A salute to heroes...

[The Boston Crab]

Enjoying this thread and the OP enormously. More, more.

[lipsink]

J. E. Freeman. Appears in 'Wild At Heart', 'Miller's Crossing', 'Alien: Ressurection' and 'Go'.



William Fichtner. From 'Heat', 'The Dark Knight', 'Go', and 'Armageddon'.



James Rebhorn. As seen in 'The Game', 'Independence Day', 'Meet the Parents', 'Seinfeld'.


Vincent Schiavelli too obviously.

Patrick Wilson seems to pop up in everything too. He gets a lot more leading roles than most of the people in this thread, but I'd say most people which just recognise him as "Oh that guy..."

[Maybe Im Doing It Wrong]

Being perhaps quick-draw McGraw here, I'm almost certain this is Robert Davi.



An actor so good he sang while smoking a cigarette and without moving his lips in The Goonies.

ALSO: remember William Atherton? On-screen shithouse, real-life nice guy, apparently. Did he ever play a sympathetic character?

Yeah, Atherton plays Tod Hackett in the film of The Day of the Locust. He's sympathetic.

[Depressed Beyond Tables]

Not pock-marked, but other than that it sounds very much like Luis Guzman:

Way better looking than him. Rapists can be good looking too, if you get me.

[Cohaagen]

J.E. Freeman is a definite for this thread. He has impeccable rent-a-scumbag credentials.

Another few who come to mind are...

Brian Thompson, alias the "Night Slasher" from Cobra, and the Alien Bounty Hunter in The X-Files. Here's a pic of him interrupting a nice night for a walk to take a crafty peek at Arnold's cock.



...which brings us on to the Governator's mate Sven Ole-Thorsen, one-time Thulsa Goon[nb]the one who looks like Nigel Tufnell[/nb] equally adept at playing schteroid-schcoring bodyguards as he is at flabby, past-it gladiators, the latter role marred by the fact that he spent most of his screen-time sealed behind a steel mask with a baby's face on it.



At various points in his career Schwarzenegger has wasted him with a grenade launcher (Predator), a silenced MP5 (Raw Deal), and a sharpened piece of wood (Conan). He also fights Arnie naked in a pile of snow at the beginning of Red Heat.

I feel a bit guilty about nominating Tom Towles, because he's a great actor, but the man definitely had "it's that guy" class in Fortress, that pointless Night Of The Living Dead remake, Miami Vice, and what was undoubtedly his finest hour, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, where he used a rare co-headline billing to good effect when he hilariously takes a punch in the beak for squeezing some guy's knee in a car.

Here he is causing a bit-hero criticality accident with William Forsythe, the chunky pipe-hitting gangster off of Out For Justice.



...which, finally, brings me on to the second category of movie hero: the minor characters whose screentime is in inverse proportion to how memorable they are. From Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer there can only be one nominee - the sleazy fence.



Virtually every line this fucking fatbody comes out with is priceless. His gutter innuendo, loathsome appearance, and total contempt for the customer are a treat for us as viewers. The guy wasn't even a real actor apparently, just someone from the crew doing a last-minute fill to help out. What a discovery.

[Famous Mortimer]

the minor characters whose screentime is in inverse proportion to how memorable they are

Oh, that means:



"Ass to ass! Ass to ass!"

[Uncle TechTip]

Is that Chris Kamara and Ron "Peperami" Atkinson?

To me it looks like the Great Yarmouth Terrible Waxwork Museum's attempt at recreating a scene that wasn't in 'Boys in Blue'. "Shurrup I'm thinking!" "'e's thinking."

[Serge]

Possibly my favourite minor one-scene-only character, from 'Kill Bill Part 2':



"That hat. That fuckin' hat."

[Cohaagen]

Oh, that means:

"Ass to ass! Ass to ass!"

"Ass To Ass Man" was going to be my next post! You have unimpeachable taste, FM.

This guy, from Mad Max 2, has had a place in my heart since I first saw that movie at the age of about eight or so:



Although we only get a split-second glimpse before Mel roasts him with a flamethrower, he has fascinated me for two decades. Who is he? What did he do before the pockyclypse? I bet he got a lot of shit for that beard and car from all those rough scavengers with their ass-less leather chaps, mohawks and crossbows. I bet they rode around his car at night doing doughnuts on their Yamahas and taking the piss big-time.

[Depressed Beyond Tables]

There was a man in the 1986 film 'The Aurora Encounter' whose character fell over a sofa. It wasn't clear whether he died as a result but he certainly made one of the oddest sounds whilst doing it. It's the kind of thing you wouldn't bother telling your grandkids about.