Category: character actor month

Keith David (IMDB credits: 180 credits, The Thing, Platoon, They Live, Gargoyles, Princess Mononoke, There’s Something About Mary, Pitch Black, Requiem for a Dream, Coraline)

Keith David is an actor known just as well for both his on screen performances as well as voice over work. When I see his face I immediately think of Childs in John Carpenter’s The Thing. When I hear his voice I think of Goliath from Disney’s Gargoyles, one of the best children’s animated shows from the 1990s. David was born in Harlem, New York in 1956 and first found himself moving towards acting as a career when playing the Cowardly Lion for a school production of The Wizard of Oz. He entered into New York’s High School for the Performing Arts and attended Julliard afterwards. You can definitely hear the classical Shakespearean training in his voice, particularly as the Celtic Goliath. David has become a frequent collaborator with John Carpenter and provided the voice-overs for three Ken Burns documentaries (“The War”, “Unforgivable Blackness”, “Jazz”) and won Emmys for the first two. He is one of those actors more and more directors are using and his IMDB boasts 12 projects in various stages of production.

Paul Dooley (IMDB credits: 160 credits, Slap Shot, Popeye, Strange Brew, Sixteen Candles, Waiting For Guffman, Insomnia, A Mighty Wind, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Cars, Hairspray)

Dooley is one of those people that has always had a creative mind and was bound to be involved in entertainment and the arts somehow. Born in Virginia in the 1920s, Dooley was very into cartooning and even drew a regular strip that was part of the local newspaper. He joined up with the Navy, but after getting out and enrolling in West Virginia University he discovered theater. Comedy was his strength, so he moved to New York and did stand up for five years, and then worked as a stage magician and clown. Dooley was discovered by Mike Nichols and cast in the original stage production of The Odd Couple. In the 1970s he helped co-create The Electric Company for PBS and worked as one of its writers for its initial run. Around this time he also got involved with Robert Altman’s films, playing key roles in A Wedding and Popeye. In the 1990s, Dooley got involved in the Christopher Guest movies, as well as becoming a regular in shows like My So Called Life and The Practice.

Grace Zabriskie (IMDB credits: 134 credits, Norma Rae, An Officer and a Gentleman, Drugstore Cowboy, Twin Peaks, Wild at Heart, Fried Green Tomatoes, Ferngully, Seinfeld, The Grudge)

Grace Zabriskie was born in New Orleans and grew up amongst some interesting guests of her father’s cafe and various business in the city. She claims that they were visited by Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, and Truman Capote at various times. As a young adult, she wrote poetry and would perform it in coffeehouses in New Orleans as well as Atlanta. It was also during this time she became a very accomplished silkscreener, and she has been recognized for her very artistic lamps, which she says is an attempt to sculpt using light. Zabriskie is best known for her role as Sarah Palmer on David Lynch’s brilliant Twin Peaks. While her character faded from episodes after the middle of the second season, she remains one of the most iconic figures in the series. Since then Zabriskie has had a recurring role on Seinfeld as well as continued to work with David Lynch, one of the few directors she says she continues to enjoy working with.

Harry Dean Stanton (IMDB credits: 173 credits, Cool Hand Luke, Alien, Escape From New York, Repo Man, Paris Texas, The Last Temptation of Christ, Wild at Heart)

Harry Dean Stanton was born to a Kentucky tobacco farmer, got a degree in journalism and radio arts, and starred in at least one episode of pretty much every Western television series from the 1950 through 60s. Stanton has the perfect face for the weather beaten soul that has seen too much in lifetime. It’s helped him convey a lot of unspoken emotion, particularly in his best film Wim Wender’s Paris, Texas. Stanton got a start in low budget films of the late 1960s like Two-Lane Blacktop, but went on to befriending up and coming directors like Sam Peckinpah, David Lynch, and Franics Ford Coppola. Stanton has become a favorite of critic Roger Ebert who says any movie starring Stanton can’t be bad. Outside of film, he has toured bars and clubs playing covers of classic country on his guitar, a true modern cowboy.

Dylan Baker (IMDB credits: 91, Planes Trains and Automobiles, Happiness, Requiem for a Dream, Thirteen Days, Road to Perdition, Spider-Man 2)

You know him as Dr. Curt Conners in the Spider-Man films, most likely. I remember him mainly for two roles: A pedophiliac psychiatrist in Todd Solondz’s dementedly hilarious Happiness and as the bizarrely backwoods ride in Planes, Train, and Automobiles. He had a modest upbringing in Lynchburg, Virginia and attended William and Mary before moving onto the Yale School of Drama, where his fellow classmates included Chris Noth and Patricia Clarkson. Like most character actors, Baker has garnered great success in live theater, even receiving a Tony nomination for his performance in La Bete, a comedic play inspired by Moliere and written in iambic pentameter. In addition, he’s married to Becky Ann Baker, who played the mother on the amazing ahead of its time television series Freaks and Geeks, seriously, if you haven’t seen it get ahold of the DVDs, I’m not asking you to, I’m commanding! One of Baker’s most recent, best, and I suspect most overlooked performances was as deeply dark and disturbed elementary school principal in the Halloween flick Trick R’ Treat.

Peter Stormare (IMDB credits: 100, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, Dancer in the Dark, Minority Report)

He was one of the Nihilists Lebowski feared would take his balls, he was the man who put Buscemi through a wood chipper, and he was the doctor who replaced Tom Cruise’s eyeballs. Born in Sweden in 1953, Peter Stormare (formerly Rolf Peter Ingvar Storm), has had great success in Hollywood but it didn’t start until he was 43. Before then, worked with the Swedish Royal Dramatic Theater for 11 years and then the Tokyo Globe Theater (Where he worked as the Associate Artistic Director). He moved to New York, was discovered for films by Ingmar Bergman, and played the Swedish equivalent of James Bond. It was a few years later when he was cast by the Coen Brothers in Fargo and finally got the international attention he deserved for all these years. I find Stormare to have incredible comic timing and such a dry sense of humor. The first time I saw him I didn’t quite get it, but as he appeared in more and more films, it grew me on. His slightly doofy line deliveries and hollow eyed look. A style of comedy that is really much more about pulling back than going over the top.

O-Lan Jones (IMDB credits: 45, The Right Stuff, Edward Scissorhands, Natural Born Killers, Mars Attacks!, The Truman Show)

You probably know her as the fundamentalist wacko neighbor in Edward Scissorhands. Or maybe the waitress who won’t give back the autographed photo to Jerry Seinfeld. Or any number of countless waitresses she has played. Jones said once, “Most actresses make money waitressing while trying to find acting work. I’m the only one who makes her career waitressing on screen.” She was born in Los Angeles in 1950, started acting at age 16, she moved to New York where she met and married the brilliant writer Sam Shephard in 1969. The divorced in the early 80s, and she began making her appearances in numerous films, usually as a waitress. Recently, she has embarked on staging her own modern opera using all recycled materials to make props, costumes, and sets, featuring a live orchestra, and her own filmed video pieces. And about that odd first name. Her mother loved Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth so much she named her daughter after one of the characters.

Stephen Root (IMDB credits: 109, Office Space, Newsradio, Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill, O Brother Where Art Thou, Finding Nemo, No Country For Old Men, Idiocracy)

If you don’t recognize his face, I’m sure you know his voice. From television he is most known as Jimmy James, owner of the radio station in Newsradio and the perpetual loser Bill in King of the Hill. From films, you definitely know him as Milton, the man desperate to keep his stapler in Office Space. Born in Sarasota, Florida, Root didn’t have any sort of extraordinary acting background, other than majoring in theater at the University of Florida. It was his friendship with Mike Judge that really got his career going, voicing Milton as a cartoon in a series of crude shorts and doing voices for Judge in Beavis and Butthead. From there, his career saw skyrocketed in the 1990s. Office Space has cemented his place as a cult film figure, while he has befriended the Coen Brothers and been featured in many of their films. He’s one of the best comedic character actors out there, able to tackle a seemingly infinite range of types. His four episode run on True Blood was one of those you wish could have become a regular role.

Dick Miller (IMDB credits: 170 films, The Little Shop of Horrors, Rock N’ Roll High School, The Howling, Gremlins, The Terminator, Innerspace, The ‘Burbs, Pulp Fiction)

When I think Dick Miller, I think of poor Murray Futterman in Gremlins, a man who was convinced the little monsters existed but no one believed him. Miller got his start with the classic shlockmeister Roger Corman, most famously in the original The Little Shop of Horrors as Seymour. Director Joe Dante would cleverly wink at that film by casting the original Audrey (Jackie Joseph) as Miller’s wife in Gremlins, one of those things you don’t realize as a kid but love when find out about when you’re an adult. Miller moved from working with Corman in the late 1970s, to being a regular in Joe Dante’s mainstream Corman-like horror comedies. I absolutely love Miller in The ‘Burbs as a garbageman who has zero patience for the paranoid neighbors in a Chicago suburbs street. Its one scene but it is incredibly memorable due to Miller and co-star Robert Picardo’s perfect comedy timing together.

What is a Character Actor, you ask? Think of a Coen Brothers film, O Brother Where Art Thou? for example. George Clooney is the lead. Clooney will always be the lead of almost whatever film he is in. You can say the same about Brad Pitt or Julia Roberts and so on. These actors have been categorized as “lead actors” meaning its general accepted that they are relatable enough to carry a film on their own. Yawn. Lead actors are incredibly boring, in my opinion. The most interesting roles are those of the character actor; an actor who has so captured a certain type or one who has taken the role of supporting characters in films. In O Brother Where Art Thou? John Tutturo and John Goodman are the character actors. These are the Ned Beatties, the Luis Guzmans, the Amy Sedarises. And many times, its the character actors who can make a terrible film actually watchable.

Stephen Tobolowsky (IMDB credits: 200 roles; Groundhog Day, Memento, Deadwood, Glee)

“That first step is a doooozy.” For most of this is the line that cemented Stephen Tobolowsky into our psyches, I know it was for me. It was Ned Ryerson, the annoying insurance salesman and former high school classmate of Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. In that role, Tobolowsky was able to repeat the same performance again and again, and somehow made Ned increasingly more annoying with each iteration. Tobolowsky is a Dallas native and made his film debut in 1976. It wasn’t until later pictures, like Spaceballs, that audiences really took notice of his face. Beyond simply being an actor, Tobolowsky has become a well known personality in Hollywood due to his skilled abilities as a storyteller. He co-wrote True Stories with David Byrne after, according to Mr. Tobolowsky, staring at Byrne worldlessly for two hours and making pencil drawings related to plot ideas. If you can track it down, and I never have been able to, there is a documentary featuring his storytelling titled Stephen Tobolowsky’s Birthday Party.

Michael Lerner (IMDB credits: 158 roles; The Candidate, Barton Fink, Newsies, Elf, A Serious Man)

Lerner is known by his trademark silver hair and an educated Brooklyn accent. I remember him best as Jack Lipnick, the fast talking Hollywood producer who expresses his utter confidence in screenwriter Barton Fink, that is until Fink actually turns in his first script which transforms Lipnick into an apocalyptic figure of rage. Lerner got his start as a television guest spotter, popping up on The Brady Bunch and The Rockford Files, before transitioning to films as a supporting actor. No matter where he shows up, he is instantly recognizable, in particular I remember him in Safe Men (1995), a very small independent film, where he plays crime boss Big Fat Ernie Gayle who accidentally hires two singers (Sam Rockwell and Steve Zahn) as safe crackers. Gayle has a son, Bernie, Jr. who dresses and behaves like his father minature clone, as well as a henchmen named Veal Chop (Paul Giamatti). A very odd film, but full of great work from other character actors as well.

Beth Grant (IMDB credits: 142, Rain Man, Donnie Darko, The Rookie, Little Miss Sunshine, No Country For Old Men, Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies, King of the Hill)

She really doubts your commitment to Sparklemotion. The role of the uptight conservative Christian schoolteacher in Donnie Darko has cemented itself in the minds of many of my peers and it was definitely a standout in an amazing career like Beth Grant’s. Grant was born in Alabama and its hard to believe she is 60 years old. The character type that she seems to have captured is the one mentioned above, a rules stickler and a Bible thumper. As a youth she was an incredibly accomplished young woman, working as a page in the North Carolina Senate and being recognized as a talented and gifted student by the North Carolina governor. Grant is a staunch liberal and enjoys creating these characters audiences love to hate, which she admits are based off certain people she grew up around who expressed very narrow minded views. Grant has taken her energy from years involved in politics and transferred them into a career that would exhaust the most energetic twentysomething, not only taking on multiple film and television roles a year, but also working in live theater for which she has won multiple awards.

Brad Dourif (IMDB credits: 133, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Dune, Blue Velvet, Child’s Play, Alien: Ressurection, The Lord of the Rings)

One of the most recognizable actors I’ll be talking about, Dourif has had a character actor’s dream of a career. His second film was his breakout role as poor tragic Billy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and he has kept working ever since. Even in film duds like David Lynch’s Dune or the dismal tv mini-series Wild Palms, Dourif is always a standout. He’s just one of the actors with the wonderful combination of an interesting look and awesome talent. Dourif lent his voice to the killer doll Chucky in the Child’s Play series which has garnered him a huge following in the horror film community and, what is likely his biggest role to date, he played the bewitching Grima Wormtongue in The Two Towers and The Return of the King. Dourif dipped his toe in playing the lead early in his career, most prominently in John Huston’s Wise Blood, a film that is by no means perfect but showcases the intensity Dourif brings to every role.

Margo Martindale (IMDB credits: 71, Lonesome Dove, The Rocketeer, Dead Man Walking, The Hours, Million Dollar Baby, Dexter, Paris Je’Taime, Walk Hard, Hung, Hannah Montana: The Movie)

Margo Martindale is one of those actors, that when I see them on the screen, I am immediately happy. There is something about her persona and the types of characters she plays that are comforting. She looks like your mom, but she has taken on such a variety of roles, playing everything from doctors to prostitutes to a woman soliciting a prostitute to mothers to nuns. Beyond film, she has led an amazing career in the theater, getting a Tony nomination in 2004 for the role of Big Mama in a revival of Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. She was also in the original stage production of Steel Magnolias in 1987 and her role was played by Dolly Parton in the theatrical version. Martindale hails from Jacksonville, Texas and started, like many actors, in commercials, her most well known being a Downy fabric softener series that first made her a recognizable face to the public. My favorite performance of Martindale’s has to be from Alexander Payne’s segment in the short film collection Paris Je’Taime. It’s a thing of beauty and you should find it…right now…go!