David Strathairn
Edward R. Murrow, Good Night, and Good Luck
Age: 56
Birthplace: San Francisco
Essential Filmography: Matewan (1987), Dolores Claiborne (1995), Limbo (1999), Blue Car (2003)

David Strathairn can project a thoughtful, serious mien merely by showing up. Director George Clooney handed him a somewhat more formidable task when he cast the actor as groundbreaking broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck (which Clooney also cowrote and costarred in).

While roles in films by Strathairn’s longtime collaborator John Sayles allowed the actor to plumb the inner depths of his characters, few such opportunities were afforded him in Good Night. Still, Strathairn says,“You try. It’s all my inference as to what’s going on when [Murrow]’s not talking. But you have to be careful not to do too much, because you don’t want to derail the audience’s participation into anything other than the story.”

Whatever added value the character projects from the screen, Strathairn modestly avers, has less to do with him than with the people behind the camera. “I think to a large extent it was accomplished by the cinematography and the editing. You know, picking and choosing little glimpses; it was done really deftly, how they built this guy.”

Nevertheless, he is the one being chatted up as a potential Oscar nominee, which Strathairn, who’s managed an exemplary career onstage and -screen while always staying under the radar, considers odd. “It feels as if you put on a many-pocketed coat with one hundred cell phones, all on vibe alert, and they all start going off at random times, and you begin to think, this is pretty uncomfortable. You can’t possibly answer all these phones, nor should you. ‘Buzz’—that’s really a quite apropos word. They say it’s great for the film. Well, if it is great for the film, that’s great.” —Glenn Kenny