Adam Brody

Adam Brody plays Nick Talman in StartUp. Nick can sound reasonable while making choices that become increasingly difficult to defend. Brody's conversational ease is useful here: he makes the character seem capable of selling a plan to himself as well as to the people whose money he needs.

He became widely known as Seth Cohen in The O.C.. The quick delivery and awkward charm of that role made him a natural fit for comedy, but StartUp gives those qualities a less comfortable setting. Nick's intelligence does not necessarily amount to good judgment.

His film career includes Jennifer's Body, Ready or Not and Shazam!. The Kid Detective gives him a substantial leading role as a former child investigator whose adult life has not fulfilled the promise people once saw in him. It is a particularly useful companion to his television work because it lets humour sit alongside disappointment rather than simply relieve it.

Brody also appears in Fleishman Is in Trouble and plays Noah Roklov in Nobody Wants This. The latter returns him to romantic comedy, with a more settled adult manner than the nervous energy associated with Seth.

What carries across these parts is his ability to make a character's explanation sound plausible for just long enough. In StartUp, that can be charming, evasive or worrying depending on what Nick is trying to get past. He is a good counterweight to Edi Gathegi and Otmara Marrero, whose characters have different reasons to distrust a smooth presentation.