Saw the new revival of Arthur Miller's “The Crucible” on Broadway last night. Reviews are under embargo until later this week, so for now I’m contemplating the eternal question: Why isn’t Ben Whishaw a household name?

His speciality seems to be soulful, silently suffering dreamboats (Sebastian in “Brideshead Revisited”; Keats in “Bright Star”; Richard in the underrated “Lilting”), but he’s also been a fantastically quirky Q in the last couple of James Bond pictures and he was my favorite of the many Bob Dylans in “I’m Not There.” And compared to the hosannas bestowed on some of Whishaw's Brit contemporaries, like Andrew Garfield and Eddie Redmayne, Whishaw continues to fly under the cultural radar.

Then again, maybe this will finally be Whishaw’s year. In addition to “The Crucible,” in which he plays John Proctor opposite Saoirse Ronan’s Abagail Williams, he’s also done stellar work in the word-of-mouth hit BBC series “London Spy.” And he’s got two high-profile movies opening in the coming months, “The Lobster” and opposite Tom Hanks in “A Hologram for the King,” based on thegreat Dave Eggers novel.

(Photo from The Crucible by Jan Versweyveld)