Chances are, you’ve seen William Fichtner in something.
In some of the actor’s most memorable roles, he’s left his mark via a single scene, as in “The Dark Knight” and “Crash.” Other times, he’s been an integral part of an ensemble, like in “Heat,” “Contact,” “Armageddon,” “Go,” “The Perfect Storm,” “Black Hawk Down” and “Prison Break.” He’s also had comedic turns in “Entourage,” “Blades of Glory” and the sitcom “Mom.”
That durability has earned Fichtner around 100 film and TV credits and a place of esteem among That Guy actors — the beloved performers who aren’t household names but whose faces are instantly recognizable and inspire gleeful “It’s that guy!” reactions.
“Any scene he’s in, he becomes the load-bearing wall,” said John Lee Hancock, who gave Fichtner a starring role in “Talamasca: The Secret Order,” Hancock’s new Anne Rice horror series on AMC. “It’s going to stand. It’s going to work.”
But even if you’ve never seen a single thing he’s been in, Fichtner, 68, has an aura that merits a double take. He is lean and slightly leathered, and he just looks cool.
Such was the case when we met for an interview at a cafe in Glendale, the L.A.-adjacent city where Fichtner has lived for nearly 20 years.
I had just pulled into the parking lot when a jovial voice called out, “Are you here to see me?” And there was Fichtner, all tousled hair and sly grin, climbing out of a Toyota Tacoma pickup truck.
On that particular Monday, his fingers were adorned with bejeweled gold rings that once belonged to his father and grandfather. A turquoise stone he’d procured in New Mexico hung on a leather cord around his neck, trailing between the V-neck of his unbuttoned black henley.
Fichtner isn’t exactly comfortable talking about himself or his craft, but, unlike many of the calculating characters he’s played, he exudes a casual warmth. He’s “William” in credit only. To everyone else, he’s simply “Bill” or “Billy.”
His latest scene-stealing role is on “Talamasca,” which premiered Sunday on AMC and AMC+. It centers on a secretive society that tracks supernatural beings, and Fichtner plays the show’s chief antagonist, an enigmatic vampire named Jasper who appears in only teasing glimpses until about halfway through the six-episode season. Then, Jasper gets to let loose, throwing back test-tube vials of blood like they’re shots of top-shelf tequila and toying with the show’s young lead (Nicholas Denton).
Fichtner has often played an adversary of some kind. Just don’t call him a villain.
“I don’t look at any part like it’s a villain; I don’t know how you play that,” he said as he stirred his latte. “Even people that are tough people, ‘bad people,’ I don’t think they’re bad people. They have their own set of circumstances.”
Fichtner’s circumstances involved growing up in the suburbs of Buffalo, N.Y., with four sisters. His mother was a nurse and his father was a mechanic in the U.S. Air Force. In high school, Fichtner had been a hybrid “freak-jock-stoner,” he said, and he’d never even attended a school play, let alone acted in one.
When he got to SUNY Brockport, he majored in criminal justice with halfhearted plans to go into law enforcement. (He has played many lawmen but doesn’t see any connection: “You don’t play a cop because it’s a cop; you play a cop because who’s the guy? That’s what I care about.”) But in order to graduate, he needed to complete a requisite fine-arts course.
So, he chose an improv class, without being entirely sure what improv was, because it met later in the day. Once inside the classroom, however, Fichtner found the exercises “uplifting,” and his improv professor saw untapped potential.
Encouraged, he took a few more theater classes and spent the summer after graduation reading the industry guidebook “How to Be a Working Actor” “over and over and over,” until he auditioned and got into the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City.
Many of his peers had extensive performance backgrounds, and Fichtner said he “was always so intimidated.” He added, “I felt like everyone had the perfect language to talk about ‘my motivation.’ I wanted to go to the Drama Book Shop and say ‘Can I buy some method here?’”
He managed to procure an agent, but the real work didn’t come quickly. He spent years waiting tables and bartending, among other jobs to make ends meet, until, finally, he landed a part in an Off Broadway play. A few TV commercials materialized, then some single-episode parts and, after nearly a decade of hustling, a recurring role on the soap opera “As the World Turns.”
It wasn’t until he was 36 that he finally scored what he considers his first substantial film role, playing a slimy club owner in Steven Soderbergh’s “The Underneath,” in 1995.
He still recoils at the mention of actor-y terms like “method” and “motivation.” His method isn’t any one thing, he insists. He holes up in what he terms the “coolest freaking man cave” (a converted tool shop behind his house). He strolls wintry streets in New York. He makes soundtracks for his characters.
But while Fichtner describes his role prep in nonchalant terms, his good friend and “Black Hawk Down” co-star Kim Coates said he’s watched the actor tackle each part with laser focus.
To play a blind scientist in the 1997 sci-fi film “Contact,” for instance, Fichtner sought advice on how his character would likely move through the world — if he’d use a cane or a guide dog or both — at the Jewish Guild for the Blind in Manhattan and sat in his apartment blindfolded for an hour each day. While other “Black Hawk Down” actors took around 20 minutes to consult with an on-set stylist about their military haircuts, Coates recalled that Fichtner spent a day and a half going over every last detail “to get his hair just right.”
“Billy’s process is as good as it gets,” Coates said. “He just doesn’t like talking about it.”
Does he mind being labeled a character actor? “I’m fine with that,” Fichtner said. “I don’t want to play me. I’m not sure how exciting that would be.”
Despite enduring that prolonged fallow period in his 20s and early 30s, he said he’s turned down more roles than he’s taken.
“I was pickier and choosier at times than I maybe should have been,” he said. “But I can’t help it if I don’t feel it.”
He’s developed a Zen approach to his life and career: He doesn’t pay attention to social media, and he doesn’t look back with regrets on any roles he missed out on. “It’s another actor that got a job, God bless him,” he said. His focus at the moment is on the kitchen renovation he and his wife, the actress Kymberly Kalil, are undertaking and whether his beloved Buffalo Bills can pull off a Super Bowl run.
In recent years, he has dabbled in writing and directing, and he’ll next appear in Season 2 of “Beef” and on the Apple TV thriller series “Lucky.” Many of his past projects have also found new fans in the streaming era.
When he goes to the Y.M.C.A. to swim laps, he’s amazed that teenage boys approach him to tell him how much they love “Prison Break,” which ended its original run in 2009. (Fichtner is not currently involved in Hulu’s “Prison Break” reboot, which follows a new group of characters. There’s also a “Heat” sequel in the works, but Fichtner’s character died in the first film.)
As our conversation wound down and he polished off a second latte, Fichtner reflected on getting older, though he said he’s not quite at “bucket list” age.
“I don’t think there’s any sort of missing piece or anything I haven’t yet explored — I just don’t look at it that way,” he said. “I don’t feel like I’m looking for something I haven’t found.”
Then, he dashed home to catch the Bills game.
The post William Fichtner Really Is That Guy appeared first on New York Times.
