The year of Josh O’Connor’s quiet domination

Kelly Reichardt first saw Josh O’Connor in his 2017 breakthrough film God’s Own Country. “Then I saw him in The Crown — and didn’t realise it was the same actor,” she recalls. “He has a timeless face.”

Josh O’Connor steals the scene in The Mastermind

That face — gentle yet enigmatic — is now everywhere. This season, O’Connor appears in four films, each distinctly different yet linked by his ability to inhabit flawed, soulful men. Alongside Paul Mescal, he stars in The History of Sound, a tender New England romance; he plays a rancher rebuilding after wildfires in Rebuilding; he’s part of Rian Johnson’s star-studded ensemble in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery; and in Reichardt’s The Mastermind, opening this week, he takes centre stage as a suburban dreamer turned art thief.

A heist movie, the Reichardt way

In The Mastermind, O’Connor plays James Blaine Mooney — J.B. — a carpenter, husband and father whose misguided attempt to steal paintings from a small-town museum spirals into chaos. Rather than lean into genre clichés, Reichardt turns the heist narrative inside out. The film’s tension lies not in the theft itself, but in the aftermath — including a quietly riveting scene of J.B. struggling to stash stolen artworks in a treehouse.

“If you’ve seen Kelly’s films, you know she’s not overly concerned with cutting,” O’Connor says with a smile. “If we’re not going to cinema to be observational, I don’t know what the point is.”

Reichardt’s long takes and unhurried pacing allow O’Connor to sink deep into J.B.’s world — an approach that mirrors her fascination with the mundane moments most filmmakers discard. “Sometimes I watch a film to look at an actor, and you can’t even get three seconds before there’s a cut,” she says. “I want to resist that — to live in a moment.”

A man out of time

Set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, The Mastermind captures both a historical moment and an archetype of confused masculinity. J.B. is an out-of-work craftsman, haunted by pride and a vague sense of failure. “You could argue it’s the first moments of the post-truth era,” O’Connor reflects. “Marriage roles were shifting, and J.B. doesn’t know his place. He’s confused because he’s not the breadwinner — those issues of ego still exist today.”

In many ways, the film feels like a 1970s character study — meandering, human, and quietly tragic. “Things change around us,” O’Connor adds, “but we all behave pretty much the same way.”

The reluctant star

The role marks another nuanced turn for the 35-year-old actor, who previously embodied a different kind of art thief in Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera. “If I was curating, I’d say they make a great double feature,” he laughs. “But beyond the rumpled suits, the characters couldn’t be more different.”

Reichardt began writing The Mastermind after reading about a real-life art heist in Massachusetts. What began as a genre experiment evolved into something intimate and psychological. “Ultimately, it’s about getting into the minutiae of your own movie,” she says.

For O’Connor, the experience hit close to home. “I identify with the manic nature of him sometimes,” he admits. “You make the wrong call, you’re in too deep — I get that.”

Grounded in reality

Between The Mastermind and a busy slate — including upcoming projects with Steven Spielberg and Joel Coen — O’Connor’s career is in full bloom. Yet he seems more interested in slowing down than speeding up. “Right now, I’m being guided by what gives me time with my family, my friends, and my garden,” he says with an easy grin. “It sounds silly, but the garden really is up there on the list.”

His quiet ambition has become his defining trait. “I’ve been incredibly lucky that filmmakers like Kelly want to work with me,” he says. “I keep pinching myself — how has this happened?”

In The Mastermind, that unassuming quality becomes a strength. O’Connor plays ordinary men with extraordinary depth — the kind you can’t quite look away from. And this season, it’s clear: he’s no longer just one to watch. He’s the one stealing every scene.

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