A young priest (Josh O'Connor, left) accused of murder gets help from detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) in the third "Knives Out" mystery, "Wake Up Dead Man."
Dusty (Josh O'Connor) and his daughter Callie Rose (Lily LaTorre) are displaced after a wildfire burns down their ranch in the drama "Rebuilding."
Josh O’Connor plays a young priest accused of murder in Netflix's "Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery."

Josh O’Connor must think he’s Santa Claus, because the British actor seems to be everywhere right now with a brand-new bag of four fresh movies.

You can catch him playing a World War I-era musician opposite Paul Mescal in “The History of Sound” (streaming on Mubi) and taking an emotional turn as a hard-luck rancher dad in the indie drama “Rebuilding” (in theaters now). Two more of his performances hit this weekend (both streaming Dec 12): a bumbling art thief in the Mubi crime flick “The Mastermind” and a feisty young priest in Rian Johnson’s Netflix movie “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery."

Phew, that’s a bunch of characters. And for the 35-year-old Cheltenham native who’s impressed on “The Crown” and in “Challengers,” each is important because there’s a significant amount of O’Connor in all of them.

It’s a “special alchemy,” O’Connor says. “I often think that characters land with you at a time when you need them to land with you, that they answer a question that's somewhere in your mind left unanswered.”

When O’Connor got the call from Johnson about the religion-themed “Dead Man,” O’Connor happened to be undergoing “a crisis of faith and trying to understand the world in that way.”

“Dead Man” teams up Blanc and Father Jud, who’s accused of murdering his church’s head holy man, the imperious Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin). Jud starts off the film with a “blind optimism,” O’Connor says, that quickly goes south.

“Watching him sort of deteriorate, that's a great gift,” O’Connor adds. His character is burdened with baggage from his past – before he joined the church, Jud killed a man in a boxing match. He leads with his heart more than his fists, but one of Jud’s lines really spoke to the actor: “God loves me when I'm guilty.”

“That's something that I think is profound and true,” he says. “Jud's great talent is that he sees past people's flaws and their histories, and rather than point the finger, it's about trying to understand.

“We often associate priests with confession and granting forgiveness. Jud's view might be that forgiveness is an offering and understanding has to come alongside that.”

Craig finds O’Connor to be “a singular individual and actor. He's a rare breed: genuinely funny, genuinely nice. I'd never say this to his face,” Craig says with a laugh. “He’s got high standards, and it raises my game.”

People often ask O’Connor if there’s a connection between the roles he’s played, and usually offer up “a theory about masculinity or troubled souls or regret,” he says. For him, though, he looks more at where he was in his life. For example, when O'Connor played a tomb robber who’s lost a love in 2013’s “La Chimera,” “I was exploring grief and trying to understand what happens to you when someone meaningful in your life is no longer there.”

He tracks this mind-set back to being 10 and playing his first role, as the Scarecrow in a musical version of “The Wizard of Oz” in primary school. “The idea of being on stage with a group of people collectively trying to create something entertaining, that was I suppose the seedling of this desire to do what I do,” O’Connor says. “Our music teacher at school wrote original songs (for the production), and my song was ‘I Just Can't Think.’ It was about a guy who couldn't think, which is ironic because it was about the same time I discovered I was dyslexic.”

His latest big outing could mean a whole bunch of different characters: After spending "a little bit of time in my garden" back home in Gloucestershire – the man loves his plants – O’Connor hosts “Saturday Night Live” this weekend. And fingers crossed there’s no singing or dancing in sketches. “I just don't want to trip over at all,” admits the actor, who next stars in Steven Spielberg’s as-yet-untitled mystery movie (in theaters June 12).

When it comes to those aforementioned "unanswered" questions that coincide with his roles, the answers aren't always satisfactory for O'Connor, but it's all part of "trying to figure myself out,” he says. “Because I'm an actor, I choose to do it by a character rather than maybe some psychotherapy. Maybe do that as well.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Josh O'Connor recalls 'Knives Out' line he found 'profound and true'

Reporting by Brian Truitt, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect