Every year of recent memory, Peter Sarsgaard has delivered a superb performance, role after role, movie after. From Shattered Glass to Garden State to Kinsey, Sarsgaard never fails.
He is just one of those actors. Well-liked, excellent at his craft, praised by critics, and rarely recognized beyond that point.
This year is no diiferent as Sarsgaard delivers once again with key performances in Jarhead and The Dying Gaul. An excerpt:
Has it down – by Jeffrey Wells, Hollywood Elsewhere
Today (Friday, 10.4) is Peter Sarsgaard Meditation Day, if you want to think like that. You know…thoughts of who he is and how sharp his mind is, what he’s got stewing inside, what that easy smile and those hooded eyes really indicate deep down, where’s he’s heading.
Sarsgaard, 34, has two new movies opening today — Jarhead, a Waiting-for-Godot- ish Gulf War drama in which he plays Troy, the hardest and truest Marine of them all…an intense embodiment of the modern deballed warrior…and The Dying Gaul, in which he plays a gay screenwriter involved in a sexual-ethical muddle with a big-studio executive (Campbell Scott) who wants to make a movie of his script, and the executive’s curiously frustrated wife (Patricia Clarkson).
Both of Sarsgaard’s characters are given to internal suffering, which he conveys with his usual particularity. A lot of actors are good at subtle conveyences, but Sarsgaard is always fascinating when most of the energy is being pushed down and there’s relatively little to do. He doesn’t ever seem to say, “Look at me”…but you can’t help doing that.
He can also be riveting when asked to go in the opposite direction. There’s a start- ling, almost-on-the-cusp-of-being-too-much sexual scene in Gaul that proves this and then some. It’s “honest” in a way that almost no other actor I can think of would be willing to touch.
I wouldn’t call either performance career-altering, but they’re a reminder of what everyone has come to realize about Sarsgaard over the least couple of years, which is that he’s an exceptional violin player, and that one day the right music and the right conductor are going to come along and…wham, out of the park.
Click here to read the entire article. Thoughts? What do you think about Mr. Sarsgaard? Hate spelling his last name. (Because I sure do.) Sound off below!
@Cinefille 
Oh I love him! He is such a great actor and so handsome! I loved him in Boys Don’t Cry. He was so vicious you could do nothing but hate him but that’s why he was so good in the part. I used to see him here and there but it wasn’t until Boys Don’t Cry that I learned his name. He is definitely an actor I enjoy watching. He may not be famous but he’s someone I really enjoy. I also like Balthezar Getty and Stephen Dorff. I loooove Stephen Dorff! I love your new blog design! You go girl! Blogger is having problems again so now I can’t post pics or change fonts again. Hopefully they will get things straight once and for all.
I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t know his work at first glance. But, after reading this, I’m going to check hout his new movies. I love actors who know how to play characters, and not just themselves.
Johnny Depp is different in every role, for instance.
Oh, and you write beautifully,
Yeah,I had major issues posting this. And I’m so computer challenged its not even funny.
Peter Sarsgaard. If he goes ignored by most people for a little longer I will be so mad, who knows what I will do.
Glad you like the new blog design.
Thank you Sable. I try to mix in my opinions and actual critics opinions. They seem to write more eloquently about certain subject matters than I am often capable of.
Hi~
I agree with everything you say (and you say it well!) about Sarsgaard. I’ve never been one to recognize Really Good acting..that is until I got HBO a few months ago and saw Shattered Glass. I became an instant fan and have since gotten and watched just about everything he is in. I wrote a short thing on my blog about it (Peter Sarsgaard and Other Good Things…)other than that, my blog is mostly ramblings.
Anyways, great write up about Peter. He certainly deserves to get much more recognition than he has been getting.
regards,
Laurie