Kevin Spacey

In The Usual Suspects (1995), a man answering questions holds our attention as firmly as the mystery he is describing. Kevin Spacey's Verbal has to keep his narration absorbing without making the interrogation around it seem unnecessary. We were uneasy listening to him because he kept us reconsidering how much faith to put in what he said. Bryan Singer's thriller is helped by Christopher McQuarrie's dry dialogue, which makes these men enjoyable company without asking us to approve of them.

An early ensemble role came in Glengarry Glen Ross (1992); The Usual Suspects and Se7en (both 1995) brought the breakthrough. Leading roles followed, including Lester Burnham, the suburban man in midlife crisis in American Beauty (1999). The measured delivery suits characters who conceal their vulnerability or deceive the people listening to them. The risk is familiar too: cast repeatedly as clever, morally dubious men, an actor can leave us knowing too much of what to expect.

Curtis Hanson gets particularly good use out of that composure in L.A. Confidential (1997). As the celebrity-minded detective Jack Vincennes, Spacey plays a man who knows how to hold an audience and enjoys having one. His ease gives the other men's intensity some welcome relief. Alongside Danny DeVito's Sid Hudgens, he helps keep the film funny without making the crime story seem trivial. We prefer this use of his control, with enough room for pleasure and vanity, to the expectation that an unhurried voice must always conceal something.

These performances work because the other actors remain worth listening to. Gabriel Byrne gives Keaton a gravity that helps steady The Usual Suspects, while Hanson's ensemble allows Jack's assurance to be one temperament among several. Neither film is beyond criticism: Singer's people can be thin, and Hanson and Helgeland give the women less scope than the men. Start with L.A. Confidential, where Spacey's ease with an audience is funny as well as persuasive.