Actor Spotlight: JOHN C. REILLY

This is the 2nd in a series of Actor Spotlights. The first piece, chronicling Sam Rockwell, can be found here.

Perhaps one of the oddest and most unconventional leading men in Hollywood history, John C. Reilly rose up from charismatic supporting actor to genuine ensemble star, and now even gets to helm his own movie occasionally. The lumpy-faced Chicago, Illinois native, with his pock-marked skin and curly hair, has kept himself down-to-earth despite 20 years in the movie industry. Since the beginning he has appeared in films that have starred some of Hollywood's biggest stars. Often zig-zagging between starring and supporting roles in mainstream and independent film, all the while showing up in the most random cameos. Reilly is truly an everyman actor.

Born John Christopher Reilly to a Catholic household of six children on the south side of Chicago on May 24, 1965, Reilly stayed out of trouble by immersing himself in acting in local theatre productions. He trained at the Goodman School of Drama out of DePaul University, and appeared as a member of the prestigious Steppenwolf Theatre troupe founded by actor Gary Sinise, which has featured renowned actors such as John Malkovich, Joan Allen, and Laurie Metcalf.

Reilly's big break came suddenly, and by chance in 1988. Hired by Brian De Palma to appear in his Vietnam film Casualties Of War as a nameless soldier with one line who gets his arm blown off, Reilly flew on an airplane for the first time for filming. Released in August of 1989, Casualties Of War, piggy-backing off popular Vietnam films of the era such as Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, and Good Morning, Vietnam, starred Michael J. Fox and Sean Penn and featured John Leguizamo in his own debut role.

Stephen Baldwin, in an early acting role, was hired to play one of the soldiers who rapes a young Vietnamese girl, Pfc. Herbert Hatcher, in the film. However, as soon as Reilly flew back home, De Palma realized Baldwin was not working out. De Palma fired Baldwin and brought back Reilly for the Hatcher role, expanding it into a full supporting role. If that wasn't enough of a coup for the 24-year-old DePaul graduate, he also met his future wife, Alison Dickey, on the set. Since John Reilly was already registered in the SAG databases, the young actor added a C. to his name

"The C stands for Christopher. You can blame the union for that. The Screen Actors Guild make you do it if there's another member with the same name. I wasn't going to change my name, so I just included the middle one. It was a decision I had to make on Casualties Of War, my first film in 1989. I got a phone call and had to fly out to Thailand where Brian De Palma was shooting and it was a sudden decision, and I'm stuck with it. So I'm glad I didn't go for a stupid and exotic-sounding name just to grab attention, or you could be talking to a man named Tallulah or something."

After showing up later in the year as a 'young monk' in another Sean Penn vehicle, We're No Angels (co-starring Robert De Niro), Reilly got another supporting part in an established star's big film. 1990 saw the release of Tom Cruise's Days Of Thunder, a bombastic summer movie dedicated to stock car racing. Reilly appeared as Buck Bretherton, an aw-shucks member of Cole Trickle's car maintenance crew. Later in the year he appeared as the ill-fated homely crony Stevie McGuire in State Of Grace, his third pairing with Penn.

Reilly popped up again in 1992 with a trio of diverse roles. In Out On A Limb he plays one of two drunk brothers who run afoul of Matthew Broderick in this absurd farce. For Hoffa, Danny DeVito tapped Reilly for a supporting role in the Teamster Union opposite Jack Nicholson. Reilly even showed up as 'Cop at Police Station' in Woody Allen's Shadows & Fog.

The next few years saw continuous work as faceless supporting roles. 1993's What's Eating Gilbert Grape, a critical independent and cult favorite starring then rising stars Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio, saw Reilly play Depp's friend Tucker Van Dyke. In 1994 Reilly got perhaps his most sinister and widely noticeable role at the time as Terry, who along with Kevin Bacon, terrorized Meryl Streep's family in The River Wild. The next year he reunites with Wild co-star David Strathairn, playing Constable Frank Stamshaw in Stephen King's Dolores Claiborne.

Towards the mid-1990s, Reilly turned to smaller films, among them Boys, Georgia, and Hell Cab. The one that had the most implication though was Hard Eight. Originally titled Sydney, first time feautre director Paul Thomas Anderson gave Reilly his first starring role as a hapless loser who gets help from an older mentor played by Philip Baker Hall. The two of them, along with other Anderson regulars Philip Seymour Hoffman, Melora Waters and Robert Ridgely, would help shape Anderson's breakthrough film the next year, Boogie Nights.

In the grand scheme of the film, Reilly's character Reed Rothchild represents Reilly's persona in movies up to that point. The likeable, goofy supporting character that appears in a large bulk of the film but never plays any specific importance. While most of Boogie Nights is pretty tongue-in-cheek, Reilly's Rothchild is served as Dirk Diggler's (Mark Wahlberg) best friend and comic foil. While this performance didn't garner him any specific award recognition, it did give way to more supporting film work.

Pairing with Sean Penn for a fourth time, Reilly joined another ensemble cast for Terence Malick's The Thin Red Line. Despite seven Academy Award nominations and a cast that included major names such as Penn, George Clooney, John Travolta, John Cusack, Adrian Brody, Nick Nolte, Woody Harrelson, and James Caviezel, The Thin Red Line was cancelled out and overshadowed that year by Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan.

Between 1999 and 2002 was arguably the best and hardest working stretch of Reilly's career, and for many supporting actors in general. After The Thin Red Line ended run in theatres in early 1999, audiences saw him in supporting roles in two lightweight romantic dramedies. Ironically in both, he was named 'Gus'. In Never Been Kissed, Reilly is Drew Barrymore's hard-working newspaper co-worker. For Kevin Costner's For Love Of The Game, he appears as the star's wisecracking catcher. Finally to round out the year Reilly re-teamed with P.T. Anderson for Anderson's anticipated follow-up film, Magnolia.

In Magnolia, Reilly gets a role that he hadn't experienced before in a large-scale film; his character, police officer Jim Kurring, falls in love. Unlike his previous roles of unremarkable nobodies that fill screen time, Reilly's performance in Magnolia proves he had an emotional range that went mostly untapped in past films.

Reilly continued his stereotyping as a supporting lout in big-budget films with Wolfgang Petersen's $140 million dollar epic The Perfect Storm in 2000, re-team with past co-stars Clooney and Wahlberg.

After being nominated for a Tony Award for True West, and appearing in friend Jennifer Jason Leigh's indie ensemble The Anniversary Party, Reilly had a record-breaking year in 2002, even by Hollywood standards. Having four major supporting roles in the one year alone, three of the films were nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. This was the first time an actor had appeared in that many Best Picture nominees since Thomas Mitchell in 1939.

Three of the films has Reilly playing the well-meaning but often hapless and dumb husband of stronger women. In The Good Girl Reilly is a pot-smoking house painter married to Jennifer Aniston. The Hours travels him back in time to the 1950s as Julianne Moore's clueless but hard-working mate. His best role goes further back to the 1920s in Chicago, playing the dim-witted spouse of Renee Zellweger, Amos Hart. His heartbreaking rendition of "Mr. Cellophane" during a critcal moment of the film earned Reilly his first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, although he lost to Chris Cooper in Adaptation. His other role was Daniel Day-Lewis' right-hand man Happy Jack in Gangs Of New York.

Since 2002, Reilly's resume has been eclectic, often veering towards more comedy and starring roles. In 2004 he teamed with Leo DiCaprio for a third name in his last Best Picture nominated film The Aviator, playing Howard Hughes' CEO Noah Dietrich. Also over the next couple years Reilly could be seen in Criminal, Dark Water, and A Prairie Home Companion.

Despite playing numerous comedic characters on both film and stage, for many, Will Ferrell's 2006 NASCAR satire Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby was their first exposure of Reilly as a humorist. Ferrell wanted him to play 'Champ Kind' in his previous Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy, but due to the filming of The Aviator, Reilly was replaced with David Koechner.

"I love that people can't place me. They don't know my name. That's 'mission accomplished' in my world."

Talladega Nights was a modest hit, and led Reilly to his first true, big-budget, widely released film. In December of 2007, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story was released. While the film itself was hit or miss, many critics praised Reilly's performance for his earnest comic timing and singing voice. Walk Hard was followed by a toned-down comedy role in the independent The Promotion in early 2008.

The immediate future shows Reilly enjoying his stretch of comedy roles, and sees him expanding on some out-of-the-box projects. Later this summer he re-teams with Will Ferrell for Step Brothers, which already looks better than Talladega Nights and some of Ferrell's recent flops including Semi-Pro and Bewitched.

Also in the works is a CGI sci-fi/fantasy project simply called 9, concerning the lives of rag dolls who must fight for their future. It co-stars Jennifer Connelly, Elijah Wood, and Martin Landau. In 2009, expect to see Reilly as head vampire 'Larten Crepsley' in Paul Weitz's (American Pie, About A Boy, American Dreamz) fantasy epic Cirque du Freak. If it performs well at the box office, there could be up to three more sequels in store.

John C. Reilly may never become Hollywood's most bankable stars, but there's no mistaking his affable charms whenever he appears on camera. With a huge and diverse range of roles, spanning from the lowest of the lowbrow comedies, nearly depressing serious dramatic biographies, and invigorating musicals on stage and screen, Reilly can pretty much choose where he wants to go from here.

The Prezzies' Top 5 John C. Reilly Performances
Chicago
Boogie Nights
Magnolia
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
Gangs Of New York