Top Ten I, Claudius Characters

[Bedrockgames]

Ranking My favorite I, Claudius characters (not my favorite historical figures, but rather as they were depicted in the show as characters). Everyone on this is magnificent, but some I liked better than others. The one and two spot are a real toss up. I could easily have swapped that but in the end, Caligula is the more compelling character for me). Claudius is at the end simply because he is the one you identify with as a viewer. As a character he is great, I like him a lot. Love that he is a historian piecing together the narrative largely through primary documents (and what he heard and witnessed). Derek Jacobi did an outstanding job in the role. But the villains in I, Claudius are what really stand out, so with the exception of Antonia, Herod and Augustus, these are mostly villains or antagonistic characters.

1) Caligula (John Hurt)
2) Livia (Sian Philips)
3) Sejanus (Patrick Stewart)
4) Augustus (Brian Blessed)
5) Livilla (Patricia Quinn)
6) Messalina (Sheila White)
7) Herod (James Faulkner)
8) Antonia (Margaret Tyzack)
9) Tiberius (George Baker)
10) Claudius (Derek Jacobi)

 

[Distracted DM]

I adore Derek Jacobi and Brian Blessed. Tough to detach my love of them to make my choice unbiased. I thought Augustus' wife was great.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I adore Derek Jacobi and Brian Blessed. Tough to detach my love of them to make my choice unbiased. I thought Augustus' wife was great.

She really holds the show to together (the whole first half doesn't work without her). It is tough to really rank them, and I had to leave some people out I may have wanted to include. I think it largely boils down to criteria. It is one of those shows where villains really get time to shine, so gravitated towards those. But one could just as easily rank them by how much they liked the characters as people (I would want to have a beer with Germanicus, but I like watching Tiberius on screen more)

 

[sevenbastard]

Read the book, never seen the show. Probably need to fix that.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Read the book, never seen the show. Probably need to fix that.

They are both great, and both similar but very different. The show is one of the best written television mini-series ever in my opinion and it makes excellent use of the source material

 

[Mad_Jack]

I'm not sure I remember it well enough to rank my favorites, but being a Rocky Horror fan and having met Pat Quinn, I have to say she's probably my favorite just because of that, lol.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I'm not sure I remember it well enough to rank my favorites, but being a Rocky Horror fan and having met Pat Quinn, I have to say she's probably my favorite just because of that, lol.

She is wonderfully evil in I, Claudius (and as charming as she was in Rocky Horror)

 

[the Jester]

I haven't seen it in forever, so I can't really say who my favorites were. But the show, and the period in Roman history it depicts, and the various characters in it, are awesome.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The one person who was miscast was George Baker.

One interesting thing I noticed, rewatching this fairly recently, is it suggests (whether from the writer, director or actor is unclear) that Claudius was on the Autistic Spectrum. 1976 was quite early to reference that. It's quite common nowadays.

 

[GreyLord]

Hmm, if it's the one I'm thinking about, that came out decades ago!

Where can one watch it these days?