Michael Stuhlbarg plays loving psychiatrist husband to Julia Roberts' stressed philosophy professor in "After the Hunt."
Michael Stuhlbarg (left) stars alongside Toni Collette and Anthony Hopkins in "Hitchcock."

Need to drop a levity bomb in the middle of a group of pretentious characters? Or give Julia Roberts or Tom Cruise a great scene partner? Call Michael Stuhlbarg.

In the past 15 years, the Emmy- and Tony-nominated California native has become one of the big screen’s most reliable and talented character actors in “Lincoln,” “The Post,” “Call Me by Your Name” and even a couple of “Doctor Strange” movies. And at 57, he’s still learning from the A-listers and legends he encounters.

“It’s an apprenticeship,” Stuhlbarg says. “That's always kind of how I thought about this profession, watching the best people do things.”

In director Luca Guadagnino’s new psychological drama “After the Hunt” (in theaters now), he plays Frederik, the psychiatrist husband of Yale philosophy professor Alma (Roberts). As the plot revolves around Alma’s protege (Ayo Edebiri) accusing her teacher’s colleague (Andrew Garfield) of sexual assault, characters manipulate each other, hide secrets and even lash out violently. Then there’s Frederik, a mercurial sort who’s a truth teller and can sometimes be found conducting loud classical music while cooking a gourmet meal.

“To be the source of joy and whimsy and the mischief, to be as much a provocateur as any of the other kids, is pure fun for me,” Stuhlbarg says. He took everything that was “a bit austere” about playing a Freudian analyst/musicologist who’s passionate about his cuisine music and “was relieved and delighted to get the opportunity to maybe bring some lightness and humor to these heady folks.”

Stuhlbarg has a lot of his scenes with Roberts, and they had some deep chats about choosing roles, like “hearing how Julia implicitly trusts her gut instinct about text when she reads it and doesn't usually hem and haw about what she wants to do,” he says. “I try to evaluate every possible angle of something that comes at me, and making decisions about it can for me be a laborious process.”

And Stuhlbarg followed up being Roberts' on-screen spouse in "After the Hunt" by filming the new (and still-untitled) Alejandro Iñárritu dark comedy with Cruise. Working with those two pop-culture icons back-to-back “was pretty amazing. And they are unlike anybody I've ever met, as individuals, as souls, as spirits,” Stulbarg says. “One thing immediately is they're both so positive and so optimistic and such encouraging people. It doesn't surprise me that they are still doing what they're doing and that people love them and love to work with them.

“If you're going to go to battle with anybody, they are extraordinary colleagues and comrades.”

Stuhlbarg has taken a bunch of lessons from fellow thespians for decades. He fondly recalls being across the stage from Ed Harris in the 1996 Broadway play “Taking Sides.” “Every night, he was never the same twice, in the best way,” Stuhlbarg says.

That mindset carried over into his screen work. Playing talent agent Lew Wasserman opposite Anthony Hopkins’ title role in “Hitchcock,” Stuhlbarg immersed himself in the “joy” Hopkins brought to the work: He’d “just riff and be completely free in this enormous fat suit and all this latex makeup.”

Stuhlbarg had a memorable moment with Daniel Day-Lewis – in full presidential mode – during a break on the set filming “Lincoln.” He recalls Day-Lewis “putting his arms on my shoulders and just providing a kind of metaphor for making sure that he's going to get my vote as the congressman I'm playing as well as being a comrade trying to encourage me to keep going and go further.” Stuhlbarg has similar memories from “The Post,” being impressed by the “ease” of Meryl Streep and “friendly effortlessness” of Tom Hanks.

“These are the kinds of artists that have an impression on you and make you want to be the best version of what you have to offer,” Stuhlbarg says. “It made me want to emulate them and to steal from them. I carry them with me everywhere I go.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Michael Stuhlbarg is an actor's actor. But he's still learning from the best.

Reporting by Brian Truitt, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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