Paul Guilfoyle

Paul Guilfoyle is the sort of character actor whose face arrives in a scene carrying a job title. Born in Boston in 1949, he spent the late 1980s and the 1990s as one of the most reliably employed supporting men in American film: Howard the Duck, Beverly Hills Cop II and Wall Street inside two years, and then a mid-decade stretch where he seems to be in everything. Quiz Show, Little Odessa, Mrs. Doubtfire, Ransom, Striptease, Amistad, Air Force One, Primary Colors, and L.A. Confidential, where he plays the gangster Mickey Cohen in a handful of lines.

The skill is specific and undervalued. He plays functionaries, cops, lawyers, aides, chiefs of staff, and he makes procedure sound like it costs the speaker something. He is never the smartest person in the scene and never a fool, which is a narrower target than it sounds, and it is why directors kept casting him opposite stars who needed someone credible to push against.

Then television took him. He played Captain Jim Brass on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation from 2000 to 2014, came back for the 2015 finale and later for two episodes of CSI: Vegas. Fourteen years inside one procedural usually ends a film career. His kept going in smaller and better things: Session 9, Spotlight, The Good House, Don't Look Up, Arthur the King.