AUSTIN — Richard Jenkins is the classic Everyman.

He’s an actor with dozens of film, stage and television roles to his credit, in a resume dotted with a versatile array of acclaimed supporting roles that have rarely thrust him into the public spotlight.

Jenkins had worked steadily in the business for more than 30 years before filmmaker Tom McCarthy offered him the lead role in The Visitor, a provocative, character-driven drama that gives him the meaty lead role he’d dreamed about for decades.

“I didn’t think it was going to happen, and I was fine with that. I’ve played some wonderful roles,” Jenkins said during the recent South by Southwest Film Festival. “When this came along, it was like a movie. He said he wrote this with me in mind. It was just great fun for me. I’ve waited my entire professional career to be a part of a project like this.”

Jenkins, 60, plays Walter Vale, a disillusioned economics professor from Con­nec­ticut who travels to New York for a conference, only to discover two immigrants living in his apartment there. After being initially startled, Walter forges an unlikely friendship with the couple during their struggle to get acclimated in a new country.

“I have liked his work for a long time and wanted to work with him,” McCarthy said of Jenkins. “It was exciting to me because he hadn’t had a lead role. I love using actors in ways that possibly we haven’t seen them before. I think it’s exciting for them and for the audience. They just feel like they’re watching a fellow human being go through these experiences, and not necessarily a movie star.”

Jenkins said he immediately responded to the script by McCarthy, a veteran actor who received considerable accolades for his directorial debut, The Station Agent (2003).

“He puts people in movies who are different and sees what happens. I like that it’s a story about personal relationships first,” Jenkins said. “It’s a small story with big implications.”

McCarthy said he developed the script by combining characters he had conceived previously. Making a film with an immigration subplot stemmed from a recent trip he took to the Middle East, and some of the people he met there.

“I had this character of Walter Vale kicking around a while, a sort of academic at that point in his life who was sort of disconnected from his work and his community, and how he finds a way to reconnect,” McCarthy said. “I started playing with characters and imagining how they might come into contact with one another, and the themes and stories were born out of that.”

Setting the story is New York came naturally because of its “melting pot” composition. But McCarthy wanted to present a more intimate view of the city instead of indulging visually in an abundance of landmarks or skyscrapers. The film was shot in 28 days during the fall of 2006, following about two weeks of cast rehearsals.

“We really didn’t have the budget, time or the interest in these huge, sweeping shots of New York. I wanted to keep it intimate and personal,” Mc­Carthy said. “It’s just shooting the city for the city.”

The Visitor was shot partially in sequential order, allowing Jenkins to further invest himself emotionally in the transformation of his character, from a lonely widower to an impassioned crusader for immigrant rights.

“He’s just kind of given up on life and is just kind of going through the motions and is unhappy with everything,” Jen­kins said. “[Im­mig­ration] is something I hadn’t really given a lot of thought to, but when you know somebody that goes through it, everything changes. It gives a face to the problem.”

Jenkins also needed to learn how to play an African drum for the role, a skill his character learns during the film. Although his preparation didn’t require much percussion practice, the actor’s son is an accomplished drummer, and Jenkins himself dabbled in it as a youngster.

“I gave it up because I wasn’t that good, but it did help me,” Jenkins said. “Finally I did something in my youth that paid off.”