Open Lindo

Whether in person or in character, Delroy Lindo brings a great deal of humanity to a room. That's what made him so fearful as West Indian Archie in Spike Lee's Malcolm X, and that's what makes him all the more endearing as Alfre Woodard's musician husband in this month's Crooklyn, Lee's chronicle of one summer in the life of a 10-year-old Brooklyn girl and her family in the early 70s. Born in England and of Jamaican descent (his name appropriately translates as "Beautiful King"), Lindo grew up in New York and in 1979 graduated from San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater. Now married and living in New Jersey, he continues to chip away at the recognizability factor. "The concept of matching the name with the face of an actor," says Lindo, "that's what I deal with." In the long run, he hopes, the cumulative effect of his continuing work on Broadway and in other films (such as the upcoming French production Behanzin, in which he stars as the last king of Dahomey) will prove what he's felt since Malcolm X: "I've been here all the time."

DEVON JACKSON