sexy"), and if you had no excuse for linking to it besides the chance to show the words "math", "sexy", and "John Hurt" in the same tight space, you'd jump at it too. Actually there are other reasons to bring Hurt's name up, now that he has three high-profile films on the horizon. His role is most prominent in Oxford Murders, in which he plays a math professor involved in solving a string of murders. Hurt prepared for the role by being the real-life son of a mathematician and, just to balance things out, being so "hopeless" at the subject himself that "If I got into double figures I patted myself on the back."
Hurt has smaller roles in two of the most anticipated summer blcokbusters of the year, Hellboy 2, which, like the first, was directed by Guillermo Del Toro, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Hurt, whose character was killed off in the first movie, appears briefly in the new one, which he says has "more of Pan's Labyrinth" to it than its predecessor. I'm not sure what that means, exactly, but I did just drool on my keyboard. As for the Indiana Jones movie, Hurt is of course sworn to secrecy regarding its details, but it's a testament to how badly the filmmakers wanted him on board that he's in it at all, considering that he demanded on seeing the script before saying yes. In the end, he says, "They sent me a script - but they sent it with a courier who delivered it to me at three in the afternoon, collected it at eight that evening, and flew back to Los Angeles the next day - which is the most expensive script read ever."