With over 200 credits to his name, Hurt took on a variety of roles from fatherly mentors to wicked villains and films usually benefited greatly from his experience. While he excelled at the leading roles that films like The Elephant Man or 1984 provided, Hurt became more prominent in supporting roles. Hurt has been an established star since 1966’s A Man For All Seasons, and subsequent roles in 10 Rillington Place, Midnight Express, Alien, and The Naked Civil Servant solidified him as a powerful indicator of gravity. The role in Jackie is a small one, but it's a beautiful reflection on mortality that inadvertently served as a sendoff for one of cinema’s greatest actors. Hurt had been diagnosed with cancer in 2015, but continued to work after a period of remission. The touching scene of coping was made even more powerful given the real-life passing of Hurt only weeks before Jackie’s release. What he does provide is encouragement that there is value in her life. The Priest is there to comfort her, but he doesn’t offer any definitive answers he can’t explain why Jackie has been signaled out, nor does he have an easy solution for her adjustment to normalcy.
The theme of wrestling with the inevitable is integral to Jackie, and it is emphasized strongest in a powerful series of conversations between the former First Lady and a Priest, played by the late great John Hurt.
Jackie Kennedy’s ( Natalie Portman) life was already steeped in tragedy before her husband’s death, but the shocking assassination inspires her to take an introspective look at her own mortality. Rather than falling into the trap that so many biopics do of skimming through events without style or insight, Jackie offers a window into the “American Camelot” and the faded idealism of a nation in mourning. Pablo Larrain’s intimate biopic Jackieis arguably one of the best biographical films of the past decade.