Lindsay Crouse

Lindsay Crouse gives professional women the air of knowing what they are talking about. Her precise, controlled delivery makes authority convincing, though it can also make a character seem reluctant to let anyone close. We value that firmness most in supporting parts, where she can establish a person's importance without much time to do it. Her film career began with All the President's Men (1976), followed by the character roles of the late 1970s and 1980s, including The Verdict (1982).

Sidney Lumet's film is a good place to begin, with Crouse as Kaitlin Costello in a cast that gives a familiar legal drama its weight. We were moved by The Verdict, because Paul Newman's worn-down Frank Galvin makes another attempt at putting his life right feel difficult rather than automatic. Crouse is convincing in a decisive supporting part, and her concentration suits the film's seriousness. That seriousness occasionally becomes self-importance as the pace slows. It still deserves an unhurried evening.

The lead in House of Games (1987), as Margaret Ford, puts that controlled manner under closer scrutiny. Writer-director David Mamet gives her stylised dialogue and a psychological study of compulsion, both well suited to her precision. The stiffness is harder to overlook when she carries the film, and we do not always find enough warmth beneath it.

From the 1990s her work shifted increasingly towards television, although The Insider (1999) again places her in a substantial film ensemble, as Sharon Tiller. Michael Mann makes a gripping thriller from a tobacco whistle-blower's struggle to be heard, with Russell Crowe giving the personal risks weight. Its occasional insistence on points already made is the reservation, not the acting. For a closer look at Crouse herself, return to House of Games, prepared for the stiffness as well as the intelligence.