Corey Stoll is good at making forceful men seem vulnerable without softening them. His supporting work is worth seeking out, though Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania shows how little that ability matters when neither the threat nor the joke works.
Fi1m perspective
Corey Stoll is good at playing a man whose aggression does not quite conceal his vulnerability. We stay interested because there is something to watch beyond the familiar display of masculine importance. Ernest Hemingway in Midnight in Paris (2011) and Peter Russo in House of Cards (2013) were his breakthrough parts, establishing him in comedy and dramatic television. Those are useful starting points for an actor whose supporting characters can have more going on than their position in the credits suggests.
Leads in The Strain (2014–2017) and Billions (2020–2023) followed, while Ant-Man (2015) cast him as Darren Cross. We value his mixture of charm and darkness more than the change of genre. The risk is that he becomes the automatic choice for another intense supporting character, with little to play beyond being difficult and few opportunities to show why anyone might want him around.
For Stoll in a film we can recommend, there is First Man (2018), in which he plays Buzz Aldrin. Ryan Gosling and Claire Foy lead a gripping account of spaceflight that makes its risks painfully immediate. The insistence on explaining Neil Armstrong through grief is a substantial frustration, and keeps our recommendation qualified. Choose it for the spaceflight rather than as a Stoll vehicle; he has a supporting part in a film whose attention is firmly elsewhere.
Peyton Reed's Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) gives Stoll a more conspicuous assignment as M.O.D.O.K., but the effects-heavy role produces neither menace nor comedy. We wanted the film to end; its failure to make him either threatening or funny was one reason. There is little here of the vulnerability that makes his forceful characters worth watching. Jonathan Majors and Michelle Pfeiffer do more to keep the film watchable, so this is not a case of every actor being equally defeated by the material. For a clearer sense of Stoll's appeal, start with his Hemingway.
Biography
Corey Stoll is an American actor. He was born on 14 March 1976 in Manhattan, New York City. He graduated from Oberlin College and from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Stoll is known for his performances as Peter Russo in the series House of Cards (2013–2016), for which he received a Golden Globe nomination, and as Dr Ephraim Goodweather in The Strain (2014–2017). He played Michael Prince in Billions (2020–2023). His film roles include Ernest Hemingway in Midnight in Paris (2011), Darren Cross / Yellowjacket in Ant-Man (2015) and M.O.D.O.K. in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023). He appeared in The Bourne Legacy (2012), Non-Stop (2014), Black Mass (2015) and First Man (2018). On stage he performed in the off-Broadway production Intimate Apparel (2004) and on Broadway in Appropriate (2023).
