My favorite character actors.
by choyt19 | created - 27 Jul 2011 | updated - 08 Dec 2018 | PublicWhether in films or on TV, it's always nice to run across these talented gentlemen.
101. Michael Lerner
Actor | Barton Fink
Michael Lerner was an American actor from New York City, the older brother of actor Ken Lerner. He was once nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as the domineering studio head Jack Lipnick in "Barton Fink" (1991). Other well-known roles include crime boss Arnold ...
102. Randall Duk Kim
Actor | Dragonball Evolution
Randall Duk Kim was born on September 24, 1943 in Hawaii, USA. He is an actor, known for Dragonball Evolution (2009), The Matrix Reloaded (2003) and Kung Fu Panda (2008). He is married to Annie Occhiogrosso.
103. Andrew Divoff
Actor | Air Force One
Andrew Daniel Divoff is a Venezuela-born Russian actor and stuntman, best known for playing the evil Djinn in the first two Wishmaster films and the villains Cherry Ganz in Another 48 Hrs., Ernesto Mendoza in A Low Down Dirty Shame, Boris Bazylev in Air Force One, Ivan Sarnoff in CSI: Miami and ...
104. Vincent Schiavelli
Actor | Tomorrow Never Dies
Vincent Schiavelli, selected in 1997 by Vanity Fair as one of the best character actors in America, had made over 120 film and television appearances. He studied acting at NYU's Theatre Program. Aside from his acting career, Vincent was the author of three cookbooks, and has written numerous ...
105. Bruce Davison
Actor | X-Men
The award-worthy actor, now enjoying an over five decade career, has a resume that includes everything from Shakespeare to Seinfeld -- from the villainous Senator on Ozark to the wise judge on Lincoln Lawyer.
Born on June 28, 1946, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Clair, an architect and ...
106. Fred Ward
Actor | Short Cuts
A marvelous character actor with intense eyes, a sly grin and somewhat grizzled appearance, Golden Globe-winner Fred Ward had nearly 90 appearances under his belt in many tremendous films and television programs. He first became interested in acting after serving three years in the US Air Force and...
107. Giancarlo Esposito
Actor | Breaking Bad
Giancarlo Giuseppe Alessandro Esposito was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, to an Italian carpenter/stagehand father from Naples, Italy, and an African-American opera singer mother from Alabama. His parents, working in Europe at the time of his birth, settled in Manhattan by the time he was 6, and ...
108. Roy Brocksmith
Actor | Total Recall
Roy Brocksmith began his career on the bar at Hap Kuhl's Tavern in his native Quincy, Illinois, at the age of three. As a boy soprano, he performed in churches, schools, and appeared regularly on local radio and television programs. At 16, he taught at the local children's theater. Two years later ...
109. Ciarán Hinds
Actor | Belfast
Ciarán Hinds was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland on February 9, 1953. He was one of five children and the only son. His father was a doctor who hoped to have Ciarán follow in his footsteps, but that was not to be. It was his mother Moya, an amateur actress, who was the real influence behind his ...
110. Daniel von Bargen
Actor | The Postman
A character actor who seems to pop up everywhere as the stereotypical cop, military officer and/or tough guy, von Bargen could turn in performances of stunning complexity when given the chance.
Daniel von Bargen was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 5, 1950 to Juanita (Bustle) and Donald L. von ...
111. Robert Morley
Actor | The African Queen
Bushy-browed, triple-chinned and plummy-voiced English actor and raconteur of wide girth and larger-than-life personality. The son of a career army officer, Morley was expected to join the diplomatic corps. As a 'compromise', he tried his hand as a beer salesman. However, bitten by the acting bug ...
112. Sam McMurray
Actor | Raising Arizona
Sam McMurray was born on April 15, 1952 in New York City, New York, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Raising Arizona (1987), Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999) and L.A. Story (1991). He is married to Elizabeth Collins. They have two children.
113. Paul Willson
Actor | Office Space
Paul Willson was born on December 25, 1945 in Fairmont, Minnesota, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for Office Space (1999), The Goodbye Girl (1977) and Barstow 2008 (2001).
114. Dick Miller
Actor | The Terminator
Born in the Bronx, New York to Russian Jewish immigrant parents (Isidor "Ira" and Rita Blucher Miller), Richard Miller served in the U.S. Navy for a few years and earned a prize title as a middleweight boxer. He settled in Los Angeles in the mid-1950s, where he was noticed by producer/director ...
115. James Rebhorn
Actor | Independence Day
James Robert Rebhorn (September 1, 1948 - March 21, 2014) was an American actor who appeared in over 100 films, television series, and plays. At the time of his death, he had recurring roles in the current series White Collar and Homeland.
An early performance was in Butterflies are Free at the ...
116. Joseph Maher
Actor | In & Out
Joseph Maher was born on December 29, 1933 in Westport, County Mayo, Ireland. He was an actor, known for In & Out (1997), I.Q. (1994) and Heaven Can Wait (1978). He died on July 17, 1998 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
117. Philip Bosco
Actor | The Savages
Philip Michael Bosco was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, to Margaret Raymond (Thek), a policewoman, and Philip Lupo Bosco, a carnival worker. He was of Italian and German descent. Bosco graduated from Saint Peter's Prep School, 1948, and from the Catholic University of America, A.B. 1957. He ...
118. Jack Elam
Actor | C'era una volta il West
Colorful American character actor equally adept at vicious killers or grizzled sidekicks. As a child he worked in the cotton fields. He attended Santa Monica Junior College in California and subsequently became an accountant and, at one time, manager of the Bel Air Hotel. Elam got his first movie ...
119. Ernie Sabella
Actor | The Lion King
Ernie Sabella is an American actor and singer from Westchester County, New York who is widely known for voicing Pumbaa the Warthog, Timon's best friend from The Lion King franchise except for the 2019 reboot. He also acted in Mouse Hunt, That's So Raven, In & Out, Cheers, and Seinfeld. He is ...
120. James Karen
Actor | The Return of the Living Dead
Veteran Broadway, TV and film actor James Karen was encouraged as a young man to take up an acting career by U.S. Congressman Daniel J. Flood, who was an amateur actor himself. In 1947 Karen made his Broadway debut in "A Streetcar Named Desire", which led to appearances in over 20 Broadway ...
121. Charles Rocket
Actor | Dumb and Dumber
Charles Rocket was born on August 28, 1949 in Bangor, Maine, USA. He was an actor, known for Dumb and Dumber (1994), Dances with Wolves (1990) and Titan A.E. (2000). He was married to Mary Elizabeth (Beth) Crellin. He died on October 7, 2005 in Canterbury, Connecticut, USA.
122. Pat Hingle
Actor | The Quick and the Dead
Pat Hingle (real name: Martin Patterson Hingle) was born in Miami, Florida, the son of a building contractor. His parents divorced when Hingle was still in his infancy (he never knew his father) and his mother supported the family by teaching school in Denver. She then began to travel (with her son...
123. Stuart Pankin
Actor | Congo
A familiar face on both the big and small screen, comic character actor Stuart Pankin is a five-time nominated, CableAce Award winner for HBO's award-winning series "Not Necessarily The News." He is well known for providing the voice of Earl Sinclair, the blustery father, on the Emmy award-winning ...
124. Josef Sommer
Actor | Dirty Harry
Josef Sommer is a classically trained stage actor who has also been a prolific performer in films. He made his debut at the age of nine in a production of "Watch on the Rhine" with the Carolina Playmakers in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He trained as an actor at the American Shakespeare Festival in...
125. Mike Starr
Actor | Ed Wood
Mike Starr was born on July 29, 1950 in Queens, New York City, New York, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Ed Wood (1994), Dumb and Dumber (1994) and Uncle Buck (1989). He has been married to Joanne since 1975. They have three children.
126. Wayne Knight
Actor | Jurassic Park
Actor Wayne Knight achieved television immortality assaying the role of the frenetic mailman, "Newman", nemesis of the eponymous lead character in the classic TV series Seinfeld (1989). He also appeared in Jurassic Park (1993) as "Dennis Nedry" and in one of the most notorious scenes in American ...
127. Jay O. Sanders
Actor | The Day After Tomorrow
Jay O. Sanders was born on April 16, 1953 in Austin, Texas, USA. He is an actor, known for The Day After Tomorrow (2004), Kiss the Girls (1997) and Edge of Darkness (2010). He has been married to Maryann Plunkett since October 1, 1991. They have one child.
128. Michael Jeter
Actor | Open Range
Michael Jeter was an American actor from Tennessee. His best known roles were that of math teacher and assistant football coach Herman Stiles in the sitcom "Evening Shade" (1990-1994) and "Mr. Noodle's brother, Mister Noodle" in "Sesame Street", a role he played from 2000 to 2003. He specialized in...
129. Saul Rubinek
Actor | Unforgiven
Saul Rubinek was born in a refugee camp in Germany, where his father ran a Yiddish Repertory Theatre company. Saul started his professional career as a child actor in theater and radio in Canada. By the time he was 20, he was a member of the Stratford Shakespearean Festival company in Stratford, ...
130. Victor Buono
Actor | What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Larger than life, Laughtonesque, and with an eloquent, king-sized appetite for maniacal merriment, a good portion of the work of actor Victor Buono was squandered on hokey villainy on both film and television. Ostensibly perceived as bizarre or demented, seldom did Hollywood give this cultivated ...
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