Xander Berkeley

Xander Berkeley was born in Brooklyn in 1955 to a painter father and a teacher mother. The future actor spent his childhood in New Jersey and became passionate about the theater. He continued his studies at Hampshire College before starting to shine on the boards of his city.

An agent notices him while performing in Reynold Price's play Early Dark and urges him to leave for Hollywood to develop his talent there. The comedian runs in the early 80s and gets small roles in popular TV series of the time such as MASH, Remington Steele, The Incredible Hulk, The All Risks Agency, Deux copics à Miami or LA Takedown, TV movie which will give the cult Heat in 1995 (Xander will also make an appearance there in the role of Ralph).

At the same time, Xander made his film debut in the mid-80s with Volunteers alongside Tom Hanks, Susie and the Baker Boys with Jeff Bridges or Private Affair with Richard Gere. The actor will continue for many years to play supporting roles on the big screen as on television. He thus crossed the 90s by playing in many successful feature films such as La Relève by Clint Eastwood. He is for example the father-in-law of John Connor in Terminator 2, Harvey Preston in Billy Bathgate alongside Dustin Hoffman, Captain Whitaker in Men of honor where he gives the reply to Tom Cruise or Trevor Lyle in the film. cult horror Candyman.

Among his other notable supporting roles, we can cite that of Dr. Hodge in the terrifying 8 ^th episode of the first season of The X-Files titled Project Arctic. He also appeared in Steven Spielberg's Amistad, Welcome to Gattaca, Andrew Niccol's SF masterpiece, Air Force One starring Harrison Ford or Shanghai Kid where he made life tough on Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson in the role. by marshall Nathan Van Cleef.

The actor, at ease in all registers, saw his career take a decisive turn in 2001. He was indeed hired to lend his features to the boss of the anti-terrorist cell, George Mason, in the series 24 heures chrono , which quickly became a huge success. The 2000s will be very fruitful for Xander Berkeley who will see his roles gradually take on importance to allow him to come out of the shadows and the shackles of second knives of which he seemed a prisoner.

He is illustrated in particular in CSI season 4 in the uniform of Sheriff Rory Atwater before camping another Sheriff, Thomas McAllister (aka John the Red), in The Mentalist. This character becomes a memorable television villain, the main enemy of Patrick Jane aka Simon Baker. Xander played this character between 2008 and 2013. The actor also worked in the Criminal Minds, Medium, Nikita or Being Human series. In the cinema, he still shines in many different genres: the thriller with La Faille alongside Anthony Hopkins, the action film with Taken or Kick-Ass or the drama with The Josey Aimes affair in which he gives the reply to Charlize Theron.

Recently, the actor was part of the castings of the series Aquarius with David Duchovny, which tells the hunt for Charles Manson, 12 Monkeys, adapted from the film of Terry Gilliam, Zoo, Jericho or Salem. In the dark rooms, we could see him in Transcendence, the SF thriller with Johnny Depp or Premonitions, a fantastic thriller where he finds Anthony Hopkins again after The Fault. In 2015, his career is about to take a new turn. Indeed, the native of Brooklyn will play a charismatic villain in season 6 of The Walking Dead; the character is portrayed as a man with an oversized ego and a highly developed survival instinct. It is rumored that this role could become recurring for the continuation of the adventures of Rick and his band in season 7.

Vincent Formica