Adam Driver at 40: Why He's Dubbed the Actor of His Generation

He's touted as the new De Niro. He's deliberately working with the foremost directors of our time, and succeeding everywhere. He effortlessly fits any role and any era. Meet actor Adam Driver, a "paragon of new sensitive masculinity," who turns forty on November 19.

Adam Driver is just a few years younger than Ryan Gosling ("Barbie") and Oscar Isaac ("Dune") – Hollywood's most notable actors who have crossed the 40-year mark. However, he seems like a man from a different era.

Which era exactly? It's easy to understand. Driver is often likened to the "New Hollywood Greats" – Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, and Dustin Hoffman. And it's true: his demeanor appears to have wandered from the seventies.

Driver's appearance, rather unconventional for Hollywood, only underscores his powerful charisma. A childlike elongated face with large ears, tall stature, military bearing, toughness, and strength combined with naive kindness – he seems to be made up of contradictory elements.

These elements, however, create a coherent image. This very image ensures the same "existence on screen" – when you place someone in front of the camera and their presence melds almost mystically with the film. Hence, the comparisons to De Niro or Nicholson are entirely fitting.

Yet, while they had the great era of New Hollywood, where they starred in the defining films of their time, Driver is creating his own "great era." His first minor role in "J. Edgar" working directly with Clint Eastwood. As his popularity grew on TV thanks to Lena Dunham's cult series "Girls," Driver appeared in episodes by Steven Spielberg, the Coen Brothers, Jeff Nichols, and Noah Baumbach.

Together with Baumbach, they've made five films: "Frances Ha," "While We're Young," "The Meyerowitz Stories," "Marriage Story," and "White Noise."

In one of his rare interviews, Driver confessed that he consciously "chooses directors, not roles." Clearly, his agent has a significant role in this, but the actor's filmography is genuinely impressive. He has just wrapped up filming with the legendary Francis Ford Coppola, the creator of "The Godfather," and last year saw the release of three films featuring him.

Such determination can be explained by his military background – after 9/11, Driver joined the Marine Corps but didn't make it to Iraq due to a severe injury from a car accident. And although he jokes about going into acting only because in Mishawaka, Indiana, where Driver grew up, movies were the only entertainment, the facts are undeniable. Even in high school theater, he played eight lead roles, not to mention a pile of amateur films made with friends.

And, of course, he's immensely talented.

Whoever Driver portrays on screen – a clueless heir of Gucci or a medieval knight in Ridley Scott's films "House of Gucci" and "The Last Duel," a self-assured academic in Baumbach's "White Noise," or a poet from a provincial town in Jim Jarmusch's masterpiece – he's authentic everywhere. Look at him in Martin Scorsese's "Silence," and you'll witness a convincing portrayal of a 17th-century Spanish Jesuit.

"Despite the film itself, let's be clear, being an unbearable spectacle, even Jedi sometimes make mistakes.

Continuing to 'collect' leading directors, Driver stars in films by Terry Gilliam, Michael Mann, Steven Soderbergh, Spike Lee, Leo Carax – all those who have forever changed cinema. We should agree with Driver, who believes that there's still a lot ahead in his acting career.

For our viewing pleasure.

What to Watch

"BlacKkKlansman". Unbelievable but true: the story of how two police officers – a black man and a Jew – joined the Ku Klux Klan, based on real events. A black, in every sense, comedy by one of America's main political directors, Spike Lee, became his biggest success in recent years. It's a dynamic and funny stylization under the 'blaxploitation' of the seventies, and most importantly, honest: the director boldly equates the Ku Klux Klan with equally racist 'Black Panthers.' Driver in 'BlacKkKlansman' is the perfect supporting hero: charismatic but not overpowering.

"Marriage Story". An intense melodrama about the divorce process of two loving individuals played by Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson. Of course, feminists criticized Noah Baumbach for this film being a purely male perspective on divorce. But it's hard not to agree that this male perspective is hard to call optimistic: in the end, everyone involved loses, sacrificing their personal lives, careers, and money. Except, of course, for the divorce lawyer, played brilliantly by David Lynch's muse Laura Dern.

"Star Wars: The Force Awakens/The Last Jedi". For the mainstream viewer not well-versed in Gilliam's or Carax's cinematic fantasies, Driver will be remembered as the man who killed Han Solo. Luckily for Driver, paraphrasing another film title he was involved in, he managed to fit into the best franchise of the last forty years. Although he did overdo it with the so-called depth of his character, after all, it's a comic book. Let's also acknowledge an unpleasant fact: when Kylo Ren took off his helmet, there were mocking laughs in the theater.

"White Noise" can't be called a big success for Noah Baumbach. Most works of postmodern American literature that belong to the canon of contemporary classics are characterized by quite vague dramaturgy. To bring Don DeLillo's prose to the screen, you need to be a genius like David Cronenberg. "White Noise" breaks down into parts and slips away from attention, but it leaves behind a very funny parody of higher education in the US and another transformation of Driver – into a simple, potbellied, with a huge ego, but not very bright Hitler studies professor.

"Paterson". In its deceptive simplicity, "Paterson" remained incomprehensible even to those viewers who profess their love for Jim Jarmusch's cinema. But over the years, the film reveals more layers hidden under its outwardly geometrically clear structure. First and foremost, it's one of the few films that uncover the mechanisms of creativity, and art, as we know, demands sacrifices. So, Adam Driver created the image of a poet for whom poems are as much a routine as being a bus driver, yet simultaneously a gift that gives real meaning to life.