Fugitives facing the firing squad have looked more relaxed than David Strathairn does right now. One of the most perspicacious character actors of the past 40 years, he has been exceptional so often on screen that any attempt to list the highlights runs the risk of simply transcribing his IMDb page: Nomadland, LA Confidential, The River Wild, Sneakers, a batch of rigorous dramas by his longtime friend John Sayles (including Matewan and Limbo), a fling with Carmela on The Sopranos, a career-best performance as a predatory teacher in the indie gem Blue Car, and an Oscar nomination for Good Night, and Good Luck. Today the 72-year-old, who resembles a lean, lined Cary Grant, is sitting bolt upright and strangely far from the camera as he talks via video call from New York. Or rather, doesn’t talk. I have just asked him a question that he considers irrelevant, even impertinent, and he has clammed up.
To think, it all started so well. Discussing his new movie, Guillermo del Toro’s 1940s-set noir thriller Nightmare Alley, Strathairn is in his element. In this adaptation of William Lindsay Gresham’s novel, filmed once before, in 1947, he plays Pete, a soused, weather-beaten mentalist who performs a mind-reading act with his wife, Zeena (Toni Collette), at an insalubrious travelling carnival. The doggedly cheerful couple have seen better days. “Pete was at the top of his game many years earlier when they were in Paris,” he reflects. “He has this idea that he was once a great mentalist on the most renowned stages. It’s an interesting contrast to where we find him in the film.”
