catch unawares

Mendelsohn’s tender performance as an unthinking jerk undergoing a subtle evolution may catch unawares anyone who knows the Australian-born actor only from his bad-guy parts in movies such “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” or “Ready Player One” or the tortured soul in TV’s “Bloodline,” for which he won an Emmy.

Fr. surprendre, to catch unawares.

It even pounces on birds and lizards, in spite of their activity and means of escape; and, when pressed by hunger, it will attack a native village, and carry off, not only fowls and other tame animals, but the children, and sometimes full-grown people, whom it may catch unawares.

Kraterus accordingly sent Antipater into Cilicia, and himself with the greater part of the army marched with Neoptolemus to fight Eumenes, whom he imagined he should catch unawares, engaged in feasting and celebrating his late victory.