Character Actors, Take Two
February 15, 2006 - Television - Movies - Actors
About a year ago, I wrote about those actors whose faces you recognise, although you don't know their names, and can't place where you've seen them before. My list has expanded, and I've got some new "that guy" actors.
Jeremy Piven is the first person that came to mind. I first noticed him in a great film called 12:01, where he played the main character's mischevious coworker. Since then, he's been in Grosse Point Blank, Kiss the Girls, Old School, Runaway Jury, and plenty of other films.
Robert Culp is a great actor who's been in movies forever, starting with I Spy, which was way before my time. Perhaps he shouldn't be in this list, as he really is more of an "A-List" actor. I first remember him as Bill Maxwell in the early 80's show The Greatest American Hero. What made me sit up and take notice of him in this instance is his role as the infamous Wallace Breen in Half-Life 2, which is in serious contention for my favorite video game.
Joe Morton is another face I see a lot in movies. For a while, I could only identify him as Miles Dyson from Terminator 2. He's had bit roles all over the place since then, largely as a guest star on various TV shows.
Before her big role in Crash, I remember Loretta Devine from the TV show Boston Public, which I watched pretty faithfully during the first season. She made my list simply because of the number of places I've seen her while flipping through channels.
I don't know how I ever got Clancy Brown mixed up with Jake Busey, but for a while, I did exactly that. Then someone decided to put the two of them both in Starship Troopers, and I got my head straight. When I looked into it, I was shocked to learn that Clancy Brown played The Kurgan in the original 1986 Highlander. Since then, he's been in about a million different things, and done a ton of voice work for cartoons and video games.
Jake Busey is a bit of a freaky-looking guy, and is the son of actor Gary Busey. His face stuck in my head after I saw him in Contact, where he played an exceedingly freaky character. I then noticed him in Twister, Starship Troopers, Identity, and in the 1996 movie The Frighteners with Michael J. Fox, where he played a very very freaky character.
Once again, I'm saving the best for last. I first saw J.K. Simmons in the 2004 remake of The Ladykillers, where he played Mr. Garth Pancake - an incredible caricature of a man. You probably best know him as J. Jonah Jameson from the Tobey McGuire Spiderman movies, or else as the police chief in the TV show "The Closer". His characters are characters, and I love to watch him when he really gets into them.