Lukas Haas

The Pin in Brick (2006) is a teenage drug lord, and Haas gives him the cool detachment the job appears to require. He is an intriguing presence in Rian Johnson’s high-school noir, though we never quite get enough of the boy behind the role. Haas makes us curious about someone the elaborate plotting gives us little opportunity to know. We recommend the film warmly, with a reservation about how Johnson uses the people around his central detective.

Witness (1985) established Haas as a child actor, before a mid-1990s return in Mars Attacks (1996) and Everyone Says I Love You (1996). His adult career has settled largely into supporting work, often in ensembles. Christopher Nolan cast him as Nash in Inception (2010); Damien Chazelle used him as Michael Collins in First Man (2018). Alongside those ensemble parts, he has become a familiar choice for eccentric or guarded figures, particularly in noir, where his reserve has an obvious use.

Brick also makes it difficult to separate an actor’s limitations from the script’s. Haas’s The Pin and Nora Zehetner’s Laura Dannon too often seem occupied with fulfilling the requirements of a detective story, while Joseph Gordon-Levitt works to keep Brendan’s distress close. We were frustrated by The Pin because he held our attention without making us care enough about him. Coolness suits a teenage criminal, but some ordinary adolescent behaviour would have given Haas more to work with, and made the distress around him easier to feel.

Spider-Noir (2026), in which he plays Winston, brings him back to noir, this time around Nicolas Cage’s 1930s private eye. The series is handsome and slightly hollow, with Cage supplying the strongest reason to watch. Its eight episodes feel like two too many. For an introduction to Haas, start with Brick, accepting that the film’s fascination with detective fiction sometimes gets in his way. His next noir might usefully give him a scene that does not have to advance the investigation.