The NYT’s Caryn James profiles the amazing actor, whose most potent performance, I think, was in last year’s “Children of Men,” Alfonso Cuarón’s cinematic tour de force:

His two upcoming films:

“Shoot ’Em Up” (opening Friday) begins with an image found in several of his movies, as well as the Lancôme spot: an extreme close-up of his eyes, shrewdly hinting at surprises to come. Here the camera pulls back and reveals him to be a rumpled guy sitting on a bench munching a carrot, which he soon uses as a lethal weapon, stabbing a villain through the throat. And if a cartoonish action movie can find a way to exploit his looks, how much easier for “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” (opening Oct. 12), in which he plays a seductive Walter Raleigh opposite Cate Blanchett as the middle-aged Elizabeth I. Wrenching a line furiously out of context, the film’s trailer has her take one look at him and say, “Well, well” in a way suggesting that it’s Elizabethan for “Ooh-la-la.”

Here’s what the story says about “Children of Men”:

“I usually have a very strong instinct when I read a script,” he said. “I really wasn’t sure about doing that film because the character is so apathetic. You’re playing somebody who’s depressed and cynical and so reluctant.” He continued, “I just wasn’t sure I saw my way into that.” Even now he can only say, “I felt very strongly that there just had to be an overwhelming sadness about the guy.”

He is clearly better at acting than at dissecting how he does it, and Mr. Cuarón laughed knowingly when told that his star was vague when talking about their process. “The thing you have to know about Clive is that he’s not an intellectual in the way he approaches his character,” he said by phone. “He’s completely instinctual. He may analyze the thing later and say, ‘I understand why he does that.’ ”

Mr. Cuarón can describe the subtlety of the performance, though. “He knew there was a physical heaviness to the character reflecting the spiritual heaviness,” he said. At the start, “his shoulders are completely dropped, and every single muscle of his face is as if it were absolutely without gravity. As he’s recovering his faith, the muscles in his face get stronger.”

“Children of Men” was disastrous at the box office, but Mr. Owen shrugs off flops as well as fame….

I didn’t remember “COM” being such a flop, but I checked Box Office Mojo and it’s true: A $76 million film that made $35 million.