I Love Supporting Actors: William Fichtner

You know, this guy:
Notable Roles:

Ryan Sparks - "Grace Under Fire"

Burke - "Go"

Justice Christopher Mulready - "The West Wing"

Bank Manager - "The Dark Knight"



Why He's Awesome:

Truth be told, I had the idea for this whole supporting actors thing during the opening sequence of "The Dark Knight." Nolan's Batman series has a predilection for great supporting actors, and as soon as I saw Fichtner, I knew his second movie would be even better than "Batman Begins." I've thought he was awesome since I first saw him as Grace's love interest on "Grace Under Fire." He was just so oddball, and so sincere.

In the second half of the '90s, he won roles in some of the most memorable movies of the decade: "Virtuosity," "Strange Days," "Heat," "Contact," "Armageddon," and "Go." In "Go," he went for it, like I had never seen before, playing a creepy-ass police officer, who turns out to be an Amway salesman way too comfortable being naked around other men. Since then, he has worked consistently in movies and TV, even showing up in the only episode of "The West Wing"'s season 5 that I liked, due in no small part to his portrayal of a hard-nosed Republican federal judge.

I hope he never becomes a leading man, and keeps doing what he's been doing for another 20 years.

You'd Be Surprised to Learn:

If you look closely, you'll see he wears in many of his roles a ring that once belonged to his grandfather.

Check out his imdb page.

I Love Supporting Actors: Jane Lynch

You know, this gal:
Notable Roles:

Christy Cummings - "Best in Show"

Paula - "The 40 Year Old Virgin"

Gayle Sweeny - "Role Models"

Sue Sylvester - "Glee"



Why She's Awesome:

Nowadays, she's everywhere. She's so ubiquitous, you might think she'd always been so. Her style is always so out there, so funny, you'd think that's the way she's always been. Did you know she played a press room reporter on "The West Wing?" She is far more versatile than anyone gives her credit for. She doesn't need to be, though. She plays out there better than anyone. Surrounded by the Christopher Guest regulars, she stood out in "Best in Show."

Since "The 40 Year Old Virgin," she has finally moved out front and center. She plays crazy more straighly and more honestly than anyone. Love or hate "Role Models," you know you enjoyed, even looked forward to every time she was on screen. Never has youth volunteering been so overtly creepy. She finally has earned her place on a successful TV series, giving her the opportunity to build a character as only Jane Lynch can.

You'd Be Surprised to Learn:

In "A Mighty Wind," she actually played guitar and did her own singing.

Check out her imdb page.

I Love Supporting Actors: Keith David

You know, this guy:
Notable Roles:

King - "Platoon"

Goliath - "Gargoyles"

Big Tim - "Requiem for a Dream"

Dr. Facilier - "The Princess and the Frog"



Why He's Awesome:

No long, drawn out gush fest. He's got the best pipes in animation and voice-over. Gargoyles's Goliath is the greatest cartoon character ever. The man can show up anywhere in a movie and command respect, laughs, or endless cringing as he insists Jennifer Connelly take a strap-on in the butt. He's the villain in the new Disney movie, and according to his IMDb, he has a dozen new projects coming soon. As long as he can speak, this man will work, and he will be awesome.

You'd Be Surprised to Learn:

While shooting "Platoon," he saved Charlie Sheen's life. During a helicopter scene, the Huey banked too hard, and Sheen would have fallen out the open door, plunging to his death, had it not been for David's quick reflexes.

Check out his imdb page.

I Love Supporting Actors: Wallace Shawn

You know, this guy:
Notable Roles:

Vizzini - "The Princess Bride"

Mr. Wendell Hall - "Clueless"

Rex - "Toy Story 1, 2, 3-D"

Stuart Best - "Murphy Brown"



Why He's Awesome:

He was fucking Vizzini. I could stop there, but you know I won't. "Inconceivable." That's a ten cent word he single-handedly added to the general vernacular. In and of itself, it's not that funny a word, but his delivery hits it out of the park. Amazing. No one dies of iocane poison like Wallace Shawn. Because of him, we all know the two classic blunders (never get caught in a land ward in Asia, and never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.) After working steadily for the next eight years, he comes back with another classic and totally different character, as the lovably hopeless Mr. Hall in the "Clueless" movie and TV series. I cannot think of a better match for Amy Heckerling's go-to gal Twink Caplan.

His best known voice work is Rex in the "Toy Story" movies, but that distinctive delivery of his can be heard all over the modern animated world from "The Incredibles" to "Chicken Little" to "Happily N'ever After" to "Family Guy" to, yes, "The Princess Bride" video game.

My favorite Wallace Shawn role, though, is a series of four guest spots he did on Murphy Brown as Stuart Best (possibly the best fictional name ever, combining ex-Beatles Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best). He plays a former FYI reporter, kicked off the show for being AMAZINGLY annoying. He even has his obnoxious, semi-folksy catch phrase, "That's alls I know." In his second appearance on the show, he wins a seat in the House of Representatives, and subsequently embarrasses Murphy at the inauguration. She gets her revenge by inviting him on the show to share his views, of which she knows he has none. Turns out, he was bankrolled by white supremacists. If you haven't seen the episode "The Best and Not-So Brightest" from the seventh season, I won't ruin it for you.

You'd Be Surprised to Learn:

He's a fairly successful playwright, having won several Off-Broadway awards. A troupe doing one of his plays beat my high school out of the finals at the Massachusetts High School Drama Guild One-Act Play Festival, and I'm still bitter about it. Also, today's his birthday.

Check out his imdb page.

I Love Supporting Actors: Clea DuVall

You know, this gal:
Notable Roles:

Katie Reed - "ER"

Stokely "Stokes" Mitchell - "The Faculty"

Ginny - "Identity"

FBI Agent Audrey Hanson - "Heroes"



Why She's Awesome:

I swear, I thought this girl was around forever. While looking up her career for this, I discovered only her second role was a stint on ER as the girlfriend of a kid turning 18 who wanted his mother to honor his DNR. That came before all those teen movies she was in, like Can't Hardly Wait, She's All That, and The Faculty. Maybe my teen years are all just blurring together, but I cannot believe her career is just about as long as the run of ER.

She's the kind of supporting actor whose God given distinctive look guarantee her work forever. Even in all those teen movies, she was always the one you could pick out of the crowd. That brooding darkness made her the one who got goth kids into teeny bopper films. Her best teen movie has to be The Faculty. She's like Elijah Wood, but a girl.

I put Identity on her notable roles because I wanted to mention that movie. I love it. Also, it was her first real adult role, but she wasn't quite a full adult. Our first glimpse of how she'll fare as an adult actress came in her stint on "Heroes." As much as I love her, I rolled my eyes when she showed up. Thankfully, she spent the rest of the season proving me wrong. She's really grown up, and while the distinctive look that will keep her constantly employed will guarantee she'll never headline a blockbuster, I look forward to many, many more Clea DuVall movies.

You'd Be Surprised to Learn:

She's an only child.

Check out her imdb page.

I Love Supporting Actors: William Sadler

You know, this guy:
Notable Roles:

Col. Stuart - "Die Hard 2"

Grimm Reaper / English Guy - "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey"

Heywood - "The Shawshank Redemption"

Sloan - "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine"



Why He's Awesome:

Most character actors find a niche and stick to it. The guys who work for decades find a way to play similar characters and play them better than anyone else. Sadler does the exact opposite. He can play a staunch military man or the goofy comic relief.

The pantheon of Die Hard villains is an impressive group to be a part of. Sadler brings every bit of gravitas and evil as Alan Rickman and Jeremy Irons (yeah, even Timothy Olyphant). Unlike those acting giants, Sadler went toe to toe with John McClane and gave him a worthy physical challenge. Sadler's career never got the attention of the other three, but man can he act. In the second Bill & Ted movie, he played not one, but two characters. Despite his roles of great focus, it's his ability to just show up and be a solid character that makes him great. His Heywood in Shawshank does nothing more memorable than mispronounce Alexandre Dumas, but in a movie so perfectly put together, he's just another amazing supporting actor. He's so perfect, he played in two more Stephen King adaptations, The Green Mile and The Mist.

Strangely, my favorite Sadler character is a recurring role on Star Trek: DS9. Sadler plays Sloan, your average shadowy shadow agent with loose morals. The role could have been forgettable had it not been for Sadler. In the utopian future society of the Star Trek universe, Sadler was the first truly evil Federation officer I had ever seen. Many officers in Star Trek's past had been misguided by whatever to take matters into their own hands, but Sloan truly believed that for an ideal society to exist, someone must do its evil. Sadler's calm demeanor and unmemorable smallness made this revelation all the more chilling. He declares in favor of an assassination plot "Inter arma enim silent leges (in times of war, the law falls mute)," a declaration of moral ambiguity that changed the very basis of an entire fictional universe.

You'd Be Surprised to Learn:

He was born on the exact same day as Ron Perlman.

Check out his imdb page.

I Love Supporting Actors: Lane Smith

You know, this guy:
Notable Roles:

D.A. Jim Trotter - "My Cousin Vinny"

Coach Jack Reilly - "The Mighty Ducks"

Walter Warner - "Son in Law"

Perry White - "Lois and Clark..."



Why He's Awesome:

Lane Smith has been all over movies and TV since the '70s, but it's only more recently that he rose to better notability.

My Cousin Vinny is one of my favorite movies of all time, and he's one of the reasons. He's just a funny guy. The trial at the center of the film gets rolling with his opening statement, in which he mines a simple legal speech for every bit of comic gold. He can be both condescending and charming, Southern and insightful, soft and intimidating. The character just calls for a D.A. with no real emotional attachment to the case, but Smith brings to the table real depth, far more than the movie required.

Once he got on our RADAR, he kept coming back, and he kept getting better. In The Mighty Ducks, his very presense is enough to push Emilio Estevez to the brink. In Son in Law, he provides the perfect counter-point for Pauly Shore. Even in the end when Pauly's Weasel vibe takes him over, he manages to maintain his dignity, while spouting Shore-isms. That has to be up there in the canon of acting abilities.

He finally got the notoriety he deserved as the great Perry White. In almost every other incarnation of Superman, Perry White was just a throwaway background character. He gave Lois and Clark their assignments, and maybe got kidnapped once or twice. Smith turned Perry White into a father figure, and for a guy whose dad got blowed up on a distant planet, Superman could use every daddy he could get. Not even the great Frank Langella in Superman Returns could match Lane Smith's Daily Planet Editor-in-Chief. (side note: both Lane Smith and Frank Langella have played Nixon)

You'd Be Surprised to Learn:

He died in 2005. Seriously, I just found this out researching his career.

Check out his imdb page.

I Love Supporting Actors: Alan Ruck

You know, this guy:
Notable Roles:

Cameron Frye - "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"

Capt. John Harriman - "Star Trek: Generations"

Rabbit - "Twister"

Stuart Bondek - "Spin City"



Why He's Awesome:

I was going to save him for later, but John Hughes just died, so he gets a bump. Come on, everyone loves Cameron, and that's a testament both to the genius writing of John Hughes and the soulful acting of Alan Ruck. He can make any character loveable, whether he's stupid or skeevy, you always love everything he does. He's a perfect go-to guy for procedurals. He just shows up and plays a horrible lawyer or patient or criminal that you're drawn to for every moment he's on screen.

In his younger years, he played these sheepish characters, like Cameron or Capt. Harriman. In Generations, he just repeats the line "That's not coming until Tuesday" and it gets funnier every time he says it. He's the perfect meek foil to an increasingly annoyed Shatner. All that changed, though, after Spin City. His Stuart is the most loveable pervert you will ever see. The guy's a skirt chaser in the classic sense, and like many to come before him, he finds a way to make the jerk endearing for year after year.

You'd Be Surprised to Learn:

Before Ferris Bueller, Alan Ruck played Matthew Broderick's best friend in a Broadway production of Biloxi Blues, and in 2005, he played Leo Bloom in The Producers, who was originally played on the stage by Matthew Broderick.

Check out his imdb page.

I Love Supporting Actors: Stephen Tobolowsky

You know, this guy:
Notable Roles:

Werner Brandes - "Sneakers"

Sammy Jankis - "Memento"

Ned Ryerson - "Groundhog Day"

Bob Bishop - "Heroes"



Why He's Awesome:

When I came up with the idea of doing a series on supporting actors, he was the first on my list. "Sneakers" has always been one of my favorite movies. In the movie, the good guys chop up tape of his voice to get past a voice authorization lock, and his inflection absolutely makes the phrase "...my. voice. is. my. passport. verify. me." In "Memento" he put that goopy voice of his to good use as the sad, doomed Sammy Jankis. And who could forget Ned? Ned Ryerson? No seriously, you cannot forget him after hearing him over and over again.

I was excited when he showed up on "Heroes." The man has worked consistently in film and TV for like 30 years. He'll never be big, but he'll always find work. Too bad he died so quickly on "Heroes," but maybe one day there will be a solid series role for him.

You'd Be Surprised to Learn:

He played the evil lieutenant guy in "Spaceballs" who proclaimed, "These are not them! You've captured their stunt doubles!"

Check out his imdb page.

I Love Supporting Actors: Harry Dean Stanton

You know, this guy:
Notable Roles:

FBI Agent - "Godfather II"

Jack Walsh - "Pretty in Pink"

Chief Engineer Howard - "Down Periscope"

Roman Grant - "Big Love"



Why He's Awesome:

Roger Ebert, it turns out, has the Stanton-Walsh rule, wherein he states any movie featuring Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmett Walsh can't possibly be bad. This rule is either a testament to Stanton's choices as an actor, or the innate qualities he exudes. Is he drawn to good projects, or are good projects drawn to him. Either way, Stanton is always the guy whose face you remember, but never remember from where. That's why I included his small role in Godfather II. He's one of those people that distracts you from even a great scene as you struggle to remember what you've seen him in. You do, indeed, struggle because you wouldn't expect that guy to be Molly Ringwald's father from Pretty in Pink.

You may be thinking Down Periscope clearly defies Ebert's rule, but give that movie another chance. Of all the goofy, screwball comedies to come out of that era, Down Periscope holds up. Arguably, that's because Stanton's in it. He plays an amazing washed up old veteran who still gets excited running submarine engines. His scant few moments on the screen are a delight.

After 50 years in the business, Stanton can still land a role on a hit series. I've never seen Big Love, but I'll bet you while most actors of his age would simply be greatful for the job, the cast and crew of Big Love are probably much more greatful to have him on set.

You'd Be Surprised to Learn:

He was the best man at one of Jack Nicholson's weddings, and after that marriage few apart, Jack stayed on Stanton's couch.

Check out his imdb page.