John Hawkes

In Deadwood (2004), John Hawkes makes it worth watching Sol Star when somebody else is speaking. The series has ample room for Ian McShane's elaborate speeches, but Hawkes gives us another reason to stay with a scene: somebody is taking in what is being said. We warmed to Sol because Hawkes makes that attention seem worth the effort in its own right. Hawkes, alongside Timothy Olyphant, Molly Parker and Paula Malcomson, keeps the quieter exchanges interesting.

After years of supporting work in film and television, Deadwood gave him a regular role and wider notice. The parts that followed made different demands: Teardrop Dolly in Winter's Bone (2010), the cult leader Patrick in Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011), and the lead, Mark O'Brien, in The Sessions (2012). His restrained menace in Martha Marcy May Marlene is a useful reminder that quiet acting need not mean a kindly character. He can play a morally ambiguous outsider without announcing how we ought to judge him.

That skill still needs room, and Contagion (2011) gives him too little. Steven Soderbergh's thriller is more interested in the spread of a virus than in the people caught in its path, a choice we think largely works for the film. Hawkes, like Bryan Cranston and Elliott Gould, gets a scene or two before being set aside. There is no reason to blame him for that, but nor should we pretend his presence supplies a character the film has not made time to develop. Howard Cummings's gymnasium ward and stripped pharmacy say more about the crisis than most of the supporting cast is allowed to.

We would rather see Hawkes given time than congratulate him for making an impression in a small part. Deadwood is the stronger introduction: there is time to get interested in Sol Star, and the people around him repay close attention too. Start there, with the patience his acting rewards.