Kevin Durand
Kevin Durand is an actor, born 1974.
Durand came out of Thunder Bay, Ontario, and into the 2000s as a physical presence first: big, loud and cast accordingly. The early run is henchmen and heavies, from Carlos in The Butterfly Effect to Jeeves Tremor in Smokin' Aces, Zipacna on Stargate SG-1, Joshua on Dark Angel and Martin Keamy on Lost, which is the one that made casting directors pay attention.
What separates him from other actors of that size is that he plays comedy inside menace. Keamy, Tremor and the Blob in X-Men Origins: Wolverine are all funny, and the funniness is what makes them frightening, because these are men enjoying themselves at work. He is also a precise actor, which is less common in the type, and it is why he keeps turning up in one-scene prestige parts such as Fruitvale Station and Cosmopolis.
Two things reshaped the career. The Strain handed him a lead in Vasiliy Fet, a rat exterminator recruited into a vampire war, and he played it with a warmth nothing had previously asked of him. Then Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes gave him Proximus Caesar under performance capture, a role that is nothing but voice, rhythm and eye line, and it is the best work he has done. He also holds a Genie nomination for Citizen Gangster, which is the sort of credit that tends to disappear under a filmography this size.
Movies (37)
- Real Steel (2011)
- Ready or Not: Here I Come (2026)
- Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)
- The Naked Gun (2025)
- Abigail (2024)
- The Butterfly Effect (2004)
- Legion (2010)
- I Am Number Four (2011)
- The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013)
- Noah (2014)
- Robin Hood (2010)
- Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)
- Smokin' Aces (2006)
- Clown in a Cornfield (2025)
- 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
- Walking Tall (2004)
- Big Momma's House 2 (2006)
- Wild Hogs (2007)
- The Captive (2014)
- Primal (2019)
- Dangerous (2021)
- Devil's Knot (2013)
- Winter's Tale (2014)
- Fruitvale Station (2013)
- Cosmopolis (2012)
- K-9: P.I. (2002)
- Mystery, Alaska (1999)
- Winged Creatures (2009)
- Tragedy Girls (2017)
- Take Point (2018)
TV (15)
Where to start with Kevin Durand
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is the best thing he has done and a strange place to begin, since you never see his face. Proximus Caesar is a performance-capture role built out of rhythm and eye contact, a tyrant who is charming right up until he is not, and it reframes everything else. Follow it with The Strain, where his run as Vasiliy Fet gave him a leading-man warmth nobody had thought to ask for.
Of the earlier work, Smokin' Aces is the one that got him noticed, X-Men Origins: Wolverine is the big-budget version of the same idea and much worse, and 3:10 to Yuma puts him in a very good Western in a very small part. Fruitvale Station shows the restraint. Abigail and Legion are the horror entries, one sharp and one silly.
The Strain and television
Vasiliy Fet in The Strain is the best thing he has done and the least like the rest of the career, a warm and funny exterminator in a show about vampires. The other television leans back on the menace.
The blockbuster heavies
Twenty years of being cast for the height. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes finally gave him a lead, under motion capture and unrecognisable, and it is the most any film has asked him to carry.
The good small parts
The films where a director noticed there was an actor inside the frame. Fruitvale Station is the hardest of them, Smokin' Aces is the one people quote, and Cosmopolis is the strangest thing on the list.