naif

The highfalutin parallel is to “Candide,” the classic 18th century novel about a naif who endures the horrors of civilization: chaos, selfishness, disease and destruction.

Even at 78, he remained the wonderstruck naif with a goodness so powerful it could transport all of us into another dimension.

Rogan, wearing his persona as a babe-in-the-woods naif, listened to this nonsense in slack-jawed stupefaction.

The naïf we meet in the beginning becomes something far more terrifying as he is empowered by his success, hopped up on janky diet pills, following rules imparted to him by his impossibly complicated father figure, Cohn.

Playing George Villiers, a man who evolves from a naïf into a political player negotiating peace between kingdoms in the 17th century, required the actor to sit with George and his layered interiority, along with learning how to convincingly die.