Emory Cohen makes a romantic lead appealing without pressing for affection. Brooklyn is the clearest reason to seek him out, and to hope that his work continues to make room for such unforced warmth.
Fi1m perspective
Tony Fiorello does not press for our approval in Brooklyn (2015). Emory Cohen makes him appealing without fuss, and that restraint matters in a film about the effort of settling far from home. Saoirse Ronan’s Eilis Lacey has room to discover her interest in him, and the courtship is allowed a welcome hesitancy. We were moved by the way their attraction grows without immediately settling her homesickness.
The early parts suggest how easily he might have been confined to troubled young men. His feature debut came in Afterschool (2008), and his profile rose as AJ Cross in The Place Beyond the Pines (2012). Brooklyn brought wider recognition and made room for a warmth that deserves more use. As Homer Roberts in Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij’s The OA (2016–2019), he took on the distinctive physical demands of the series.
John Crowley and screenwriter Nick Hornby give the courtship room for uncertainty. The dialogue has humour without constantly requesting a laugh, a helpful setting for Cohen’s emotionally open performance. He need not insist on Tony’s charm when the writing allows Eilis to be drawn towards her new surroundings and still miss home. Our reservation is that some supporting characters and later complications in Brooklyn are too neatly arranged. That tidiness could make the romance feel preordained; Cohen helps us believe she has discovered someone for herself.
He has continued in supporting parts, playing Cockroach in Jeff Nichols’s The Bikeriders (2024) and Ira Mizler in Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme (2025). We recommend the latter for its table tennis and Timothée Chalamet’s central performance, with a firm caveat about its length; the former keeps its characters too distant despite the work of Jodie Comer and Tom Hardy. For Cohen, start with Brooklyn.
Biography
Emory Isaac Cohen is an American actor. He was born on 13 March 1990 in New York City and graduated from Elisabeth Irwin High School in 2008. He received a full scholarship to study acting at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia before continuing his training in New York.
Cohen made his feature film debut in Afterschool (2008). He is known for his roles as AJ Cross in The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Tony Fiorello in Brooklyn (2015) and Homer Roberts in the series The OA (2016). Recent credits include Cockroach in The Bikeriders (2024), Officer Steve Lann in Rebel Ridge (2024) and Ira Mizler in Marty Supreme (2025).
