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 At the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, far away from the fires and close to the ocean where there’s some respite from the last sputterings of an end-of-the-summer Los Angeles heat wave, a group of reporters wait in an air-conditioned room to speak to Michael Stuhlbarg, lead actor of the new Coen brothers’ film A Serious Man. When he does enter, Stuhlbarg is refreshingly humble in poise and spirit. His unassuming, polite nature is just as pleasantly cool as the room. It doesn’t seem surprising that, with the kinds of films that the Coens make and all the stories rumored about how nice it is to work on their sets, they would choose such a down-to-earth actor as their lead.
Stuhlbarg is quite the serious man, having studied acting around the world, including at the esteemed Juilliard School and a mentorship with Marcel Marceau. His is a face that may be familiar from bit parts here and there on television or in films, but the majority of his work has been on stage, including recently winning a Drama Desk Award and receiving a Tony Award nomination for his Broadway performance in The Pillowman. The Coen brothers do not mess around when looking for talented performers.
The process of Stuhlbarg being chosen for A Serious Man’s Larry Gopnik, a middle-aged Jewish teacher watching his once comfortable life fall apart, was lengthy. He had known the Coen brothers for about 10 years, having first met Frances McDormand, Joel Coen’s eventual wife and frequent collaborator, in an off-Broadway theater company called The 52nd Street Project. It’s a program where kids ages 8-17 get the opportunity to write their own shows and have professionals come in and direct and perform in the pieces. While working there, he and McDormand became friends.
Some time later, after working with McDormand in another show, Stuhlbarg was in a production of David Mamet’s adaptation of The Voysey Inheritance at the Atlantic Theater, and McDormand brought Joel with her to see the show. They also saw Stuhlbarg’s Pillowman performance, and during this time, they all became friends. Stuhlbarg secretly hoped that he would someday have a chance to work with the Coens.
 Then along came A Serious Man and, as Stuhlbarg said, he got a call from out of the blue that the Coen brothers wanted him in the film, but they weren’t sure in what role. Initially, they wanted him to be in the film’s opening scene, a (fabricated) Yiddish folk tale. He studied the lines, got a tutor and mastered the dialogue. The read-throughs went well, the Coens laughed often--which thrilled Stuhlbarg--but in the end, they decided to go with actors who were fluent in Yiddish.
Four or five months later, Stuhlbarg was called back in to read for the lead, Larry, and his brother, Uncle Arthur. His read for both characters went well and the brothers again laughed a lot, but they didn’t give him a straight answer. All they would say is that he would definitely get one of the parts. So, Stuhlbarg started studying both roles and about six weeks before shooting began, Joel called to “put him out of his misery,” and offered him the lead role.
When asked if he preferred one role over the other, Stuhlbarg graciously responded that he would have been happy with either one, and that when they found Richard Kind to play Arthur, everything just fell together perfectly.
His easy-going attitude pervades everything about him, including his preference of working in either film or onstage. When asked about the difference of the work for him, he said that it is very much the same for him in each medium, but that they feed off of one another. “It’s my job to bring a character to life,” he said, but “how that character is received is a little different.” He went on to explain that his work in film has helped make his theater work more nuanced, and his work in theater has helped to make his film work more grounded.
 Below Stuhlbarg’s unassuming exterior, though, is a very serious actor who toils lovingly at his craft. Aside from his impressive training and, specific to this film, being extensively tutored in Yiddish, he also studied physics (Gopnik is a physic professor) to the point where could begin to understand such complex principles as Schrödinger’s Cat. While he admitted to not fully understanding the math, he understood the basis of it, the paradox of uncertainties that he feels is key to understanding what A Serious Man is all about.
Interestingly, Stuhlbarg once wanted to be an artist, and as a result, has taken to sketching cartoons of his characters prior to getting on set or stage. He likes to think through what the character will look like and how they’ll dress. “It’s a great place for me to start in terms of putting ideas on paper,” he said, adding that in the time between being cast and starting rehearsals or shooting, “it’s a dream time where [the character] can be anything you want it be.”
In regards to Larry Gopnik, Stuhlbarg said that the character was largely collaborative and everyone from the costume designer to the hair artist to the Coens and himself had something to add.
A Serious Man is a dark comedy that might leave audiences wondering what the point of everything actually is; Gopnik, a good man, is seemingly hounded by forces unseen as his life falls apart and becomes something very much unlike what he thought it was. When asked about the larger meaning of the film and what he took away from the character, Michael grinned and stated that he enjoyed it for its nuances and didn’t look too deeply for meaning in it. “It made me laugh,” he said with a certainty that made it clear what the meaning of everything really is to him.
A Serious Man opens in limited release this Friday, Oct. 2.
For more information, visit the film’s official Web site.
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