Movies

Richard Jenkins is one of those familiar-faced character actors who get stopped on the street by strangers straining to remember: Where have I seen this guy?

Typical question: "What have I seen you in?"

Typical answer: "I really don't know. I don't know what you've seen."

Of course, some folks don't take no for an answer, Mr. Jenkins says. "I had a guy ask me, 'Is your name Joe Koerner?' And I said no. And he looked at me and said, 'You sure?' I said I was pretty sure. That was my favorite."

Mr. Jenkins may be best-known as Nathaniel Fisher, the sardonic dead dad on HBO's popular series Six Feet Under. But now, after nearly 70 films, he has a fresh role: that of a featured film star. The Visitor , a sharp but gentle drama opening Friday, is his movie. And he carries it on his long frame with ample grace and intelligence.

He plays Walter Vale, a middle-aged economics professor whose life and attitude have grown weary, stale and flat. He's been mourning his late wife and using the same tired syllabus for years. His bored eyes convey a deadened soul.

Then he goes to New York for a conference, and an apartment mishap brings him face to face with Tarek (Haaz Sleiman), a young Syrian man with a perpetual smile on his face and a yen for African drumming; and his girlfriend, Zainab (Danai Jekesai Gurira), a Senegalese arts and crafts vendor. The relentlessly optimistic immigrant starts to rub off on the jaded academic. And Mr. Jenkins, a master of understated facial expression, allows us to see the iceberg in Walter's heart slowly melt away.

"Walter has shut down, and he's just going through the motions," says Mr. Jenkins, relaxing in Austin the day of The Visitor's first screening at the SXSW Film Festival in March. "Then he meets this kid who's just full of life. He lives his life moment to moment. He's an artist, a free spirit. And Walter starts to feel alive again."

The Visitor towers over its premise, which would seem to offer too much room for cross-cultural cliché (How Walter Got His Groove Back). The success and emotional honesty can be attributed to Mr. Jenkins' finely tuned performance, but also to writer-director Tom McCarthy (The Station Agent), who has a knack for stories about disparate and damaged people finding new life in each other's company. "He really knows how to observe," Mr. Jenkins says of his director.

And Mr. Jenkins' performance is well worth observing.

"With Richard, you get an actor who has been in about 70 movies and has been acting all his life," says Mr. McCarthy, a fine character actor in his own right (he played the fabricating reporter in the final season of The Wire). "He's incredibly well-respected by directors and other actors. He can disappear into a role so quickly that audiences can forget they're watching an actor and just see this human being have this life-altering experience."

But he's not a name brand, which means his mere presence won't fill a theater on opening weekend. Mr. McCarthy didn't care; he wrote the part with Mr. Jenkins in mind, and the film's producers, Groundswell and Participant, both loved him. It was Mr. Jenkins who expressed doubts: "He said he'd be honored to do it, and that he didn't think I'd get the money to do it with him in the role," says Mr. McCarthy.

Everyone knows the face. And if The Visitor gets the attention it deserves, they may come to know the name as well.