Joel David Moore

Moore studied acting in Portland before moving to Los Angeles, and broke through as Owen in DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story in 2004, a performance that is essentially anxiety with a haircut. The mid-2000s run that followed sits in a specific comic register: J.P. in Grandma's Boy, Bardo in Art School Confidential, Ben in the slasher Hatchet. Tall, gangling and permanently one social step behind, he built a career out of playing the man who reacts.

Then James Cameron cast him as Norm Spellman in Avatar and the career took an unusual shape. Norm is the scientist standing beside the hero, the audience surrogate who explains things and gets left behind, and it is the sort of part most actors do once. Moore has now played him in Avatar, The Way of Water and Fire and Ash, with a fourth film scheduled for 2029, which means a supporting character actor holds a guaranteed seat on one of the biggest film series in production for twenty years running.

Between the sequels he has kept up a steady flow of genre and independent work, plus years on Bones as Colin Fisher, the aggressively morbid intern. Savages and The Guest gave him small parts in better films. He played Joey Ramone in CBGB. He directs as well as acts, which these credits do not show, and the character-actor pattern holds throughout: he is at his best when a scene needs somebody to puncture it rather than carry it.