In person, Driver has the polite but firm bearing of the Marine he was before attending Juilliard, and he can’t really be drawn into saying more just for the sake of it: At one point, after completing a thought, Driver informed me, “That’s the end of the sentence.” The only time he was given to hemming, hawing or the occasional embarrassed smile was when we discussed the awards show he’d be attending that night.

“I think everybody, in every job, wants validation,” he ultimately said, though he wondered whether that desire could be fraught for actors to acknowledge, since they have little to hide behind. “It’s not separate from who I am,” Driver said. “I don’t have an instrument, I don’t play the cello. It’s yourself, so in a way, it’s more vulnerable.”

At least he will be on this journey with Baumbach, the director who has become his most frequent and trusted collaborator. They have been working together since “Frances Ha” in 2012, when Baumbach found himself enamored with the way Driver, cast as a hipster clad in a cardigan and porkpie hat, managed to breathe unexpected life into his lines.