On paper this is a functional scene. Bill goes to a hotel, asks about Nick Nightingale, learns two men took him away. Pure exposition. Alan Cumming turns it into something much weirder. The clerk is nervous and flirtatious and helpful and evasive, somehow all at once. He seems thrilled... to be talking to Bill, and completely aware that what he's describing is dangerous. It's funny and it's threatening and it never picks one. Which is Eyes Wide Shut in miniature. Almost every encounter in this film has that double quality. People are polite but something's off. They smile a beat too long. They hand over information and it still feels like a performance. Listen to what he actually says. Nick came back with two big guys, bruised, scared. He tried to slip the clerk an envelope. They took it, and told him any mail or messages for Mr. Nightingale would be collected by someone properly authorized to do so. Then they put him in a car. That's a threat delivered as paperwork. And the clerk relays it like gossip. He's not a major character. He shows up, tells Bill what happened, disappears. But he rewires the whole film in five minutes. Bill stops following clues and starts moving through a world where everyone knows more than he does, and every answer makes the mystery less rational instead of more. Cumming's performance is almost too big, and that's why it works. In a normal thriller this clerk would just be scared. Here he's delighted, seductive, impossible to read. Then Bill thanks him for his help and the clerk says "Anytime, Bill." Not Doctor. Not sir. Bill. Kubrick shot that scene for a week. Seven days for five minutes. Bill walks in looking for information. He walks out knowing the whole city is laughing at him.show more

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