Hamish Linklater

Spencer never raises his voice in Nickel Boys (2024), and Hamish Linklater makes that restraint frightening. RaMell Ross films the reform school through the boys’ eyes, so the man running it has no need to announce his authority. We felt uneasy listening to him precisely because he sounded so calm. Linklater does not compete with the camera’s restricted view or insist on a larger performance to compensate for it. He lets the position Spencer holds do much of the work.

There is comedy in his background, too: he played Matthew Kimble in the television series The New Adventures of Old Christine (2006–2010). In The Big Short (2015), his Porter Collins is part of Adam McKay’s ensemble, where supporting precision matters amid the financial explanations and interruptions. We recommend the film for its anger and humour, while finding some of those interruptions unnecessary. It is a useful example of Linklater fitting into a busy cast, though we would not use this part alone to explain his appeal.

Legion (2017), in which he played Clark Debussy, preceded the greater attention drawn by Father Paul Hill in Mike Flanagan’s Midnight Mass (2021). Flanagan gives his ability with extended speeches room to work. His Shakespeare experience matters here: sustained language is something he can handle without losing the person speaking it. The attraction is the same one we find in Spencer, even with much more dialogue: he can hold our attention without continually demanding it.

The reservation is about repetition. Priests, deans and superintendents have become a familiar part of his work, and casting him as another authority figure risks telling us what to expect before he has done anything. In Nickel Boys, the quiet delivery is specific to a man secure in his position; it need not become the instruction for every subsequent role. Start there for the concentrated version of his skill, but we would be glad to see a casting director remember the comedy.