Killer performances
by yrnej | created - 27 Dec 2013 | updated - 28 Dec 2013 | PublicWhich actor best played a real-life serial killer (actual, not "inspired by") in film?
Discuss the list here
1. Isaiah Washington
Actor | Grey's Anatomy
Isaiah Washington was born on August 3, 1963 in Houston, Texas, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Grey's Anatomy (2005), Romeo Must Die (2000) and Hollywood Homicide (2003). He has been married to Jenisa Marie Garland since February 14, 1996. They have three children.
as John in Blue Caprice
2. Tony Curtis
Actor | Some Like It Hot
Tony Curtis was born Bernard Schwartz, the eldest of three children of Helen (Klein) and Emanuel Schwartz, Jewish immigrants from Hungary. Curtis himself admits that while he had almost no formal education, he was a student of the "school of hard knocks" and learned from a young age that the only ...
as Albert DeSalvo in The Boston Strangler
3. Michael Reilly Burke
Actor | Ted Bundy
Michael Reilly Burke was born on June 27, 1964 in Marin County, California, USA. He is an actor, known for Ted Bundy (2002), The Collector (2009) and Mars Attacks! (1996). He has been married to Kayren Butler since October 2008. They have two children.
as Ted Bundy in Bundy
4. Jason Butler Harner
Actor | Changeling
Jason Butler Harner was born on October 9, 1970 in Elmira, New York, USA. He is an actor, known for Changeling (2008), Ray Donovan (2013) and Non-Stop (2014).
as Gordon Northcott in Changeling
5. Jeremy Renner
Actor | The Hurt Locker
Jeremy Lee Renner was born in Modesto, California, the son of Valerie (Tague) and Lee Renner, who managed a bowling alley. After a tumultuous yet happy childhood with his four younger siblings, Renner graduated from Beyer High School and attended Modesto Junior College. He explored several areas of...
as Jeffrey Dahmer in Dahmer
6. William Forsythe
Actor | The Devil's Rejects
Dynamically entertaining heavyset US actor with piercing eyes, William Forsythe has a superb talent for playing some truly unlikable and downright nasty characters that dominate the films in which he appears! If you're cast as the hero against Forsythe's villain, then you have your work cut out for...
as John Wayne Gacy in Dear Mr. Gacy
7. Michael Rooker
Actor | Guardians of the Galaxy
Michael Rooker was born on April 6, 1955 in Jasper, Alabama. When he was thirteen, his parents divorced and he went with his mother to live in Chicago. He caught the acting bug while attending college, and began appearing in local stage productions. On first breaking into film, his intensity and "...
as Henry in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer
8. Robert Blake
Actor | Lost Highway
American actor who began as a child in Our Gang comedies and reappeared as a powerful adult performer of leading and character roles. Born in New Jersey, the young Mickey Gubitosi won a role in MGM's Our Gang series at the age of 5. As one of the more prominent children in the Gang, he gained ...
as Perry and Scott Wilson as Dick in In Cold Blood
9. Klaus Kinski
Actor | Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht
Klaus Kinski was born as Klaus Günter Karl Nakszynski in Zoppot, Free City of Danzig (now Sopot, Poland), to Susanne (Lutze), a nurse, and Bruno Nakszynski, a pharmacist. He grew up in Berlin, was drafted into the German army in 1944 and captured by British forces in Holland. After the war he began...
as Jack the Ripper in Jack the Ripper
10. Laura Prepon
Actress | Orange Is the New Black
Laura Helene Prepon was born on March 7, 1980, in Watchung, New Jersey. She is the daughter of Marjorie (Coll) and Michael Prepon. Her father died in 1993, when she was 13 years old. Laura is the youngest of five children--she has a brother named Brad and three sisters: Danielle, Jocelyn, and ...
as Karla Homolka and Misha Collins as Paul Bernardo in Karla
11. Charlize Theron
Producer | Monster
Charlize Theron was born in Benoni, a city in the greater Johannesburg area, in South Africa, the only child of Gerda Theron (née Maritz) and Charles Theron. She was raised on a farm outside the city. Theron is of Afrikaner (Dutch, with some French Huguenot and German) descent, and Afrikaner ...
as Aileen Wuornos in Monster
12. Michael Badalucco
Actor | Léon
Michael Badalucco, a Brooklyn native, got his start in the entertainment industry at a very young age, going to work with his father Giuseppe, a Sicilian-born immigrant, who worked as a carpenter on movie sets. In 1963, during the filming of Fail Safe starring Henry Fonda, a photo of a young boy ...
as Son of Sam in Summer of Sam
13. Richard Attenborough
Actor | Jurassic Park
Lord Richard Attenborough was born in Cambridge, England, the son of Mary (née Clegg), a founding member of the Marriage Guidance Council, and Frederick Levi Attenborough, a scholar and academic administrator who was a don at Emmanuel College and wrote a standard text on Anglo-Saxon law. The family...
as John Christie in 10 Rillington Place
14. Hugh O'Conor
Actor | Chocolat
A young dramatic actor of film and TV who has appeared in several dark big-screen dramas, the Irish-born O'Conor (not to be confused with the late American actor Hugh O'Connor) began acting at the age of eight. O'Conor was still a relative unknown pre-teen when he co-starred with Liam Neeson in the...
as Graham Young in The Young Poisoner's Handbook
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