Alternate Best Actor 2024: Keith Kupferer in Ghostlight

Keith Kupferer did not receive an Oscar nomination, despite being nominated for an Independent Spirit Award, for portraying Dan Mueller in Ghostlight. 

Ghostlight follows a construction worker going through a family crisis finding an outlet through acting. 

Ghostlight gives that rare opportunity for an unlikely if not entirely unknown performer to get to take on the leading role. In this case character actor, if not even background actor Keith Kupferer who maybe you know best as the “HE SHOULD TURN HIMSELF IN” guy from The Dark Knight. The film by providing the opportunity to Kupferer to show off talents previously hidden while also giving the audience a very different protagonist than many cinematic leads. Kupferer very much looks like the part he is playing, which is a guy working construction who very much just exists within a certain state of emotional being. Kupferer’s presence is one where it doesn’t feel like he’s playing anything, he’s just being, as he embodies not only the look but the entire feel. As we see the workaday Dan goes about his day dealing with dangerous drivers as he’s working, then finding his daughter Daisy (Katherine Mallen Kupferer, Kupferer’s own daughter), having intense problems at school to the point of being potentially kicked out entirely. Kupferer when taking in her actions, which we will find out later are likely connected directly to the suicide of his son/her brother, Kupferer just presents Dan as someone taking it all in. Believably so as he just carries that same hardening, not unemotional, but just adding in the pressure in an attempt to be as passive as he can be. Something that Kupferer convincingly makes the innate state of Dan as a man who learned to get by life mostly by just keeping it all in with his emotions, and Kupferer remarkably sets up the initial state of essentially the dormant volcano that could potentially erupt. Something we see on the edges of Kupferer’s performance as he conveys just the mental exhaustion of the man that is building up. 

Something we finally see come out as one pressure too many culminates with another drive almost swerving into his construction area, where Dan physically confronts the man grabbing him and telling him to stop. Kupferer is great in the scene because it feels like such a natural release, not a good way, but just that pent up anger put forth in any direction, in this instance the most immediate. Kupferer is terrific in the way though he comes down where he is able to play the moment of realization for a moment before coming back to his typical state of just trying to hold it in himself. The reaction though also causes him to catch the eye of a very small local theater actor Rita (Dolly de Leon), who gets him to come along into their production of Romeo and Juliet that is more than a ragtag group. And if this sounds like Sing Sing, it is because it is extremely similar in plot and really character development around the play. But who cares, they’re both good in different enough ways. Part of it being Dan is far from where Clarence Maclin starts even, as Kupferer shows Dan just an alien in the setting, looking at the words and reading them with a detachment. He importantly though underlies these moments with a quiet interest as he gets pulled into the performance, helps when he is put on leave for his job due to his outburst against the driver. But Kupferer very naturally creates the seed, he’s still the guy keeping it all in but with the acting we start to see just the most generalized interest, believably as something Dan just sees as something to do at the start. 

Kupferer basically plays the cultivation of the connection well particularly as we see him spending a bit more time for his daughter as he begins to express interest in Romeo and Juliet. Kupferer’s delivery of this interest is so convincing because it is so simple as a “I guess why not” sort of way as she, unknowing why, teaches him a few things about the play and performance. Connecting further is in the acting performances where he is consistently encouraged by Rita to try harder and participate more. Something where we see in Kupferer’s early portrayal of Dan in the play as quite frankly quite bad and truly just a man reading a script nothing more. In turn we also see that exhaustion that defines the man comes out when getting involved with some of the acting exercises, where Kupferer is terrific in playing the specific tension whenever pushed to portray emotions, despite being filled with them. Kupferer so effectively creates that dynamic because he does have a hard face, yet on those edges of every word and in his eyes you do see that dormant emotion just waiting to come out with the right excuse. Something Rita cultivates from him, where he and De Leon have great non-romantic, though with maybe just the right hint of it, chemistry between them as she basically pushes him to do more. Kupferer brings this gradual increase in his performance again so naturally, because it isn’t at all sudden, it is one scene from another of the acting, as we see the man slowly lose a degree of the self-consciousness to be something other than himself. Kupferer makes it remarkable because of just how believable he is in just how tight everything is about him before this, so when we see the bits letting out it speak volumes. 

At the same time we discover that Dan’s son died in an attempted suicide pact with his girlfriend, who unlike Dan’s son, awoke from the drugs they took leading Dan to try to sue the family for what they see having been culpable. Something that we see consistently Dan does not deal with whether it is with Daisy, his wife (Tara Mallen, Kupferer’s actual wife as well), his daughter even as she goes to a therapist and even when running into his son’s surviving girlfriend. Kupferer still shows the emotion in these instances but that emotion that he pulls into himself, where the intensity in his eyes worsen and you see the pain that he wants to keep out of himself. However this comes to a head when he is literally forced to speak about his son’s death in order to complete a court deposition. A scene where Kupferer is amazing as you see him basically forced to go moment by moment in recalling finding his son. Kupferer is tremendous in the scene by the way we slowly see the pressure of the emotion penetrate his walls, although this time not just in anger but in such messy complications. Kupferer certainly brings the anger, however below that he delivers the outpouring of the heartbreak. Kupferer is so powerful in his delivery of not wishing that his son’s girlfriend had also died, but that they had both awoken. Kupferer brings such devastating honesty to each and every word in what is just a tremendous cathartic moment of the man revealing his inner torments. 

And yes just like Sing Sing we see the progression of the healthy release of emotions with the growth in performance, though I would say Sing Sing perhaps is a little more detailed in this process through Clarence Maclin’s performance, Kupferer’s work is also remarkable with what he is given in terms of the film's shorter screentime. As importantly he makes the choice in not going too far in terms of either the release of emotion or his eventual ability with Shakespeare enough to play Romeo to Rita’s Juliet. Kupferer still maintains that Dan is a guy who doesn’t wear his emotions on his sleeve, however starts presenting a man who can regulate those emotions in a healthier way. As Kupferer eases up the pressure while also being more open in his heartfelt connections with both his wife and his daughter. Kupferer makes such a gentle yet wholly winning transition, and is incredibly moving in just the simple gestures of the man allowing those positive emotions to also reveal themselves in such gentle ways. While Kupferer honestly makes one of the best cinematic depictions of Romeo though I like that while we see Kupferer still showing Dan being himself, but now being himself while finding a way to express the emotions of Romeo. His acting has improved from just reading the lines out loud, but they are lines earnestly from Dan's own emotions now. It isn't some extreme transformation but rather Kupferer makes it something special by making it a man taking his genuine trauma and funneling into his performance in a much healthier release. Kupferer delivers such a wonderful heartfelt turn here, which is so easy to appreciate because he realizes such an atypical protagonist so honestly, while also getting a little bit of a showcase for a rather atypical leading man at the same time.