Favorite Character Actors
by beavernuggetextension | created - 08 Jun 2021 | updated - 9 months ago | PublicList of my favorite character actors, mostly stars from the 80's and 90's
1. Lance Henriksen
Actor | Aliens
An intense, versatile actor as adept at playing clean-cut FBI agents as he is psychotic motorcycle-gang leaders, who can go from portraying soulless, murderous vampires to burned-out, world-weary homicide detectives, Lance Henriksen has starred in a variety of films that have allowed him to stretch...
2. Brad Dourif
Actor | The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Gaunt character actor Brad Dourif was born Bradford Claude Dourif on March 18, 1950 in Huntington, West Virginia. He is the son of Joan Mavis Felton (Bradford) and Jean Henri Dourif, a French-born art collector who owned and operated a dye factory. His father died when Dourif was three years old, ...
3. Jeff Fahey
Actor | Lost
Jeff Fahey was born in Olean, New York, one of 13 children of Jane (Gallagher) and Francis Thomas Fahey, who worked in a clothing store. He is of Irish descent. His family moved to Buffalo when he was 10, where he attended Father Baker's High School. After graduation in 1972 he traveled around the ...
4. Wings Hauser
Actor | The Insider
The son of writer/producer/actor Dwight Hauser, who worked on (amongst many other projects) the classic "Whistler" radio series, and Geraldine Hauser (the daughter of author Tom Thieness), he raised a child as a single father, having arrived in Hollywood "with thirty dollars and a box of pampers" -...
5. Rutger Hauer
Actor | Hobo with a Shotgun
Blond, blue-eyed, tall and handsome Dutch actor Rutger Hauer enjoyed an international reputation for playing everything from romantic leads to action heroes to sinister villains. Hauer was born in Breukelen, a Dutch town and former municipality in the province of Utrecht.
He was the son of Teunke ...
6. Ron Perlman
Actor | Hand of God
Ron Perlman is a classically-trained actor who has appeared in countless stage plays, feature films and television productions.
Ronald N. Perlman was born April 13, 1950 in Washington Heights, Manhattan, New York. His mother, Dorothy (Rosen), is retired from the City Clerk's Office. His father, ...
7. Clarence Williams III
Actor | The General's Daughter
Born on August 21, 1939, the son of a displaced musician, Harlem-born actor Clarence Williams III was raised by his musical grandparents, the legendary jazz and boogie-woogie composer/pianist Clarence Williams, who wrote such classics as "T'Aint Nobody's Business If I Do" and "Baby, Won't You ...
8. Peter Weller
Actor | RoboCop
Peter Frederick Weller was born in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, to Dorothy Jean (Davidson) and Frederick Bradford Weller, a federal judge and career helicopter pilot for the United States Army. He traveled extensively as his father literally flew around the world. Before he was out of his teens, he ...
9. Meg Foster
Actress | They Live
Blue-eyed brunette Meg Foster was born in Reading, Pennsylvania on May 10, 1948 to David and Nancy. She has four siblings and grew up in Rowayton, Connecticut. Foster studied acting at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse.
Foster's first role came about in 1969, when she appeared in an episode of NET ...
10. Tom Atkins
Actor | Halloween III: Season of the Witch
Handsome, rugged, versatile and charismatic character actor Tom Atkins was born on November 13, 1935 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Atkins initially became an avid horror film fan in his childhood days; Howard Hawks' immortal classic The Thing from Another World (1951) made an especially strong ...
11. Robert Forster
Actor | Jackie Brown
Robert Forster was born Robert Wallace Foster, Jr. in Rochester, New York, to Grace Dorothy (Montanarella) and Robert Wallace Foster, Sr., who worked as an elephant trainer and baking supply company executive. He was of English, Irish, and Italian descent. Forster first became interested in acting ...
12. Brion James
Actor | Blade Runner
Brion James was born February 20, 1945, in Redlands, California, to Ida Mae (Buckelew) and Jimmy James. The family soon moved to Beaumont, California (between Los Angeles and Palm Springs), where his parents built and operated a movie theater, where stars such as Gene Autry would occasionally stop ...
13. Billy Drago
Actor | The Untouchables
Drago was well known for his villainous parts (leading or supporting), and his rugged yet scary looks and evil smile. He was born William Eugene Burrows in Hugoton, Kansas. He became interested in acting and took his mother's maiden name "Drago" as a stage name. At first he worked as a stuntman in ...
14. Brian Thompson
Actor | The Terminator
Brian Earl Thompson was born on August 28, 1959 in Ellensburg, Washington. Raised on the Columbia River in Longview, he learned the value of academics and athletics, as the son of two teachers and the second of six siblings. His interest in acting was first sparked during his senior year of high ...
15. Paul Ben-Victor
Actor | The Wire
Paul Ben-Victor is an internationally recognized actor whose career spans four decades on stage, film, and television which includes his iconic performance as the Greek mobster Spiros Vondas on the acclaimed HBO series THE WIRE which has been called the greatest series of all-time.
One of the film ...
16. David Carradine
Actor | Kill Bill: Vol. 2
David Carradine was born in Hollywood, California, the eldest son of legendary character actor John Carradine, and his wife, Ardanelle Abigail (McCool). He was a member of an acting family that included brothers Keith Carradine and Robert Carradine as well as his daughters Calista Carradine and ...
17. Michael Berryman
Actor | Weird Science
Late 1970s horror genre icon who's best known for his creepy performance as "Pluto" in the uncompromising Wes Craven horror film The Hills Have Eyes (1977). Berryman (who suffers from Hypohidrotic Ectodermal Dysplasia, a rare condition leaving him with no sweat glands, hair, fingernails or teeth) ...
18. John Turturro
Actor | Fading Gigolo
Highly talented, lightly built American actor who always looks unsettled and jumpy has become a favourite of cult/arthouse film aficionados with his compelling performances in a broad range of cinematic vehicles.
Turturro was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Italian-American parents, Katherine (...
19. Jeffrey Combs
Actor | Re-Animator
Jeffrey Combs was born on September 9th, 1954 in Oxnard, California. He grew up in Lompoc, California with a plethora of siblings both older and younger. He attended the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts in Santa Maria, and the Professional Actor's Training Program at the University of ...
20. 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 ...
21. Stephen Macht
Actor | The Monster Squad
Trained professionally at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, a graduate of Dartmouth College, a Ph.D. in Dramatic Literature from Indiana University and, during his teaching days, a tenured Associate Professor, Stephen Macht is one of the best-educated working actors in America, today.
...
22. Mike Kellin
Actor | Midnight Express
Burly, coarse, raspy-voiced Mike Kellin was often cast as a tough cop, gangster, or soldier, usually a corporal or sergeant, so it may be surprising to some that during his stint in the US Navy during World War II he was a Lieutenant Commander.
Though he seemed to be straight out of the tenements of...
23. 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...
24. J.T. Walsh
Actor | Breakdown
J.T. Walsh was born on September 28, 1943 in San Francisco, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Breakdown (1997), Sling Blade (1996) and Needful Things (1993). He was married to Susan West. He died on February 27, 1998 in La Mesa, California, USA.
25. Michael Ironside
Actor | Starship Troopers
Michael Ironside has made a strong and indelible impression with his often incredibly intense and explosive portrayals of fearsome villains throughout the years. He was born as Frederick Reginald Ironside on February 12, 1950 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Ironside was a successful arm wrestler in ...
26. James Hong
Actor | Everything Everywhere All at Once
James Hong was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. He studied civil engineering at the University of Minnesota, but at some point along the way became interested in acting. He graduated from the University of Southern California and practiced for 1½ years as a road engineer with the County of Los ...
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