Jesse Plemons plays three different men in Kinds of Kindness: Robert, Daniel, and Andrew. The film is an anthology, so each character belongs to a separate story. Plemons returns with much of the same cast in new roles, including Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Mamoudou Athie, and Hong Chau.
That structure can be disorienting at first. The actors do not continue one shared plot from one chapter to the next. Each section starts over with different characters and circumstances. What carries across is the cast, the film’s dark tone, and its interest in people who pursue another person’s affection or approval at a high personal cost.
If you enjoy tracking actors through sharply different parts, Mia Goth’s roles in Pearl and MaXXXine offer another useful comparison.
Robert: the employee controlled by his boss
In the first story, Plemons plays Robert. Variety describes him as a man controlled by his boss, played by Willem Dafoe. Robert’s relationship with that boss supplies the central pressure of his chapter.
The role places Plemons in a dynamic built around authority and obedience. Robert does not simply work for Dafoe’s character. His boss’s control reaches into the decisions that shape Robert’s life. That gives the first story its tense, unnerving energy.
The anthology format matters here. Robert is not an earlier version of Daniel or Andrew. He is a complete character for one section of the film, then the movie moves on. Viewers looking for a single protagonist will not find one. Plemons instead becomes a different anchor for each story.
Daniel: the policeman whose wife returns
Plemons plays Daniel in the second story. Daniel is a policeman whose wife, played by Emma Stone, returns after a research trip under strange circumstances. Variety identifies that return as the event at the center of Daniel’s chapter.
The details of her return create Daniel’s crisis. The story asks the viewer to sit with his reaction rather than treat the situation as a simple mystery to solve. That is part of what separates Daniel from Robert. Robert faces control from outside himself. Daniel faces uncertainty inside his marriage.
Emma Stone and Plemons play different characters in this chapter from the ones they played before. The familiar faces can make the shift feel deliberate and unsettling. The film invites the audience to recognize the actors while accepting that the people on screen have changed.
Andrew: the devoted cult follower
The third story gives Plemons the role of Andrew, described by Variety as a devoted cult follower. His place in the story comes from that devotion and the demands attached to it.
Andrew completes the trio of Plemons performances without turning the film into a showcase of disconnected disguises. The three men occupy separate situations, but each story follows people seeking approval, affection, or belonging. W Magazine describes the anthology’s characters as people who pursue the affection of others by any means, with desires that lead them to darker places.
| Story | Jesse Plemons character | Core situation stated in the sources |
|---|---|---|
| First story | Robert | A man controlled by his boss, played by Willem Dafoe |
| Second story | Daniel | A policeman whose wife returns after a research trip under strange circumstances |
| Third story | Andrew | A devoted cult follower |
Why the same actors keep returning
Kinds of Kindness uses a repeated cast across three separate stories. W Magazine names Stone, Plemons, Qualley, Athie, and Dafoe among the performers who take on multiple characters. That choice gives the film a repertory-company feeling without making the stories one continuous narrative.
The repeated casting also changes the way a viewer watches a scene. A familiar actor arrives with the memory of a previous character, then has to establish someone new. Plemons has the most obvious version of that task because Robert, Daniel, and Andrew each sit at the center of a different chapter.
The film’s anthology form can make a first viewing feel like three short films placed beside one another. The shared performers supply a connection, but the plots should be read separately. Robert’s boss, Daniel’s wife, and Andrew’s devotion belong to their own stories.
What Plemons said about working with Yorgos Lanthimos
In a 2025 Variety conversation with Michael B. Jordan, Plemons discussed his experience joining Yorgos Lanthimos for Kinds of Kindness. He said Lanthimos used games during rehearsals. Plemons called them silly and said they helped build trust among the actors.
He also described feeling lost during the first few days of rehearsal. According to Plemons, the games reduced the reverence around the material and tuned him into the other actors. His comments describe a general rehearsal process, not a private method he used to separate Robert, Daniel, and Andrew.
That distinction matters. Plemons did not describe a specific character-by-character technique for the three Kinds of Kindness roles in the cited interview. Michael B. Jordan did discuss his own work differentiating twins in Sinners, including costume and music choices. Those comments belong to Jordan’s process, not Plemons’s.
Plemons’s Cannes acting award
Plemons won the Best Actor prize at the Cannes Film Festival for Kinds of Kindness, as Variety reported in its 2024 awards-season overview. The same article listed the three roles: Robert, Daniel, and Andrew.
That article also discussed a possible future Oscar campaign. It did not report an Oscar nomination. Its language was prediction and awards-race analysis at the time, so it should not be read as proof that Plemons received a nomination for the film.
For a straightforward answer, keep the names in order: Robert is the man controlled by his boss, Daniel is the policeman whose wife returns in strange circumstances, and Andrew is the devoted cult follower. The three roles are separate parts of one anthology, connected by the returning cast rather than by one continuing plot.
How does your reading of Robert change after seeing Daniel and Andrew? Which recurring actor’s shift between stories stands out most to you?
