Lewis Pullman

The first film was a western made opposite his own father. The Ballad of Lefty Brown cast Lewis Pullman as Billy Kitchen alongside Bill Pullman in 2017, which is either the easiest possible start or the hardest, depending on how you feel about the surname. The year after, Bad Times at the El Royale gave him Miles Miller and a Saturn nomination for supporting actor, and settled the argument.

His specialty is men who are being crushed quietly. Miles Miller is a hotel clerk holding something he cannot put down. Bob Floyd in Top Gun: Maverick is the one aviator in the squadron with no swagger at all, which is exactly why the film needs him. Calvin Evans in Lessons in Chemistry plays awkwardness as a form of decency. Pullman underplays by default and lets other actors take the volume, so his scenes tend to reward a second viewing more than a first.

The leads arrived fast after that: Ben Mears in Salem's Lot, Rhett Abbott across Outer Range, Owen Taylor in The Starling Girl, and Robert Reynolds in Thunderbolts*, with the same character due back in Avengers: Doomsday. That is the standard modern trajectory, independent drama to prestige limited series to superhero contract.

The interesting question is what he does with the leverage. Skincare and Riff Raff suggest he intends to keep taking odd small films, and The Testament of Ann Lee is not a franchise hedge by any reading.