\n<\/p>\n
Jack Quaid<\/a> can guess what people must think of him: Entitled. Overconfident. A jerk, no doubt about it.<\/p>\n \u201cWho I am comes with a certain expectation,\u201d he said over breakfast \u2014 black coffee, fruit plates \u2014 on a Thursday in late January.<\/p>\n Quaid<\/a>, 32, is the son of the actors Dennis Quaid<\/a> and Meg Ryan<\/a>. (That DNA is strong. You can see his father when he smiles, his mother when he squints.) He grew up in Santa Monica, Calif., grabbing snacks from the craft services table on his parents\u2019 sets and attending a private school with a common room where he could screen his camcorder movies. (An early magnum opus: \u201cBicycle Cops.\u201d) Which is all to say that Quaid grew up with privilege, and he knows what privilege, unexamined and unacknowledged, can do to a person. He can turn that arrogance on for auditions, which explains why his first role was as a villain in \u201cThe Hunger Games\u201d<\/a> and why he can now be seen as a very bad boyfriend in the thriller \u201cCompanion\u201d<\/a> (in theaters).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But the real Quaid is earnestly, acutely, even painfully aware of his privilege. In rooms where people don\u2019t know him, he finds himself, he said, \u201capologizing for existing.\u201d He isn\u2019t jealous of his parents. (Please, he has been to therapy<\/em>.) He loves his parents. He loves the life they have given him. \u201cBut there\u2019s definitely a need to prove myself,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is a little bit of something with identity and thinking, do I have any value outside of them?\u201d As he said this, the divot in his forehead, which deepens when he\u2019s stressed or concerned, had become a crevasse. \u201cNot to say I\u2019m complaining,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Over the last several years, Quaid has proved himself. And as the star of two movies out this winter, his value as a leading man is confirmed. He is beautifully smarmy in \u201cCompanion,\u201d a romantic thriller with a sci-fi twist. (Avoid the trailer if you don\u2019t want that twist unfurled.) And he is a sweetheart of an accidental action hero in the punchy thriller \u201cNovocaine,\u201d<\/a> due March 14, in which he plays a timid assistant bank manager with a congenital inability to feel pain. (Quaid\u2019s own pain threshold: \u201cNot high!\u201d) He is also currently wrapping the fifth and final season of \u201cThe Boys,\u201d<\/a> Amazon\u2019s body fluid-soaked antisuperhero show. He leads the cast as Hughie, a normal-ish guy in an enthusiastically abnormal world. And he has two other movies in postproduction, the thriller \u201cNeighborhood Watch\u201d and the action comedy \u201cHeads of State.\u201d<\/p>\n Sometimes a Quaid character is despicable. More often, he is intensely and effortlessly likable, which seems true of Quaid offscreen. Over breakfast, Quaid was an absolute avalanche of nice, a torrent of approachable. When the waiter brought over bottled water that he hadn\u2019t ordered, he seemed absurdly delighted. \u201cWe just got upgraded to first class!\u201d he said.<\/p>\n And sure, it would serve most actors to perform likability when seated across from a journalist, mutually avoiding the cantaloupe. But don\u2019t take it from me. The half dozen of Quaid\u2019s colleagues that I spoke to compulsively repeated words like \u201cgiving,\u201d \u201cgrounded,\u201d \u201cgracious,\u201d \u201chealthy,\u201d \u201ckind.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t emphasize enough how amazing he is and he shouldn\u2019t be,\u201d Drew Hancock, who wrote and directed \u201cCompanion,\u201d said. Eric Kripke, the showrunner of \u201cThe Boys,\u201d called him \u201ca minor miracle\u201d and Erin Moriarty, his romantic interest on \u201cThe Boys,\u201d seemed lightly awed by him.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cHe is such an earnestly good person,\u201d she said. \u201cHis work ethic, the way he shows up, his ability to be generous, it comes from such an earnestly good place of wanting others to thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n When Quaid was younger, his parents, who wanted him to have a normal-ish childhood, made a rule that he couldn\u2019t audition for professional projects until he was an adult. Quaid limited himself to that camcorder and the occasional school play. \u201cI\u2019m still chasing that high,\u201d he said of a performance of \u201cA Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream.\u201d At New York University, he studied at the school\u2019s Experimental Theater Wing (yoga, contact improv, weird monologues) and landed a spot in the sketch comedy group Hammerkatz<\/a>. (He continues to write and perform sketch comedy, now with a group called Sasquatch<\/a>.) He shot the first \u201cHunger Games\u201d movie after his first year and dropped out after his third year, so that he could make more in-person auditions.<\/p>\n His next significant role was on \u201cVinyl\u201d<\/a> (2016), the short-lived, 1970s-set Martin Scorsese series. After that the roles came quickly, a part in Steven Soderbergh\u2019s crime film \u201cLogan Lucky\u201d<\/a> (2017), a romantic lead in the comedy \u201cPlus One\u201d<\/a> (2019). But in 2018, he booked \u201cThe Boys.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Kripke was sold from that first audition. \u201cWe wanted someone who could be a credible romantic interest for a superhero and still be a little nerdy and not quite comfortable in their own skin,\u201d he said. Quaid, whom Kripke described, correctly and affectionately, as \u201ca little too tall for whatever is inside his body,\u201d could do all that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt is actually kind of rare to find an actor with that true Everyman ability,\u201d Kripke said.<\/p>\n Variations on Everyman seem to be Quaid\u2019s type. But while he is often cast as the boy next door, he complicates that address. The squares he plays have a few extra angles. Quaid can twist a type, make it gnarly. \u201cExtremely gnarly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He can make the uncool cool, offscreen and sometimes on. \u201cHe\u2019s very nerdy in the most grounded, charming way,\u201d Sophie Thatcher, his co-star in \u201cCompanion,\u201d said. And he knows how to use his too-tall physique \u2014 Quaid calls himself a \u201cfloppy, floppy boy\u201d \u2014 to rollicking effect.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n If his outlook is comic, Quaid understands that a lot of that comedy comes from pain. And Quaid is good at pain \u2014 also frustration, annoyance, resignation. \u201cI\u2019m trying to always make sure it comes from an honest place, because it can\u2019t seem too cartoony,\u201d he said of his approach. (Although, he does voice many cartoons.) And while plenty of young actors skate by on instinct and charm, Quaid mentioned three separate acting teachers who helped him to unpack the psychologies of his characters.<\/p>\n He began to develop a particular process in the lead-up to \u201cThe Boys.\u201d He crafts elaborate back stories for his characters, he lets dreams and mantras guide him, he makes playlists, though he is often torn about whether to post them.<\/p>\n \u201cPart of me is like, Is that really pretentious? Like, Here you go. Here\u2019s how I got into the head space,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n That payoff is evident even amid the genre antics of \u201cCompanion\u201d and \u201cNovocaine.\u201d The characters he plays, Josh and Nate, can be written off as types. Josh, as an entitled creep who grossly overestimates his own intelligence. Nate, as a scared-of-his-own-shadow dweeb. But Quaid infuses Josh with a sense of genuine grievance that renders him more real and more dangerous. \u201cThe challenge is finding an empathy for a guy that despicable,\u201d Quaid said. (He does not judge his characters while he\u2019s playing them, but he will happily judge them after. \u201cI don\u2019t think he\u2019s ever been to therapy,\u201d he said dismissively of Josh.)<\/p>\n Nate, by contrast, is a good guy. He might come across as overly bland, but Quaid imbues him with a madcap charisma, transforming him from a doofus to an action hero. Or rather, a doofus who is also an action hero. To achieve this, Quaid threw himself into intense workouts, stunt training and fight choreography.<\/p>\n \u201cHis performance seems effortless, but it\u2019s very much not,\u201d Robert Olsen, one of the directors of \u201cNovocaine,\u201d said. \u201cHis work ethic is through the roof and he has a very cerebral approach to acting. He really gets under the skin of his characters.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cAnd he\u2019s so good at flailing his arms,\u201d Dan Berk, the other director, added.<\/p>\n Quaid has a few goals for the next dozen years. He\u2019d like to move into hard comedy and explore other genres. He\u2019d like to write. And while he enjoys the challenges of playing the straight man \u2014 the not especially still point in a turning world \u2014 he\u2019d like to be a character actor. \u201cMan I want to play more weirdos,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n That may or may not be an option. Quaid has what Olsen described as \u201ca kind of four-quadrant likability. Men love him. He feels like he\u2019d be a great hang. Women love him. He feels like he\u2019d be a great boyfriend.\u201d Which means he may be stuck, for better or worse, as a leading man rather than a weirdo. Although, Quaid\u2019s leading men are also always weirdos.<\/p>\n And even as he\u2019s the first to acknowledge he had an initial leg up \u2014 OK, a couple of legs \u2014 he is proud of what he has since accomplished. He knows that his parents are proud of him, too. \u201cThey are and that means a lot,\u201d he said. \u201cWouldn\u2019t it be weird if I was like, \u2018They\u2019re ashamed.\u2019 But no, they\u2019re proud. They are.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n