Thank you for this awesome link! Finally, some recognition for the small, subtle things Nathan does that makes him such a great actor. They're talking more about the funny here, but he does it with the drama as well.

Ninja MALi | May 06, 17:05 CET

Oh, I LOVED that. The whole piece was great -- now I'm interested in all the actors she profiled and their films. But this, here?



Exactly. Yes. Me too. Fantastic.

[ edited by barest_smidgen on 2007-05-06 14:10 ]

barest_smidgen | May 06, 17:09 CET

Nice little article on NF. I really hope this is a break-through role for him. He deserves it. And I really have to agree with the passage barest_smidgen quotes above. Your eyes are just naturally drawn to him on screen, and they are always rewarded.

palehorse | May 06, 18:09 CET

Nice story about our Captain, and about time, too! I hope this movie does for Nathan what Drive was supposed to do but, well, you know. I can't wait to see Waitress! :-)

billz | May 06, 18:48 CET

Nice.

BTW, if you click "share" and then "permalink", you can get a link that won't need registration. Something I just found out.

Quit | May 06, 19:32 CET

I passed on the Dane Cook, ick.

Great to see praise for Nathan's acting, but I wish people who write these (I can dream, can't I?) articles would resist the temptation to describe his physicality or face in ways that make him seem odd: his nose being close to a ski jump, his wide-set apart eyes make him resemble an alien in that other piece. This has always bugged me, starting way back with Barbara Streisand and her schnozz and Critic John Simon savaging Meryl Streep in his reviews.

Tonya J | May 06, 19:36 CET

Talking about Nathan's ability with subtle acting moments, the best I recall was at the end of Ariel just after Jayne's "don't tell 'em what I did" line. He gave just a little tiny sideways head movement of surprise. No obvious widening of the eyes, no dropping of the jaw. Just that.

Nathan imbues his character's emotional reactions with such nuance that it's completes the performance and is just brilliant to watch.

StaffOSimon | May 06, 19:41 CET

Funny...my wife rewatched Out of Gas (for the umpteenth time) last night, and she made many of the same observances, almost verbatim, about Nathan, ending with, "How is it that this guy isn't a huge star?"

Maybe he will be. Certainly should be.

Chris inVirginia | May 06, 19:48 CET

NY Times! Does anybody get that paper? Is it actually in the paper or just online?

Anonymous1 | May 06, 19:58 CET

It appears in the print version of the paper, Anonymous1, with a nice color photo of Nathan. It's in a special "Summer Movies" supplement to the Sunday Times Arts and Liesure section.

In the print article, all the actors appear on the same page.

That's a pretty huge media hit for Nathan. The Sunday Times has a huge circulation. Hope much good comes of it.

Chris inVirginia | May 06, 20:24 CET

Mmm, Pie!

This is so frustrating -- there's still no listing at all for when Waitress is opening here, just a couple of advance screenings. I would think Mother's Day weekend would have been the ideal opening date for this movie.

cabri | May 06, 20:35 CET

I love his nose. There is nothing wrong with his nose.

I did like the write up though. I am so glad I got to see this movie already.

madmolly | May 06, 21:46 CET

I have no idea why he isn't a huge star yet either, but my selfishness is liking that he's kind of our little secret.
I really need to learn to share, because I don't think we'll have much of a choice soon.

madmolly: I like his nose too. It's a perfectly good nose.

NYPinTA | May 06, 21:52 CET

I saw Waitress at a film festival the same night that Drive premiered on Fox. If you'd asked me a few months ago which project would be more likely to help him break through to mainstream attention and acclaim, I'd have picked Drive, but now instead, it may be his role in Waitress that breaks him out of casting directors' "B" lists.

The beauty of this is that while Drive was a flashy, big budget project on a major network in which he was featured front and central in the classic stud puppy role, Waitress, a tiny, understated independent project that he completed in a mere six days shows off much better how much the man can do with the barest essentials for creating a rich character.

Oh, and I'm in total agreement with the nose. It's perfect.

BrewBunny | May 06, 22:37 CET

Very nice piece. I just wish they'd mentioned our Big Damn Show and Big Damn Movie. You know, how they should bring back the 'Verse, etc. Which they did in the strange Sci-Fi 25 piece in Entertainment Weekly. (To wander a bit off topic--you'd think EW would be aware that there was SF before the Seventies...?)

RBB | May 06, 23:18 CET

It's a great nose, full of character and so unique. It keeps him from looking generically handsome. Besides, he acts with his nose.

A great instance of Nathan imparting an entire book of emotions while making only the barest perceptible change in his face is in Heart of Gold, when Inara tells him she is leaving. In fact, his face didn't change at all. Only the look in his eyes changed, yet you could feel the flood of pain. What fabulous internalization!

Ninja MALi | May 06, 23:19 CET

What what? Breaking into movies? But he can't until he has done that crime show with Morena that I've been cooking up *g*

Pumps | May 07, 02:25 CET

Besides, he acts with his nose.

I thought he acted with his hair ? Now that's multi-faceted.

Can't say i've particularly noticed but my sister among others has commented that he has a slightly strange face that "shouldn't work as a collection of parts and yet is sort of perfect in totality".

I like the little bit in 'Serenity' when The Operative talks about how Mal can't make him angry and Inara says "Please, spend an hour with him". Nathan's expression goes from a kind of "Hah, in yer face !" via "Huh ?" through to "Hey, wait a minute ..." in a flash but, as the article says, always avoids merely 'mugging'. Lad's got game.

Saje | May 07, 03:15 CET

His hair does indeed imbue him with acting super powers, but he cannot flair it with emotions like he can his nose.

Ninja MALi | May 07, 03:49 CET

His hair does indeed imbue him with acting super powers, but he cannot flair it with emotions like he can his nose.

Obviously, MALicious (Ms. D), you've never seen the YouTube clip from Wondercon where The Fillion demonstrates how his mullet used to wave in the breeze when he drove his old truck around. That, my friend, is flairing your hair with emotions, yo. ;-)

billz | May 07, 11:16 CET

MALicious, or the scene at the end of SERENITY, when Inara says she doesn't know and he says "Good answer". You can see the joy in his eyes and there is that little catch in his throat. I get all choked up everytime.

madmolly | May 07, 17:11 CET

You're right billz, I stand corrected on the hair. Come to think of it, he acted with his hair a lot in Drive. It changed depending on what state of being beat up he was in. ;-)

Madmolly, great subtle moment!

Ninja MALi | May 07, 21:39 CET

cabri | May 06, 17:35 CET


cabri, Did you see this website?

Easy as Pie Mother’s Day
http://www.moviewithmom.com Free gift bag included with Mother's Day Screening.
Hey, times are showing up! I bet those are the Mother's Day Screenings.

List of cities and a * when tickets are available for sale. Hope they keep this website up past Mother's Day.

Anonymous1 | May 08, 06:18 CET