Ben's fans will all be carrying this picture
Ben Barnes is likely to find himself under siege from fans when the terrific new gothic chiller Dorian Gray opens here in September.
If it is marketed as well as Twilight, then expect Barnes to be in hiding - much like Twilight star Robert Pattinson.
Pattinson was in New York recently and was unable to leave his hotel room because of the hordes of fans surrounding the building.
Thinking about it, though, Barnes (perhaps because he's older) has a better sense of how to operate below the radar and avoid - if he wants! - those girlie mobs.
Even so, if my sense of Oliver Parker's Ealing Studios production, based on Oscar Wilde's classic novel, is correct, then the shrewdly-shot movie will garner Barnes more fame than The Chronicles Of Narnia picture, in which he played Prince Caspian.
The actor plays the handsome title character who appears charming on the surface, but underneath his life is a monstrous corruption.
He has made a devilish pact to retain his youth and beauty while he locks away a portrait of himself that, over time, reveals his true, rotten-to-the-core character.
Colin Firth superbly underplays the aristocrat who leads Dorian into temptation, and newcomer Rachel Hurd-Wood, a stunning screen beauty, captures the delicacy of the ingenue Dorian destroys.
Rebecca Hall, as always, is sublime as the woman who loves him.
