Rob Morrow

Rob Morrow’s professionals are often bright and not quite as worldly as they need to be. That gives him something more useful to play than simple competence, particularly when his precision meets the neurotic comedy of Dr. Joel Fleischman in Northern Exposure (1990–1995). The breakthrough television lead established a strength that matters to us: comic timing within an ensemble. His appeal depends on giving those clever characters some difficulty that a ready answer cannot resolve.

In Quiz Show (1994), he plays Dick Goodwin for Robert Redford, and the investigative role gives that intelligence a serious purpose. Morrow is well suited to a film whose sharp writing and performances keep complicating easy judgements about television fraud. We were unsettled by its attention to who gets believed, because the scandal becomes harder to dismiss when credibility depends on more than telling the truth. It is a strong place to start with his film work, though our admiration is for the ensemble rather than a single performance.

His career has repeatedly moved between television leads and film supporting parts, with Mother (1996), opposite Albert Brooks, following Quiz Show. Maze (2000), which he wrote, directed and starred in, gave him responsibility beyond the performance. He then returned to a sustained television lead as FBI agent Don Eppes in Numb3rs (2005–2010). The recurring professional roles make sense for an actor with his precision, though we would not want that casting to become the whole measure of what he can do.

The risk with such parts is that a capable actor can be left supplying competence when the writing ought to supply a person. Quiz Show gives Morrow better material than that, and Redford’s handling of the performances is a substantial reason we recommend it. The film runs a little long, but its attention to how people judge one another makes the extra time worth allowing. Start there for Morrow in films, with a little patience for the slower stretches.