In Character: Jeremy Davies

Mystery is an odd thing. You can’t ask for it, nor can you will it. It can’t be an act, it simply has to be. Joaquin Phoenix is, perhaps, the current leader of self-imposed oddity, taking over for the King of All Strange Kings, Christopher Walken. Casey Affleck is in there, as is Tilda Swinton. And lest we forget the Crispin Glover and Tim Curry’s of the world. I could go on, but you get the point. And when having a conversation about odd yet talented performers, Jeremy Davies deserves to be listed chief among them. The man moves to his own beat, rarely delivering a role that isn’t directly spawned from his own unique sensibilities. There’s no phoning it in for Jeremy Davies, the man goes all in, using his peculiarity to reel us, before flooring us with his quiet power.

Note: I gave up on Lost long before Davies began appearing on the show. So unfortunately, his work as Daniel Faraday was not considered here.

Five Essential Roles

Spanking the Monkey (1994)

Ray Aibelli

David O. Russell’s first film was a micro-budget indie about a young kid who develops one hell of an Oedipus complex while taking care of his injured mother. Spanking the Monkey was risqué in 1994, and remains just as controversial today. The reason it works is because its 24-year-old star owns the darkly humorous, shockingly depraved material from the onset. I’m honestly not sure if the film would have catapulted the careers of Davies and Russell had Davies’ work not been so nuanced. Spanking the Monkey surely isn’t for everyone, but if you’re going to go there, then you damn well better own it.

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Cpl. Timothy Upham

As Cpl. Timothy Upham, Davies created a persona that has followed him throughout his career. The nervous, jittery everyman; the guy who appears to wear his wear on his sleeve. Innocent, repressed, mysterious. You’re never sure which way he’s going to go, or what his breaking point, once reached, will motivate him to do.

Now, for anyone who has seen Saving Private Ryan, you know Davies’ work in the film comes down to one pivotal, horrific scene. A scene in which Davies stands mortified in a stairwell, paralyzed by fear. I remember watching this movie once with one of my best friends and his father, who was a war veteran. After this scene, my friend, perhaps in an effort to be macho, said of Davies’ character, “Wow, what a pussy.” His dad paused the movie and looked at him. “You try going to a fucking war, then tell me who the pussy is.”

Pretty much exactly how I’ve always thought about the scene. You can’t know, unless you know.

Solaris (2002)

Snow

Snow is the finest encapsulation of Davies’ trademark nervous energy. From the moment we meet him, we never have the slightest clue how to figure him out. His fluid, abrupt speech pattern mixed with his flamboyant mannerisms and ceaseless gum chewing make it impossible to pin Snow down. He could simply be the kind guy he presents himself as. Or he could be a psychotic madman wreaking havoc in the troubled Solaris Station. And it is thanks much in part to Davies’ heightened mystery that I consider Solaris one of Steven Soderbergh’s very best films. There is a lot I love about this film, but Snow is such an odd, unique character, that I find him so captivating. The way Davies manages, for example, to elongate the utterance of the word “Yeah” and turn it into something so puzzling, really is a feat in and of itself. Snow is very nearly my favorite Jeremy Davies performance. Just perfect.

Secretary (2002)

Peter

Obviously, Jeremy Davies has a penchant for playing men who are… off, to say the least. And when an actor so dutifully fits into that specific brand of oddness, I always find myself drawn to their characters who are more or less “normal.” So describes Peter, a gentle, quiet young man longing for the lasting affection of his girlfriend, a deeply disturbed Lee (Maggie Gyllenhaal). Okay, so, of course Peter isn’t fully normal, but for a Jeremy Davies role, Peter is about as ordinary and unassuming as it gets. As is often the case, Roger Ebert said it best when he described Peter as “sincere to the point of being inarticulate.” Peter is a man-child, too engulfed in his own innocence to fully understand the complex woman before him.

Justified (2011-2014)

Dickie Bennett

I’ve featured three other actors from Justified in my In Character series: Margo Martindale, who won an Emmy for playing ferocious psycho Mags Bennett, Walton Goggins, Justified’s primary villain-turned antihero, and Neal McDonough, who still attains the title of Justified’s best villain. And now we get Davies’ Emmy-winning work as Dickie Bennett, son of Mags. The unkempt, narrow minded, ruthless Dickie. Dickie is a toilet bug that won’t go away – you think you flush him down, and he just rides the wave and rises again. There is no end to my fascination with what Davies does with this character. I’m sad that Dickie has been absent as of late, but it was a joy to see him pop up late in Season 5, still thinking he’s the smartest guy in the room.

The Best of the Best

Rescue Dawn (2007)

Gene DeBruin

We meet a man. A man plagued by physical illness and emotional decay. A man slowly withering away from hunger and naiveté. Gene DeBruin is one of six men rotting away in a small Vietnamese prisoner of war camp. When German-born pilot, Dieter Dengler (Christian Bale) is captured and brought to the camp, Dieter immediately begins to devise a plan to escape. But Gene isn’t on board. Convinced that they will either be freed or rescued, Gene adamantly protests Dieter’s plans. Essentially, Gene is presented as the film’s third villain, behind the Vietnamese guards and the dense jungle surrounding them all. But what makes Gene the scariest of the lot is his delusions of freedom – he genuinely believes freedom will be afforded to him, just cause.

That’s the set-up of the complex, central battle of Werner Herzog’s Rescue Dawn. As Gene, Jeremy Davies delivers one of the best, most horrifying portrayals of a POW that I’ve ever seen. Much of his performance is executed by barely speaking above a cracked whisper. His words, terrifying in their threat. His movements, chilling in their ease. There’s an unpredictability to his work here, a hushed, Charles Manson appeal I find utterly enthralling.

The shot directly above is one I’ll never forget:  a shell of a man, circling alone in the dense jungle, talking to himself, chuckling, lost. What quiet power, indeed.

Other Notable Roles

In Lars von Trier's Dogville

The Wonder Years (1992)

Nell (1994)

Twister (1996)

Going All the Way (1997)

Ravenous (1999)

The Million Dollar Hotel (2000)

CQ (2001)

The Laramie Project (2002)

Dogville (2003)

Helter Skelter (2004)

Manderlay (2005)

Lost (2008-2010)

It’s Kind of a Funny Story (2010)

Hannibal (2014)