Let’s raise a glass to under-spoken, less-is-more performances — to the mystique of characters who say relatively little and are all the more intriguing for their absence of verbosity. Or at least the mystique of backing away from blabber-mouth conversing unless a character really has something to say. Make it count.

We all know that Steve McQueen specialized in this kind of performance, especially in The Sand Pebbles (’66). It’s also recognized that young Warren Beatty tried to deliver this kind of thing in Robert Rossen‘s Lilith (’64) and Arthur Penn‘s Mickey One (’65).

What other actors or performances have conveyed this man-of-few-words, heavy-cat aesthetic? Over the last 40 or 45 years, I mean.

I’m sure I’m forgotting several examples, but for some reason all I can think of right now is Géza Röhrig, the Hungarian actor who plays Jesus of Nazareth in Terrence Malick‘s The Way of the Wind, in László Nemes‘ Son of Saul (’15).