Let's take a moment to consider what this is. The "IT" factor. This is something that not many actors possess, it isn't about physical beauty, or even about screen presence; it's that indefinable something that communicates directly to that invisible string in your spine. The one that jerks you out of the slumped couch potato mode, sits you up and makes you take notice. Humphrey Bogart possessed it. In spades. And you could hardly call him classically handsome. Frank Sinatra had it. You sat up and took notice whenever he walked into shot. "IT" is also not about comparison. "IT" being that special something, "IT" means different things to different actors.

Costas has the "IT" factor. The something that makes you want to watch him and keep watching. A certain engaging warmth. An intensity. Even the sense of fun he brings to the roles he gets. The something that makes his performance rise above the sometimes frankly appalling material that he has to work with. Somehow Costas manages to inject a certain down to earth realism into some of the loopiest plots.

To date "Players" has given him the best opportunity to show off what he can do. The performances were engaging and genuinely funny and the friendship between the three central characters entirely believable. Costas and Frank John Hughes worked brilliantly together, some of the best and funniest scenes were between impulsive Latin ladiesman Alphonse and uptight neurotic systems expert Charlie. They made you care what happened to them. At the end of the day that's what good acting is all about; that the viewer actually cares what happens to the character. Which is something Costas achieves with effortless ease.