Movie stars are who we want to be. We strive to have the cool confidence of Humphrey Bogart. We yearn to have the commanding presence of Lupita Nyong’o. We clamor for the charm of Jean Arthur. We yearn for the immediately captivating aura of Amy Adams. We can live vicariously through these figures. They afford viewers a chance to be all the things we’re not in reality. Movie stars let moviegoers live out their fantasies. Character actors, meanwhile, captivate because they remind us of reality. Through these figures, we see the types of human beings we see every day at the store, at work, or anywhere else. They help normalize all the messy and flawed parts of our lives with their performances. On top of all that, they make the world of an individual movie feel alive. The best character actors leave an impression on you with minimal screentime. In just a few minutes, they make you believe the inhabitants of a fictional story have a far deeper life than just what the protagonist is going through.
All these qualities and more are exemplified by the career of Stephen McKinley Henderson. Now anchoring the new release Civil War, Henderson has become a fixture of movies of all shapes and sizes in recent years. Why wouldn’t he? He embodies why character actors are so compelling.
Born in 1949, Henderson got his start as an actor in the world of stage productions. He graced several acclaimed off-Broadway productions starting in 1986 and also appeared in multiple Broadway projects in the 2000s. Save for two small acting roles, Henderson did not appear in feature films until the 21st century. Even then, before 2011 (when he started showing up in wide theatrical releases and Best Picture nominees), it was only a smattering of minor roles in indie pictures. This quality of Henderson’s career is important to understanding why he works so well as a modern character actor. Not only did being immersed in Broadway help Henderson hone his craft, it also makes him a fresh face for moviegoers.
Unless you’re one of the lucky few to have seen him perform off-Broadway or in London in the 1990s, chances are you don’t have decades of pre-conceived notions of “who” Henderson is. He doesn’t have a lengthy pre-2010 filmography that informs how people perceive his characters. This allows his roles in movies like Lady Bird, Dune, Causeway, and others to stand on their own two feet. These characters can feel like standalone creations rather than getting swallowed up by Henderson’s larger filmography. Of course, even if Henderson had decades of on-screen performances to his name, there’s a good chance he’d still immerse viewers in the various roles he’s inhabited.
For vivid proof of that, look no further than the 2011 feature Tower Heist. This is probably the only instance in history in which that Brett Ratner directorial vehicle will ever be used as a shining artistic example of something. Yet such praise is actually applicable here since this Ben Stiller/Eddie Murphy comedy contains a supporting performance from Stephen McKinley Henderson as retiring doorman Lester. In his on-screen work, Henderson brings way more gravitas and lived-in believability to the role than this movie deserves! There's this shot in Tower Heist that's lingered in with me for years (before I even knew who Henderson was). It's a tight close-up of Lester's forlorn face in a hospital bed right after he attempted to commit suicide after losing his pension. It's such an evocative image because of the actor in the frame. Henderson doesn't need to speak a word. On his face is years of anguish. Uncertainty over what the future holds. So much of Tower Heist is hollow. In just this shot, Henderson communicates a fully-dimensional human being that grabs your attention and sympathy.
The rest of Tower Heist is surface-level fluff that never quite gets either its laughs or anger at the 1% vivid enough to make the movie reach its fullest potential. But good grief, Stephen McKinley Henderson still manages to excel as an actor here! He even gets the viewer to feel genuine euphoria in a moment during a closing montage showing Lester filled with joy after receiving a gift from Stiller's protagonist. Even if the motion picture he's inhabiting isn't the greatest in the world, Henderson will still leave an impression on you. When you put him in something extraordinary, well, then you're working with cinematic magic. Take his work in Lady Bird, for example.
One of the endless joys of Greta Gerwig as a writer and director is that she loves everyone in her movies. From waiters showing up for one scene to sometimes adversarial characters, she's got compassion in her soul for everybody and all their weird neuroses. You don't need to be "perfect" to get depicted with empathy in a Gerwig film. You can make plasters of your feet. You can be an asshole. You can look like Margot Robbie and still not feel "pretty" enough. Watching the relatable messy souls at the heart of Lady Bird, Little Women, and Barbie, Gerwig offers something quietly reassuring to the viewer. All her complicated characters deserve love. That quietly reminds one that all of us in our fragmented nuances deserve love too. So many performances across her three movies encapsulate this theme beautifully. One that my mind always goes back to is Henderson as theater teacher Father Leviatch in Lady Bird.
Stephen McKinley Henderson in Civil War
For starters, Henderson is inspired casting in this role and not just because he's a veteran of acting on stage. The soft-spoken but decisive persona Henderson evokes for Leviatch is just who you'd want guiding you down the world of acting as a vulnerable teaching. You get the sense that he has experience, but he's not overwhelming you with how much he knows. It's a perfect personality for this job...which makes the character's eventual emotional problems all the more impactful to witness. Henderson's performance and Gerwig's camera frame Leviatch's breakdown into tears in front of his students without an ounce of judgment nor is the sight of a grown man getting emotional played for cheap laughs. Henderson does not portray this extreme display of sorrow as a caricature but rather with such cutting reality. A dam has burst inside this man. That's an event that requires a deftly detailed performance, not mockery.
A later scene of Leviatch visiting Marion McPherson (Laurie Metcalfe) about his emotional problems once again demonstrates Henderson's power to communicate so much in understated terms. Just his slightly hesitant line readings (and the way he emphasizes Leviatch wanting to keep this issue a secret) suggest how much courage it took for Leviatch to make this visit. You get the sense in Henderson's reserved physicality and line deliveries that this is a guy who bottled these feelings up for years and years. He doesn't need a massive monologue to communicate Leviatch's rich history. He evokes it beautifully. Greta Gerwig is a filmmaker who thrives on finding the captivating story in every on-screen figure. So too does Stephen McKinley Henderson find the rich humanity in every role he plays, especially in his Lady Bird character.
Performances like Henderson's have always been important in the history of cinema. Can you imagine countless vintage movies being as good as they were without the efforts of performers like Peter Lorre and Lionel Barrymore? But someone like Stephen McKinley Henderson is even more important now in the modern age of cinema. So many of our lead actors no longer look like discernible recognizable humans. It's the o'l "Everybody Is Beautiful And No One Is Horny" situation. Folks like Henry Cavill and Dwayne Johnson rock impossible bodies that only look like that because of water deprivation. Even Jake Gyllenhaal has now to get into his Road House physique to be a "proper" modern movie star. These forms have gone from being "aspirational" to just flat-out ridiculous. People look so far removed from anything resembling "normal" humans that it's hard to take them seriously.
Thankfully, artists like Stephen McKinley Henderson still exist in this business. He's here to instantly exude a sense of lived-in reality that captivates your imagination. This is true even when he's only on-screen briefly, such as his one-scene appearance in Manchester by the Sea (where he's strikingly surrounded by shelves and all kinds of clutter). In that Kenneth Lonergan movie, Henderson communicates such long-term disillusionment with closed-off employee Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck). Not anger, just quiet disappointment over his inability to get through to the man working for him. Once again, we get a lifetime of information masterfully communicated in the subtlest details of a Stephen McKinley Henderson. In an age of movie stars dominated by Ryan Reynolds and Chris Pratt, we need that kind of subtlety and authenticity more than ever. While his character in Lady Bird sadly noted "they didn't understand it" regarding his play, one can easily understand why Stephen McKinley Henderson is one of this generation's greatest character actors.
No comments:
Post a Comment