Don Cheadle is particularly good at playing men who are watching everyone else. We rate his restraint and his comic timing; the frustration is how often an ensemble gives him less to do than he deserves.
Fi1m perspective
In No Sudden Move (2021), Don Cheadle keeps Curt Goynes's face almost still while Benicio del Toro's Ronald talks. Marci Rodgers gives Curt a good coat and a hat he keeps on indoors, and Cheadle makes the guardedness feel habitual. The pleasure is in watching the two men decide how much to trust each other, especially in their conversations in cars. Steven Soderbergh gets something valuable from Cheadle here: he lets us wonder what the man is thinking without making him blank.
He came to wider attention as Mouse in Devil in a Blue Dress (1995). The cowboy manner of Buck Swope in Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights (1997) gives us a different way of noticing him in a crowded cast. In Soderbergh's Out of Sight (1998), his Maurice Miller, called Snoopy, needs the people around him to agree that he is frightening. Cheadle makes the effort visible, and the menace becomes funny without disappearing.
In Traffic (2000), he and Luis Guzmán sit outside a house as two men who like each other and suspect their work is largely pointless. They give the drug-trade thriller humour and people worth caring about. Their easy companionship is also a useful check on the film's tendency to make speeches. We would happily spend longer in that car.
We laughed whenever his Basher opened his mouth in Ocean's Eleven (2001), and felt slightly guilty about it; the accent does much of the work. Yet the sequels show how easily ensemble casting can become a way of giving a good actor too little to do. Ocean's Twelve (2004) offers him company in place of a proper part. By Ocean's Thirteen (2007), the crew are pleasant company, but we have stopped believing in them as characters.
He has taken the lead in Hotel Rwanda (2004) and directed himself as Miles Davis in Miles Ahead (2015). Soderbergh's later No Sudden Move puts his watchfulness at the centre of another ensemble and gives him time to use it. The film spends too long explaining its documents, but Cheadle and del Toro remain worth the evening. Start with Out of Sight; come to Curt prepared to forgive the paperwork.
Biography
Donald Frank Cheadle Jr. is an American actor. He was born on 29 November 1964 in Kansas City, Missouri, and graduated with a BFA from the California Institute of the Arts.
Cheadle began his career with supporting roles in films such as Hamburger Hill (1987) and Colors (1988). He gained wider recognition for performances in Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), Boogie Nights (1997) and Bulworth (1998). He collaborated frequently with director Steven Soderbergh, appearing as Maurice 'Snoopy' Miller in Out of Sight (1998), Montel Gordon in Traffic (2000), Basher Tarr in the Ocean's trilogy (Ocean's Eleven in 2001, Ocean's Twelve in 2004 and Ocean's Thirteen in 2007) and Curtis 'Curt' Goynes in No Sudden Move (2021).
Cheadle received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his role in Hotel Rwanda (2004). He co-produced Crash (2004), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. He is also known for portraying James Rhodes / War Machine in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and for television roles including in House of Lies and Black Monday. He has won two Golden Globe Awards, two Grammy Awards and a Tony Award.
