The Riddle of Riley Keough

The “Zola” actress has a knack for inhabiting working-class characters who feel real, even though her own family history is as outrageous as it gets.

Most actresses play to you. When they’re thinking or feeling something, you know exactly what that thing is. But Riley Keough is a little more elusive. Whether she’s weighing matters of money and sex in “The Girlfriend Experience” or staring down a romantic rival in “American Honey,” Keough, 32, certainly looks like a star — it helps that she inherited ice-blue eyes and a chin curved like a question mark from her grandfather Elvis Presley — even though her screen presence remains unusually impassive and mysterious. What are Keough’s characters thinking? You can never quite tell. This isn’t a bad thing. Instead, it’s the primary source of her allure: That gap between what you don’t know but want to find out is what’s so beguiling. And then, as you scan Keough’s face for flickers of intention and emotion, you realize you’re leaning in.