Photo: Warner Bros./YouTube
When an actor passes, the public tends to remember them in one or two key roles. Or even scenes. For Andre Braugher, queer fans posted the scene of Captain Holt thanking Rosa Diaz for coming out and making the world “a better, more interesting place.” Piper Laurie was tributed with her turn as Mrs. White in Carrie. But for Tom Wilkinson, the citizens of the internet have one image burned indelibly in their brains: Wilkinson carrying an absurd number of baguettes in Michael Clayton. “It’s simply the most bread that’s ever been in one place at one time in the history of the world,” Merit Weaver said of the loaf haul in July of this year. “It’s remarkable.”
One baguette sticking out of a grocery bag is so cliche that it has its own TV Tropes page. But Arthur, Wilkinson’s manic litigator, has like 17 of those bad boys in the scene where he’s confronted by Clooney’s Clayton. The bounty of bread indicates Arthur’s less-than-optimal mental state, although we would have gotten that from Wilkinson’s performance anyway. The man was unparalleled when it came to suffusing even the smallest roles (the blink-and-he’s-dead Mr. Dashwood in Sense & Sensibility). Which is why it’s fitting his career is being represented by a single image. On social media, fans showed their grief with a touch of absurdity. Also carbs.