• "He makes it all about the work and not about him. He's such a generous and courageous actor. I can't think of another actor of his caliber who would take on a part like this, because most of them would say the character was too unsympathetic and wouldn't let themselves be seen in some of the lights David is seen in. There are scenes were he's very dashing and scenes where he's almost pathetic, and David allows himself to reveal parts of himself most actors would never reveal." -Karen Moncrieff, director (Blue Car)

• "On the one hand, he really just is and evokes a kind of regular person--not just in terms of the working man or whatever, but someone who just exudes a sense of decency and a kind of participation. He's never someone who you get the sense wants to stand out or has any kind of cult of the individual about him." -Derek Goldman, director

• "...And if they are pleasant and constructive as well as talented, as David is, you are doubly blessed... A lot of David's work was in 'his' High School English class. It was great to watch him make the room his own. He would pick up all the stuff on the desk (much of it left over from the teacher in whose class we were shooting). If it worked for his character, he put it somewhere specific on the desk, if not, he stuck it in a drawer. He puttered around, rearranged, and pretty soon it looked and felt like his space. One extremely charged and difficult scene was shot in a truly horrible motel room. The kind where your feet stick to the shag carpet and you really don`t want to know why... It was covered with black dubateen to create 'night,' with poor ventilation, about 120 degrees. Under these grueling circumstances our actors delivered stunning performances with no complaints." -Rob Sweeney, cinematographer (Blue Car)

• "David Strathairn is a gentle, dedicated actor who tries only to work on worthwhile projects. He was a delight on and off stage, always ready with a smile and a good chat about politics." -Ian McKellen, co-star (Dance of Death)

• "David Strathairn was the first person who committed. I've been a huge fan of his from the Sayles movies and the other kind of work he'd done. One of the producers, Lianne Halfon, who produced Crumb, had worked with Steppenwolf and had connections to David, so we went to him directly. He and I met, and he really loved the script. He had just done Dolores Claiborne, and was unhappy with being a cartoon heavy, so I think the subtlety was appealing. And the regionalism too--he's drawn to that kind of project. He was just unbelievably loyal to me on the project, attached the whole time over three or four years. He is as princely as one would imagine. He knows every crew member's name, he stays on the mountain till one in the morning to take the equipment down, and really elevates the mood of the company." -Katherine Dieckmann, director (A Good Baby)

• "David Strathairn is one of those incredible athletes. He actually, by the end of filming, was throwing a knuckle ball, which is kind of astonishing." -D.B. Sweeney, co-star (Eight Men Out, Memphis Belle)

• "He's very versatile. He's very inventive. I can just say, 'Do something interesting, David,' and when I go to see the dailies or edit it later, he does something interesting, but appropriate for the scene. He's a very good physical actor, and I've often used him for parts where the character does something physically; that's a lot of how he expresses himself. So whether it was the mud boat guy he played in Passion Fish or Eddie Cicotte (Eight Men Out), who had to throw a real curve ball, or the crazy street guy in City of Hope, physicality is an important part of his acting." -John Sayles, frequent co-star & director

• "Like a lot of the actors I work with again and again, David's able to play a text and a subtext at the same time. That ability to play something underneath--I've used Chris Cooper for that ability, I've used Joe Morton for that ability. You can give them one thing, but you can just tell there's something else going on." -John Sayles, frequent co-star & director

• "...the only actor I trust to act behind me." -John Sayles, frequent co-star & director

David Strathairn - photo copyright © respective owners

FROM THE CRITICS...

• "As handsome as Gary Cooper and a great deal better as an actor, Strathairn's career is a study in integrity." -Richard von Busack, Metro Active

• "Like some of the best and busiest character actors, David Strathairn is someone many audience members don't recognize by name but whose face is immediately familiar and whose work is consistently excellent, never showy, and wholly supports the story and the filmmaker's or playwright's vision. In other words, a lot of us take this terrific actor for granted, enjoying his contributions but rarely acknowledging them." -Jamie Painter Young

• "With his dark, secretive gaze and clenched voice that always seems to be choking back an explosion, David Strathairn is a master at conveying the desperate, self-enforced repression of a man whose excess of feeling clashes with his innate stoicism. But this gifted actor is no one-trick pony. The range of what is held back can extend from an aching tenderness that threatens to melt into a sobbing puddle to the violent red-eyed fury he unleashed in Dolores Claiborne, which found him delivering one of the scariest portrayals of a drunken wife-batterer ever etched on celluloid." -Stephen Holden, The New York Times

• "...David Strathairn is one of the most underrated, yet, prolific and talented actors--intelligent, skillful, true... And no matter what quality the overall film is, with every character, he consistently delivers a complex, intimate performance, being neither solely villian nor hero--but human. When playing one aspect of the character, he always has another quality peeking out behind it, refusing to let us stereotype the character and pigeonhole him. He's not afraid to play a character that will make him seem pathetic and weak, nor dark and unpleasant--he gives all that he can, supporting the story as a whole." -Lady Jo Ko, Blogger

• "He is, I have no doubt, the finest actor of our generation... He can play blue collar, wealthy, sympathetic, mean, creep, savior, academic, rural--you name it. He can do it. That man can inhabit a character and give it a soul of its own better than anyone else on this planet." -Katy Munger, Author

• "David Strathairn is the sort of actor you know you've seen somewhere but can't quite place--he slips so completely into his characters that he is different in every film... Strathairn takes a role which could easily have been a one-note character and turns him into a complex man we can sympathise with, even as he chastises the heroes." -Ealasaid Haas