Jay Benedict
Jay Benedict is an actor, born 1951.
British television needed Americans, and for four decades Jay Benedict was one of the ones it called. Born in Burbank in 1951, he moved to Europe with his family as a child and spent essentially his whole working life in England, cast again and again as the American in the room: the visiting officer, the embassy man, the loud voice at the party.
The television work is what he is remembered for. He played Doug Hamilton in Emmerdale and John Kieffer in two episodes of Foyle's War, and one piece of trivia has outlived most of his credits: he is Russ Jorden, Newt's father, in the extended cut of Aliens, a role that does not exist in the version most people saw in cinemas. His stage credits included The Rocky Horror Show on the King's Road in the early 1970s and a Zeffirelli production of Filumena opposite Pierce Brosnan, in Brosnan's first stage role.
The film list is the honest record of a jobbing career. Victor/Victoria in 1982, Hanover Street, The Dirty Dozen: The Next Mission, Spikey in The Russia House, Shining Through, Darryl Zanuck in RKO 281, Double Team, Saving Grace, Page Eight, the French-produced Two Is a Family and Madame, and an aggrieved rich twit in The Dark Knight Rises. Dozens of parts, most of them a scene long, several of them in films that will outlive everyone in them. He worked steadily until his death in 2020.
Movies (27)
- The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
- Double Team (1997)
- I.T. (2016)
- Two Is a Family (2016)
- Victor/Victoria (1982)
- Page Eight (2011)
- Hanover Street (1979)
- Saving Grace (2000)
- The 100 Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared (2013)
- The Russia House (1990)
- Shining Through (1992)
- The Maidens' Conspiracy (2006)
- Hostile (2018)
- Moonwalkers (2015)
- Secret Agents (2004)
- RKO 281 (1999)
- Madame (2017)
- Death Train (1993)
- The Dirty Dozen: Next Mission (1985)
- Only Love (1998)
- Mosquito Man (2005)
- The Apocalypse Code (2007)
- Carmen (2003)
- The Patriots (1994)
- Nature Unleashed: Earthquake (2005)
- The Gamechangers (2015)
- Where Is Parsifal? (1984)
TV (3)
Where to start with Jay Benedict
Foyle's War is the best place to meet him. Two episodes, a decent part, and a series that gives its guest actors room to be people rather than plot mechanics.
For film, The Russia House is the pick: a le Carre adaptation with a deep bench of character actors, which is exactly the environment he was built for. Victor/Victoria is the earliest one worth your time, RKO 281 puts him in a room playing Darryl Zanuck, and Page Eight is the late-career British spy drama that suits him. If you want the famous credit, The Dark Knight Rises has him briefly and memorably irritated. Moonwalkers is the wild card, a faked-moon-landing farce much stranger than its premise sounds. Aliens fans should hunt down the extended cut for the role this catalogue does not carry.