Also a short code of stuff I've seen them in:
S- Shakespeare movies
HP- Harry Potter movies
BBC - Other BBC stuff
A-Jane Austen movies
C-Contemporary (Love Actually, Bridget Jones etc)
Hades/Pluto is Alan Rickman (A, C, BBC, HP)
One of my favorite British actors! We all know him as Snape from the Harry Potter movies, of course, but what else is there to this lion-voiced prince of the morally ambiguous and mysterious? He was in the Barchester Chronicles, a BBC old-as-dinosaurs miniseries about clergyman who argue about choirboys and somehow manages to be interesting as the slimy and power hungry Obadiah Slope(Slope? Snape? resemblance?). From Austen, he is in Emma Thompson's "Sense and Sensibility" where he plays the seasoned and mature Colonel Brandon opposite Kate Winslet, who plays what we today would call jailbait. And in the contemporary scene, he is Emma Thompson's wandering husband, the opposite of Snape in a way--he is not outwardly creepy but manages to succumb to weakness in the end. But despite this, he is the king of darkness in my pantheon, like Hades, king of the Underworld.
Apollo is Kenneth Brannagh (S, HP, A)
I'm sure he's in more stuff and I'm forgetting. Branagh is famous for his epic "Hamlet" and other Shakespeare things, my favorites being "Othello" and "Much Ado About Nothing." Branagh has shining golden hair and a very bright expression, so it's no wonder he's Apollo, as well as Gilderoy Lockheart, the beautiful and narcissistic pseudohero in the HP movies.
Minerva/Athena is Emma Thompson (A, S, HP, C)
Emma Thompson is the queen of wit and ubiquity. She directs and acts. I've noticed that a lot of her characters, especially ones that are central, are very sharp and composed women. Consider Beatrice, of "Much Ado About Nothing," Elinor of "Sense and Sensibility," and the wronged wife in "Love Actually" (the exception being the loony Professor Trelawney in HP). I would peg her as a sort of British Tina Fey. Emma Thompson's witty writing, directing and acting earn her the spot as Athena.
Artmeis/Diana is Keira Knightley (A, C)
Keira Knightley is my Diana because she is the huntress, the simultaneous sex symbol and Amazon. More known in American cinema, she's Elizabeth Swann, the lady-turned-pirate in Pirates of the Carribean, as well as a small army of badasses including a soccer player (Bend it Like Beckham), an archer (Princess of Thieves), and a militant queen (King Arthur). I think she would have made a cool Death Eater, but her condition of being very pretty and as thin as a stick sort of conflicts with J.K. Rowling's writing, as she didn't write about any pretty girls as thin as a stick.
Hermes/Mercury is Hugh Grant (A, C)
My Hermes is Hugh Grant because of his usual boyish cuteness and sneakiness. Another actor more familiar to American audiences, he is often the romantic hero, winning love through wit and deceit as much as good looks. In Bridget Jones, he is the neo-Pride and Prejudice Wickham, tricking Bridget into bed while also fooling around with other ladies (or transvestites). He's also the unseeming villain in "Sense and Sensibility" who breaks Kate Winslet's heart for cashing in through marriage to another girl. He deviates from evil but not from cuteness in "Love Actually" as the Prime Minister who saves his secretary's honor and wins her heart.
Aphrodite/Venus is Catherine Zeta Jones
CZJ (confirmed by IMDB) is not in anything Shakespeare, Austen, BBC, or HP, but she is the highest paid British actress in the world and a familiar (and beautiful) face to American audiences. She is in those terrible cellphone commercials that are an overstated testament more of her hotness than of anything great about phone service. She is in the Zorro movies and a lot of stuff with George Clooney. Famous perhaps more for her appearance than her art, CZJ is Aphrodite.
I think that's all for now. There's some others I would include but maybe more later.
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