I was kidding, of course, about Ben Mendelsohn breaking out the Marlboros and working up a good, greasy sweat for his Rogue One performance as the cruel but brilliant Orson Krennic, an Imperial Military Director obsessed with the completion of the Death Star project. I know the scheme — Imperial villains are always cool, crisp fellows, and only members of the rebellion are allowed to perspire. But Mendelsohn needs to sweat and chain smoke. It’s who he is, what keeps him going. If fortune smiles Mendelsohn will one day be cast in an HBO miniseries as Ben Sweat, a pervy Southern plantation owner and the grand-nephew of Ben Quick, the Long Hot Summer barn-burner played by Paul Newman.
