Probably as J Jonah Jameson or Juno’s dad, or as Law and Order‘s Dr Emil Skoda, or any one of a zillion other shows or movies…
In Gareth Maclean’s TV blog in The Guardian he asked the question “Who are TV’s most underrated actors?” and I immediately thought of J K Simmons.
Simmons currently plays Police Chief Pope in The Closer. He shows up in quality character parts wherever you look, so it seems churlish to call him undervalued. But he’s one of those actors who raises a drama’s game and makes everyone look good, while almost never getting the spotlight to himself.
2 responses to “You Know the Face”
He’s very good (and low key again) in a couple of the Coen brothers films too. A British actor who, although gets into a lot, doesn’t seem to get the recognition is Mark Strong – he’s been around for quite a while and always gives a good performance but never gets a proper credit. In RocknRolla he’s practically the main character yet I didn’t see him mentioned in any publicity for the film at all.
He was fantastic as Vern in OZ. I heard an interview with him later where he said that he was approached a number of times to play a skinhead (probably because he was so scarily good in OZ) but he was like, “I did that role already.”
Apparently, he refuses to do the same type of role twice. Which I think is awesome in an actor. And probably why he’s so great.