And we see how he interacts with his wife, Helen Judy Kuhnn, in an excellent study of internalized resentment); his young sons (the delightful Griffin Birney and Noah Hinsdale); and an assortment of the young men who caught his eye over the years (all persuasively played by Joel Perez).
However real these divisive issues are, might they have been deliberately triggered by a sinister German agent, persuasively played by Daniel Brühl, who sets out to exploit the dangerous, destructive potential within Winter Soldier – a dark secret dating back to a 1991 Russian military experiment revealed in flashback?
Mr. Lewis persuasively plays the fool when need be, only to rise up in a foaming rage, a forceful reminder that, yes, the play is the thing — but a great interpreter helps.
It's doubtful that the politely muck-raking documentary "The Unforeseen," in which the developer persuasively plays one of the film's villains, is what he had in mind.
But the point is clear, and it's similar to the one suggested by Coppola's depiction of an action hero off-screen: even a C.G.I. fantasy, played persuasively, extracts from its performers as much of a psychological exertion as a physical one.
"We are scientists engaged in the creation of memory," declares the great Murnau, whom John Malkovich plays, persuasively enough, as a preening megalomaniac.
His free time has been consumed by meetings with Hollywood casting agents and readings for television pilots, he said, but he quickly — and not very persuasively — tried to play down the interest.
Rove spoke of his adoptive father in a tone of fierce admiration, love, and loyalty, for, as he put it, "how selfless his love had been," as shown by his willingness to play, persuasively, the part of a blood parent for two decades.
The shy and retiring and very single Percival works for his father, a gruff, unsmiling mortician played by a persuasively vinegary Ben Vereen.
Budget aside, it comes down to selling the story and the roles persuasively, which the escapees — nicely played by Clea DuVall, Tate Donovan, Scoot McNairy, Rory Cochrane, Christopher Denham and Kerry Bishé — soon learn.
The work also has an organ part that is far heftier than can be persuasively produced on an electronic organ, although Catherine Edwards played it gamely.
