“McQueen defined a fleeting moment in Hollywood’s depiction of manhood, standing between the ’50s kitsch of Sinatra, John Wayne, and Elvis and the post-Vietnam second-guessing of the pathological Eastwood, the sensitive New Age Redford, and Burt Reynolds. He was the first and maybe the last action hero to be neither absurd nor ironic.
(He) cultivated his own mythology through a strenuously aloofstyle of acting that is not without its critics. David Thomson, for one, observes a certain “dullness” about McQueen. Perhaps, but it was an especially radiant sort of dullness. With McQueen, it’s hard to decide whether you hardly notice him, or you hardly notice that you never take your eyes off of him.”
Now Jeremy Renner, who’s apparently playing him, has nothing on McQueen. If there’s one similarity, it’s the “macho elf” look as mentioned in the article here, but that’s about it I’m afraid.
Anyway, you can read the whole article (from slate.com) here.