‘A Talent for Murder’ Star Alden Ehrenreich Is Chasing Opportunities, Not Results

The actor has gradually built an impressive, eclectic collection of screen credits over the past 17 years. His filmography includes blockbuster fare like “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” “Cocaine Bear” and Marvel’s “Ironheart,” but also auteur-driven hits like Zach Cregger’s horror epic “Weapons,” Christopher Nolan’s Best Picture-winning biographical drama “Oppenheimer” and writer-director Chloe Domont’s breakout Sundance feature directorial debut “Fair Play.” He has built a career on creative swings of varying size and success. That is to say nothing, either, of the Coen Brothers’ Hollywood satire “Hail, Caesar!,” which offered Ehrenreich some breakout success in 2016 and also sits comfortably — in both scope and risk — between the biggest and smallest projects in his filmography. And yet Ehrenreich has developed what he calls a “cold calculus” for judging and moving on from his projects. “They’re kind of dead to me now, as soon as they come out or even before then,” Ehrenreich told TheWrap. “I have certain warm feelings about people I worked with and certain experiences, but the projects themselves… you can’t have the relationship with them that an audience member would.” “I read this quote from an actor one time where they said, ‘The most important movie is always the next one,’” Ehrenreich explained. “An actor has no control over how a movie comes out or how it does when it’s released. So I think that’s a fairly healthy mentality to have.” Ehrenreich sat down with TheWrap in late October to discuss his latest film, director Anton Corbijn’s “A Talent for Murder.” Based on a 2014 play by Joanna Murray-Smith, who also wrote the film’s screenplay, the thriller follows the ambitious employee (Ehrenreich) of a prestigious New York publishing house who is sent to Switzerland to try to persuade “The Talented Mr. Ripley” author Patricia Highsmith (portrayed here by Helen Mirren) into signing a contract for one more book about her slippery, sociopathic literary con man, Tom Ripley. What he discovers in Highsmith is a combative, manipulative recluse who sees every conversation as a chess match she likes to play by her own set of rules. As the two brainstorm the plot of a new Ripley tale together, the lines between reality and fiction blur, all while secrets about both Ehrenreich’s Edward Ridgeway and Mirren’s Highsmith are slowly brought to the surface. For an actor like Ehrenreich, divorcing yourself from the finished project means picking scripts based on the challenges they present above anything else. In “A Talent for Murder,” he saw two opportunities that were too alluring to pass up: The chance to work with an actor of Mirren’s caliber and the challenge of playing two characters, the ambitious up-and-coming Ridgeway and Tom Ripley, whom Ehrenreich coolly inhabits throughout “A Talent for Murder” in scenes that bring to life the film’s fictional, unwritten Ripley story. “It was really appealing,” Ehrenreich said of the film. “I’ve had the chance to work with some amazing directors and some really great actors over the years, but there’s a lot of great actors that I admire who I haven’t gotten to work with, and so the chance to not only work with Helen but act with her this extensively and intensely was really, really wonderful.” Helen Mirren and Alden Ehrenreich in “A Talent for Murder” (Image via Bleecker Street) Tom Ripley is one of 20th century fiction’s greatest and most beguiling creations. He has been portrayed numerous times onscreen before, most recently by Andrew Scott in Netflix’s limited series “Ripley” and by Matt Damon (1999’s “The Talented Mr. Ripley”), Dennis Hopper (1977’s “The American Friend”) and John Malkovich (2002’s “Ripley’s Game”) before that. Speaking with TheWrap, Ehrenreich admitted that he was “not incredibly” familiar with Ripley as a character or Highsmith as a writer before signing on for “A Talent for Murder.” “I’d seen the [1999] film, and I’d read a little bit of Highsmith. I’d read some of her short stories and a little bit of this book she wrote about plotting suspense fiction. But I learned a lot more working on this movie,” Ehrenreich said. While he purposefully avoided watching Scott’s take on the character (“I’m a big admirer of his and didn’t want to have that in my head”), he purposefully sought out French actor Alain Delon’s turn as Ripley in 1960’s “Purple Noon.” “I looked at ‘Purple Noon’ because that was the one that Highsmith was a big fan of and, in this film, I am Ripley as Highsmith imagines him. So I wanted to see what the real Highsmith loved about Alain Delon’s portrayal of him,” Ehrenreich said. “It was useful. I don’t know if it was transformatively helpful, but it was good to see.” As part of his research, he also spent time at a publishing house like the one Ridgeway works for in “A Talent for Murder.” He spent time getting to know editors who do the same job as his character, including one who had been promoted primarily because of her previous work editing Highsmith’s personal diaries. “When I said I was working on this film, her face went white,” Ehrenreich recalled with a laugh. “She had stayed up in the middle of many nights reading Highsmith’s diaries, and that was a dark, dark, dark place for her to be.” Alden Ehrenreich in “A Talent for Murder” (Bleecker Street) Ehrenreich is as much an admirer of the craft of acting as he is a practitioner of it. Over the years, he has turned personal dinners with Francis Ford Coppola and Dustin Hoffman into interviews about filmmaking and acting. At the time of our conversation, he shared that he’d even just recently reached out to Al Pacino to see if he would meet with him for a similar chat. Despite that, Ehrenreich tried not to spend his time with Mirren on the set of “A Talent for Murder” peppering her with questions. “When you’re on a set, I think it’s a little bit like talking to a pitcher who’s on a streak or something. You just don’t,” Ehrenreich said. “You don’t want to get analytical about what you’re doing while you’re doing it. But I’m also someone who really loves to do that. And with certain actors, there might be well-documented stories about how they got cast in certain projects but less about what their actual work and process looks like. There’s inside baseball stuff in there that only other actors understand.” “I want to make sure I get to ask Helen some things,” he added. “We’re having dinner tonight, so I’m already like, ‘Can I whip the notebook out and finally start grilling her on her process?’ [Laughs]” For Ehrenreich, the opportunity to work with actors like Mirren or filmmakers like Christopher Nolan, as he did on 2023’s “Oppenheimer,” is as alluring as a great role. “Those are the two [criteria],” he said. “I want to like the thing itself, but what I’m most looking for is the opportunity to work with a great director, a great actor, or the opportunity to take on a role that’s really juicy and a challenge. Something I can really sink my teeth into.” He is not abandoning that search for passion and artistry anytime soon. When we spoke, he was still in the midst of shooting “Miami Vice ’85,” “Top Gun: Maverick” director Joseph Kosinski’s star-studded new take on the popular 1980s TV series. While he noted that there is “little” he can say about the film right now, Ehrenreich divulged that he was drawn to it by Kosinski’s sheer, unbridled passion for the material. “Joe loves the [original] show,” Ehrenreich said. “To go back to your original question about how I choose: How much the director actually cares and loves the thing they’re making is a big, big part of it. It doesn’t matter if it is commercial stuff or smaller stuff. Sometimes, there are indie directors who do not particularly care about the little movie they’re making for whatever reason. It’s all about how deep the connection is to the material.” “Getting to see how much Joe loves ‘Miami Vice’ and watching him recreate this world that he sat on his couch and watched as a kid is very thrilling,” the actor said. “When that feeling is there on a set, it always adds a certain magic to it.” Alden Ehrenreich attends “A Talent For Murder” New York Premiere at AMC Lincoln Square Theater on October 21, 2026 in New York City. (Theo Wargo/Getty Images) Ehrenreich discovered what can be gained from working with other, talented artists when he shot his first movie, Coppola’s 2009 drama “Tetro.” Looking back on his experience making that film, Ehrenreich described it as “transformative.” “I met Coppola when I was 17 and he was very, very much a mentor for me,” he said. “It was such a crazy kind of dream experience making that movie. I couldn’t imagine a better first film because I experienced the great freedom and joy of working for a true master, of being able to just say, ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ and do whatever they want with complete trust in them. That is such a joy.” “That experience kind of shaped my whole approach. I haven’t always gotten the chance to follow through on that. Sometimes I have, sometimes I haven’t,” he noted. “But working for Francis or Nolan or the Coen Brothers or other directors like them… that’s the North Star.” Those are the words of an actor who has learned to chase opportunities, not results, and that road only seems to be leading Ehrenreich toward more and more interesting places. “A Talent for Murder” is now playing in theaters.