Alison Pill

In Trap (2024), Alison Pill needs only a few quiet minutes as Rachel to make the surrounding contrivances harder to forgive. Her performance is more convincing than the plotting around it. We were grateful for her restraint, because it gave us someone to believe in while the film’s convenient escapes were losing us. This is the supporting actor we rate: precise, attentive to the ensemble, capable of making a small part matter.

Her wider notice came with supporting parts, and Milk (2008) remains the film we would recommend first. As Anne Kronenberg, Harvey Milk’s campaign manager, she contributes to the warmth of Gus Van Sant’s ensemble, although the conventional storytelling gives some supporting lives too little space. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) uses her sharper comic timing as drummer Kim Pine; she learned the drums for the part. The grounded intelligence and sardonic humour are useful qualities in a crowded cast, where a supporting actor has to establish a person without much time to do it.

Television has given her longer to establish a character. As Maggie Jordan in Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom (2012–2014), she sustained a developing part across three seasons. Her later genre work included Dr Agnes Jurati in Star Trek: Picard (2020–2022), a scientist in the programme’s first two seasons. These parts extend the familiar casting: intelligent people navigating demanding workplaces, with enough happening around them that being able to hold our attention without fuss is useful.

We would welcome more film parts with the time afforded to those television characters. In Trap, the contrast between her careful performance and the increasingly convenient plotting makes the smallness of the role frustrating. We cannot recommend it simply because she makes good use of her minutes. Start with Milk, accepting that its crowded ensemble will leave some people short of the attention they deserve.