Connor Storrie’s first episode of Criminal Minds: Evolution was a pretty fun watch. And by fun, we mean it was kinda disturbing, but still very interesting! It’s always great to see a different side of an actor whose breakout role was so, so unlike what we saw in ‘The Witching Hour’ and ‘Friendly Fire’. And there is, of course, a lot to break down when it comes to the character arcs and what this means for the rest of the season of the show.
In fact, we do that here in our ‘The Witching Hour’ review and our ‘Friendly Fire’ review. But I want to take this time to just focus on Connor Storrie’s performance, because… well, because I can!
Watching Connor Storrie through Heated Rivalry and later, discovering his filmography, including his shorts, has been a very rewarding experience for a whole number of reasons. No, seriously, if you haven’t watched his horror short ‘Coax’, I wholeheartedly recommend you do. Sometimes, what a performer does as a director can give you a pretty big clue about what kind of career he’s going to have.
There’s no doubt that Storrie is a very good actor, and someone with a very clear idea of what kind of art he wants to be involved in. It’s always a thrill as someone who covers entertainment to find a performer who can disappear into every role. But Storrie also has that “it” that not all actors, even ones who do a consistently great job, have. That was very obvious, watching him build the character of Ilya, and even embody the character of Lance Kingston.
It’s a combination of charisma and a spark that cannot be defined. You can see it when he’s playing Ilya Rozanov, a character that’s brash and loud in public, but that somehow manages to transmit vulnerability and fear even while what’s being outwardly portrayed is anything but that. We understand from the jump that Ilya is more than what he presents to the public, even though the character never says it and in fact, goes out of his way to pretend he’s nothing but the menace he pretends to be.
You can see it when he’s playing Lance Kingston, a dude who gives creepy from the jump (stalking your ex is a big no-no), but that, as much as he presents hostility and bravado, is really a damaged man who might not know how to channel his anger. The extra layer that we get when he’s the victim is just the cherry on top of the sundae of a performance that feels very believable. Straight-up villains and heroes are easier, especially in procedurals, than characters who fall in the middle. Storrie, however, nails it.
So many of the best actors do their most important work in the time between dialogue. Storrie is one of those. And it’s not always about physicality. Yes, some roles require a performer to convince us with their moves or how they look. We certainly took note of the fact that Storrie looked like he could indeed be a hockey player.
But there’s more subtle work being done with microexpressions, with reactions to another actor’s decisions, and sometimes with things that might go unnoticed unless you take a beat to process them. For example, the way he modulates his voice in that interrogation scene, or how much he transmits with his eyes, and the way his voice breaks as he’s reading from a script while tied up in that weird contraption by The Fan. All of these things make clear that Storrie is both the kind of actor who makes the right acting choices and the kind of actor who is extraordinarily talented.
It’s not as common a combo as you might think. A lot of actors build a body of work out of being dependable and being solid, if unspectacular. Others crash and burn because talent can only take you so far if preparation and effort don’t accompany it. Storrie is just starting out, but from what we’ve seen of him so far, he seems to have found the right balance of both, and almost as importantly, the desire to challenge himself with every role he takes.
Again, it’s not easy. There’s this belief that procedurals are easy work, but sometimes roles like Lance Kingston are the hardest ones to pull off because you have to act against people who have years of embodying a character and not just keep up, but bring something new to the table. Storrie doesn’t just do that; he makes us want more.
We haven’t seen the last of Lance Kingston; that’s the interesting part. First we saw him being sassy in an interrogation and then showing us a little vulnerability even as he pushed back. Then we saw him tied up and being used as a pawn. We saw him afraid and scared. But we haven’t seen what happens next. How does someone like Lance Kingston react to being placed in the role of the victim? Will it lead him to sympathize with the villain? Will his way of wrestling control back be to turn into the very thing he wants to escape? Or, will he become a weapon the BAU can use? These are all very interesting questions.
No matter what the answer is, we’re sure Connor Storrie is going to hit it out of the park. He already has in two episodes of this show, and we barely even scratched the surface of what the character is and can be. In fact, Storrie was good enough in this performance that his guest arc got extended from one episode to four. Shocking? Not really. We’re pretty sure that if we’d watched this episode before Heated Rivalry, we also would have been looking up where we could see him again.
It just so happens that his big break came first. But this… this just reinforces what we already knew. Now, we’re all along for the ride to see what comes next.
