Tony Shalhoub
Tony Shalhoub is an actor, born 1953.
Tony Shalhoub is Lebanese-American, from Green Bay, and spent the first stretch of his screen career as the actor you recognised without being able to name. Wings gave him Antonio Scarpacci, the cab driver. Barton Fink and The Man Who Wasn't There gave him two of the oddest supporting turns of their decades, one a studio shark speaking entirely in italics, the other a lawyer who talks his way around a case. Men in Black had him play an alien whose head grows back, and then had him do it again.
Monk arrived in 2002 and handed him a lead built out of tics. Adrian Monk could easily have been an insult, a detective defined by his phobias, and Shalhoub kept finding the grief underneath the counting. He won three Emmys and a Golden Globe for it, and the show lasted because an actor was doing something delicate inside a very broad format.
The later career has been steady and unusually well chosen. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel gave him Abe Weissman, a father losing his grip on his daughter and his decade at the same speed, and won him a supporting Emmy and a Screen Actors Guild award. He has a Tony as well, which is the part of the CV people forget. Across five decades he has been the small consistent thing that keeps a comedy honest, and there is a case that his best film work is still the quietest.
Movies (53)
- Cars (2006)
- Cars 2 (2011)
- Play Dirty (2025)
- Cars 3 (2017)
- Men in Black (1997)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
- Men in Black II (2002)
- Thir13en Ghosts (2001)
- Gattaca (1997)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016)
- 1408 (2007)
- Spy Kids (2001)
- Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003)
- Pain & Gain (2013)
- Galaxy Quest (1999)
- I.Q. (1994)
- Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams (2002)
- The Siege (1998)
- Rumble (2021)
- Flamin' Hot (2023)
- Paulie (1998)
- The Assignment (2016)
- Too Big to Fail (2011)
- The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)
- Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993)
- A Civil Action (1998)
- Impostor (2001)
- Barton Fink (1991)
- Primary Colors (1998)
- Quick Change (1990)
TV (12)
Where to start with Tony Shalhoub
Most people should start on Monk, though not for the reason the marketing gave. The case of the week is disposable; the show works because Shalhoub plays a man whose compulsions are a form of mourning. Two episodes and the tone lands.
For the character actor underneath, Big Night is the finest film he has appeared in, a quiet story about two brothers and a failing restaurant, and the most he has ever been given to play. Barton Fink and The Man Who Wasn't There show the range at its oddest. Galaxy Quest is the comedy pick, where he plays a crew member so relaxed he appears to be in a different film entirely. 1408 proves he can anchor genre material with a straight face.
Monk and the television work
Eight seasons as a detective whose compulsions are both the method and the illness, and three Emmys for it. Mrs Maisel gave him a second long-running role two decades later, playing a father who is baffled by his own daughter.
The Coen brothers and the dramatic films
Two Coen pictures and a run of serious supporting work. Big Night is the best thing on his record, a chef who refuses to serve what the customers want, and the final scene is famously a single unbroken take.
The family franchises
Three Spy Kids films and two Men in Black, both of which use him as a small strange creature under prosthetics. Jeebs regrows his head every time it is shot off, which is a lot of makeup for one joke.
The voice work
Luigi across the Cars films is the one children know, an Italian tyre dealer with an unreasonable devotion to Ferrari. Splinter in the Turtles films is the other substantial voice role.