James Spader makes quiet speech and stillness feel faintly improper. We rate him highly when a director gives that unease something specific to do; his restraint can be funny and revealing, though it can also keep us outside a film.
Fi1m perspective
In sex, lies, and videotape (1989), James Spader sits almost motionless, hands folded, speaking just below conversational volume. His Graham Dalton tells Ann that he is impotent without raising his voice or asking for sympathy. We laughed because his matter-of-fact disclosure leaves Andie MacDowell's Ann visibly struggling to take it calmly. Steven Soderbergh, who wrote, directed and edited the film, makes room for both his stillness and her small starts of alarm.
That part changed the uses to which he could be put. Supporting work in Pretty in Pink (1986) belonged to an early career often restricted to unsympathetic young men; Graham was the breakthrough into more complicated company. Spader could be unsettling without playing someone we simply wanted to go away. Soderbergh makes his unvarnished answers a source of trouble for people accustomed to evasion.
In David Cronenberg's Crash (1996), his reserve has a colder effect. As James Ballard, he declines to ask for our affection, a useful choice in a film so liable to examine its characters as specimens. Holly Hunter's firmer Helen Remington and Elias Koteas's intense Vaughan give him contrasting temperaments to play against. The restraint suits the material, but it also contributes to the distance that makes the slower passages tiring. We recommend the film with that reservation: Spader holds our attention without always giving us enough to feel.
Secretary (2002), with Spader as Mr. Grey, continued his interest in sexually charged authority. From 2003, television became his principal work, with Alan Shore moving from The Practice (2003–04) to Boston Legal (2004–08). Raymond Reddington in The Blacklist (2013–2023) gave him a character to sustain for ten seasons. The longer form gave him room to keep testing the same character in different situations.
We would not pretend his choices are endlessly varied. His fondness for eccentric men risks making their oddness seem sufficient, and Crash shows how easily restraint can leave us at a distance. The directors who serve him best give another performer something to do with that discomfort. Start with sex, lies, and videotape, and watch MacDowell while he talks.
Biography
James Todd Spader is an American actor. He played Graham Dalton in Steven Soderbergh's sex, lies, and videotape (1989), a role that brought him the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor.
Spader's early film work includes Pretty in Pink (1986), Wall Street (1987), Stargate (1994), Crash (1996) and Secretary (2002). Later credits include Lincoln (2012) and the voice of Ultron in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015).
On television he portrayed Alan Shore in The Practice (2003–2004) and Boston Legal (2004–2008), Robert California in The Office (2011–2012) and Raymond 'Red' Reddington in The Blacklist (2013–2023). He has received three Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series.
