This veteran actor has worked with Brad Pitt and Quentin Tarantino. He still worries he'll never work again.

Even if you don't recognize Scoot McNairy's name, you almost certainly recognize his face.

The 46-year-old actor has shared the screen with Hollywood greats like Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck and has been directed by auteurs like Quentin Tarantino and David Fincher. He's popped up in Oscar winners ("Argo," "12 Years a Slave"), superhero movies ("Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice"), and your favorite prestige TV series ("True Detective," "Narcos: Mexico," "Halt and Catch Fire").

McNairy is "that guy" — and that's the way he likes it.

"I feel like the further down you are on the call sheet, the more of a character you can play," he tells Business Insider.

It might feel like McNairy is everywhere these days — he currently stars opposite James McAvoy in Universal's horror remake "Speak No Evil," and will be seen next in "Nightbitch" with Amy Adams, out this December — but there was a time when he worried he'd never work again.

It was a big enough fear 12 years ago that McNairy left Hollywood entirely and headed back to his native Texas to wait out a professional dry spell.

"Essentially, I quit," McNairy explains. At the time, he had two breakthrough roles in the can — "Killing Them Softly," opposite Brad Pitt, Ray Liotta, and James Gandolfini, and "Argo" — but neither had been released yet, meaning more offers weren't yet rolling in as a result. In the long wait to get noticed, he was running out of money.

"I didn't want to go back to doing commercials at that time. I'd been doing it for a decade," he says. "I wanted something new."

That meant decamping to Texas, where he planned to get licensed and become a contractor while figuring out his next move.

Eventually, "Argo" was released and went on to win an Oscar, and McNairy did, of course, work again. His next role after that dry period, in the Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson dystopian Western "The Rover," was the first part he'd ever been offered without auditioning first. He found out about the "Argo" Oscar win while filming "The Rover" in the Australian Outback.

More than a decade later and with an even longer list of credits to his name, that period of professional uncertainty still informs McNairy's worldview. "I feel like I'm still trying to break through," he says.

"It's this weird feeling that all actors get, and I think a lot of artists get," he continues. "You truly do feel like you're never going to work again because you've seen it happen where people just kind of stop working."

While moderately terrifying, that attitude can also be freeing, and McNairy has used it to take big swings and fully immerse himself in his work. Because when every role might be your last, you might as well push yourself outside your comfort zone.

For the latest interview in BI's "Role Play" series, McNairy discusses working with Quentin Tarantino, how his partner Sosie Bacon helped him completely rework his performance as Amy Adams' husband in "Nightbitch," and why he didn't really mind that no one was watching "Halt and Catch Fire."

On having an 'eye-opening experience' with fame and why he won't read reviews

You had been working consistently for awhile before your breakthrough performances in "Killing Them Softly" and "Argo," both of which came out in 2012, and you did a ton of press for both. What did it feel like to suddenly get that recognition?

It's funny you mentioned that. I stopped reading reviews after "Midnight Kiss." I had a review that was probably positive, but there was something in it that took me aback.

Since then I vowed, from 2008 on, to just focus on the work and never read your reviews. It's sort of irrelevant what other people think about you. Just keep your head down and focus on the work and don't change what you're doing based on other people's opinions. And so I sort of stuck with that.

I don't know what was really said about me on that project during that time.

You still don't read reviews even now, just as a rule?

No. My partner, the amazing and lovely and talented Sosie [Bacon], she just told me [about "Speak No Evil"], "The reviews are really good, and you would be very happy." But she doesn't read them to me. She looks through all of them, but she doesn't read them to me.

And of course no one's going to tell you, "You were awful in the movie, and everyone's saying it." They just don't say anything, so you don't hear that.

Did becoming more recognizable after 2012 — becoming "that guy," in a way — change your lifestyle at all? Did it change your state of mind?

No, and I thought it would. I really did. I think that that was a big eye-opening experience for me. It felt like, "Oh, if I could just have these things or accomplish these things, I would feel different or feel better." And I think right around that time, probably in the release of "Argo" and "Killing Them Softly" and all those things, I didn't. I felt the same.

On Quentin Tarantino's obscure film taste and how his partner helped him retool his 'Nightbitch' performance

You have a small part in "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood." You've mentioned in the past that Quentin Tarantino has a really unique on-set style. What exactly was particular about working with him?

He's just super entertaining. Everyone in the film business loves movies. It's why we all work in this industry.

But to see someone who loves films more than anybody on the whole set, knows more about films and storytelling and the business and the history than anyone else on set, it's like a crash course or a masterclass of every subject you could take on film.

I was really quiet on that set. I was just watching him and listening to him and sort of a little bit mesmerized by the encyclopedia that he could just turn up at any moment. He was dropping people's names that had two lines and a guest star role in a TV show from the '70s. It was just incredible how knowledgeable he is, but also how talented he is, and such a great filmmaker.

I was over the moon to get that job. I mean, I'd have held Quentin Tarantino's coffee if he'd have just let me be around set and listened to him talk.

I remember the auditioning process. I sent in a tape, and all the feedback I got was, "Wow, he really, really likes it, but he's got somebody else in mind for the role." All good. I never thought I was going to get the part to begin with. And then it wasn't until two weeks before I shot that they called and said, "Hey, they're booking you." And I was, "What? What? No way." And then I didn't really meet Quentin until the day I got to work.

Would you want to reunite with Quentin?

If Quentin would have me on anything that he's doing, he'd say, "Jump," and I'd say, "How high?"

I saw "Nightbitch" at TIFF and I was surprised by your character. He was much more nuanced than I expected given the trailer, which felt a little bit more humorous than the movie actually was. Have you seen the trailer?

I have seen the trailer, yeah. But it's hard for me, because I'd seen the film before I saw the trailer, so it was hard for me to separate. I was like, "Oh, well, those are clips from the movie." But I did hear that from a couple people that the trailer could be misleading.

Was it a delicate balancing act for you to both develop your character and make him feel like a real relatable guy while also holding the space for Amy to own this movie?

I've seen almost every single one of Amy's movies. I've been watching her since the day I moved to California. She's a phenomenal, ferocious — feral, I should say — actor. It was intimidating at first to work with her, but she's so approachable and so kind and such a giving actor that all that went away after the first couple days.

But in regards to my part in that film, I have to give a lot of credit to obviously Mari [Heller], the filmmaker, who I had extensive conversations with about parenthood and relationships and children, as well as with Amy. I got so much insight from them as mothers on their experiences.

But I have to give a lot of credit to my lovely, amazing partner Sosie, who really broke down why all this is so infuriating for a mom or a woman. She helped me with being kind with the character, being aloof with the character, being genuine with the character, but also teeing up Amy for these certain scenes or certain lines where you can say something that just makes a mom go, "Oh, how could you?"

And those things, as a man, you can't see the humor in it as much. I had a different approach to this character, and Sosie sat me down and was like, "No, no, no, no. I'm telling you, you need to pay attention to these things." I think that led to the performance being the way that it was.

On why he wasn't bothered that no one watched 'Halt and Catch Fire' and why he loves character acting

"Halt and Catch Fire" is one of the most underrated shows of all time. Did it ever frustrate you that it didn't get more recognition when it was airing?

No, no. Look, I loved [creators] Chris Rogers and Chris Cantwell. They were two or three years younger than me. They're incredibly smart. I loved these guys. I loved working with them. I loved the show so much.

People were like, "No one's watching." Our ratings were down so low that we were like the lowest-rated show to ever get picked up for another season. And I knew the ratings were bad, but there was a sense on set too that's like, "Well, let's try this, or let's do that. No one's watching. We can have some more freedom with it."

But no. That part of it's out of my control — the box office, the general public. It's so out of my control. I hope that it turns out great, but I don't give it a lot of thought or a lot of time.

You've spoken in the past about being unsure which path you wanted to take with your career: character actor or leading man. Was there ever a time that you felt particularly at that crossroads? Kind of like, "If I had taken that role or done that audition or turned down this thing, my career would've been completely different"?

That's a great question, and I don't know. We'll never know. I know that what's best for me, or what I was going after, is I love being number two or three on the call sheet. I love it.

That being said, leading man roles, I've done some, I love them, all based on what that story is or what that lead character is doing.

But I like playing number three or four just because you have a little bit more room to stretch a character, make them a little bit more outlandish, push the envelope a little bit more. Like in "12 Years a Slave," I really threw that character at the wall, and I couldn't believe that it stuck. I couldn't believe that they liked it and they wanted it.

A lot of these auditions I went into earlier, I never thought I would get them. I had a long period of time of the studio saying no to me. When a filmmaker wanted me, the studio would be like, "No, bring this to somebody else." That went on for a really long time.

So around this time period, I started throwing stuff at the wall. That role in "Killing Them Softly," I was just messing around and playing. And then they wanted a callback, and I was like, "I have no idea what I did! I never thought I was going to come back for this."

Those types of characters and character acting are definitely something I'd much more lean into, and I'm hoping in the future to get deeper character roles that allow me to really challenge myself and stretch myself to more uncomfortable places. Because it's really comfortable knowing you can lay something down in an audition with the thought of, "I'm never going to get it anyways. No one's ever going to see this. Who cares?"

But to do it on something that you know that people are going to see can take you outside of your comfort zone. And I like to be outside of my comfort zone. I don't like being comfortable when I'm working.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

"Speak No Evil" is in theaters now.