Perhaps best-known as Atlanta rapper Paper Boi, Brian Tyree Henry has been steadily building up a body of work that’ll shortly see him tangle with Brad Pitt in action pic Bullet Train.
Brian Tyree Henry is one of those actors that keeps serving up excellent work, even if the showier stuff is happening around him. Henry’s presence and nuance onscreen hint at why he’s a Tony-nominated theatre actor and continues to be a go-to performer when assembling screen ensembles.
While he’s still perhaps waiting on that starring role (some Paper Boi-centric eps of Atlanta aside), Henry’s casting in a project suggests there’s something above average about the material and filmmakers involved—a sense supported by the strong performances listed below that all showcase Henry’s emotional depth and knack for conveying so much with understated turns.
Atlanta
Quickly proving more than a show about the city’s hip hop scene, as Donald Glover’s Atlanta has grown more ambitious it has also seen Henry’s character Paper Boi thrown into much more complex situations than just being a hometown hip hop hero.
Season three is just behind us (a candidate for best thing we’ve watched all year), and saw the near-permanently put-upon Paper Boi exasperated and perplexed by everything from attempting to recover a stolen cellphone, to being ripped off at poker by someone rich enough to have their own private Nando’s, joining a Parisian fashion house’s bogus diversity board and hanging out with [spoiler] at an Amsterdam bar called… Cancel Club.
Widows
Five-star heist pic Widows saw Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen remake the UK mini-series of the same name (about the widows of crims who have a large gangster debt to pay) to winning effect. And though female-led (Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Jacki Weaver, Carrie Coon… wow), McQueen populates his cast with supporting male actors to match.
Henry plays a crime boss trying to win election as a Chicago politician and further consolidate his grip on power—and it’s his $2 million that’s blown up at the start of the film, prompting him and his brother (Daniel Kaluuya) to cajole and threaten the widows of the title into their new life of crime.
If Beale Street Could Talk
Barry Jenkins’ follow-up to Oscar winner Moonlight largely focuses on a young Black couple’s dreams and the systemic obstacles they face in attaining them. In a small but pivotal role, Henry’s Daniel joins Tish and Fonny for drinks at their apartment, where he reflects on the two-year jail term he’s recently completed. With horror in his eyes, Henry describes the fear of powerlessness he experienced while at the whim of his jailors, something that stays with us throughout the film.
This feeling ramps up further and reveals itself to be grim foreshadowing when Fonny himself is falsely accused of a serious crime (cruelly, it took place during the trio’s earlier drinks, but Daniel can’t be used as an alibi due to being a convicted felon). Like the rest of this list, a great example of Henry’s ability to do so much with an understated performance.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Yes, we do bang on about this film all the time—but that’s because it is so damn good (high hopes for next year’s Across the Spider-Verse and 2024’s Beyond the Spider-Verse). Teenage Miles Morales is the Spider-Man of this universe, and Henry provides the voice of his dad, straight-laced, Spidey-hating disciplinarian Jefferson Davis who loves his son—but can’t bear the thought of Miles turning out like Jefferson’s less law-abiding brother (whose subway graffiti sets Spider-Verse in motion).
Henry told Variety he didn’t feel old enough to play the dad of a teenager, but was enticed by parenting Morales, Marvel’s only Black, Latino, Spider-Man: “They’re opening up the imaginations of people to let them know that anything is possible.”
Bullet Train
You’ll soon be able to see Brian Tyree Henry—sporting a bleached-blonde hairdo and British accent—opposite Brad Pitt in action pic Bullet Train. Nicknamed Lemon, Henry is one of two “twins” (alongside Aaron Taylor Johnson aka Tangerine) who join Pitt’s character and a bunch of other assassins on a bullet train traveling from Tokyo to Kyoto. They’ve all got their eyes on a mysterious briefcase, Pitt included, an unassuming piece of luggage that will light the fuse for plenty of onboard action thanks to director David Leitch (Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2).
This may be the 58-year-old Pitt getting his John Wick moment, but it looks like there’s plenty of spotlight to share with his castmates—including Henry, with whom Pitt shares a comical-looking confrontation in the bullet train’s Quiet Car (make more sense of this in the trailer below).
