Josh Lucas? (He’s in his mid-30’s, often plays untrustworthy jerks, and is rather, if not unanimously, good-looking. He’s also well-known compared to a lot of the others mentioned in this thread.)
Dammit, you didn’t offer help in exactly the right way!
Okay, just a couple of shots in the dark, but perhaps it is Peter Sarsgaard? My first guess from your TV list was David Boreanaz (sp?) but you probably would have figured him out by now. Maybe it was Bill Campbell?
Thought #1: it must be an exclusive TV actor, because I know my cinema and my character actors and they have been played out. Don’t know my TV well, though.
Thought #2: he’s remembering several actors and confabulating them into one, thus making him an entertainment version of 14 g of t in a rt bt.
Lock the thread, before husbands start divorcing wives over the obsession.
This made me think of Matt Dillon in Wild Things.
pbbth said:
Sarsgaard sounds like a good guess. Jarhead has been playing on HBO the last few weeks. Also he played the student Alfred Kinsey diddles around with in Kinsey.
Sorry to report that since my last post yesterday afternoon, that none of the attempts to name this actor have been close. But thanks to:
WOOKINPANUB for Alan Cumming
AuntiePam for Luke Perry
pinkfreud for Martin Donovan
Wile E for Craig Bierko
The Scrivener for Josh Lucas
pbbth for Peter Sarsgaard, David Boreanaz, and Bill Campbell
AudreyK for Matt Dillon
A couple of side notes:
Sampiro asked: “Know of anybody he’s acted with?”
I have been hesitant to list any other potential costars for fear I might muddy the water even worse than I did in the OP, which was vague in spite of my efforts to be as descriptive as I could. I see that the attempt to identify types of roles by mentioning that he might have been involved in some shape-shifting parts has sent several people down that alley – I can’t vouch for his ever having done such a role, but I can visualize that type of role for him. I can as easily visualize him holding some younger person at gunpoint or knifepoint in a kidnapping type of situation.
But I can’t see another actor clearly enough in my mind’s eye to add that actor to the confusion.
Johnny Hildo said:
I can sympathize with these sentiments because I was one of the ones sucked into the “14 g of t in a rt bt” thing a while back. But I can assure you that this actor exists and has done some movies that made it to the big screen (even if he has been a TV actor for a number of roles).
Overnight I tried to search through lists of movies I have watched this past few weeks, all with no help. And as hard as I try to see his face the more I see a blending of Linus Roache and Jake Weber. The face that keeps coming back most often is the one of Roache’s in the sniper situation in Shot Through the Heart (1998) (TV) or when he was “a friendly man” in The Forgotten (2004). But I can assure you that this is just the best resemblance I can come up with and that if you add Jake Weber’s hair and face shape to those pictures of Roache, then you’ll be seeing the face I’m trying to identify. This guys eyes are a dominant feature, too.
I really appreciate the help all of you are being. This mystery must be solved for all our sakes!
Not Cole Hauser.
I’m sorry to have missed responding to this post when I tried to list all the posts that had come in since my last one yesterday. I also failed to recognize:
Wile E for William Mapother
and
Chanteuse for Doug Hutchison
Sorry for the oversights.
In an act of desperation I nominate Norman Reedus
Sorry. Too desperate. Not the guy.
I’ve been meaning to mention something that my wife and I share that not very many others that I know personally do. It’s that we seem to see the same sorts of resemblances in other faces. It’s almost a secret code between us. We can just say a name or (as often as not) two or three names when we detect a resemblance and the other will just say something like “yes” in response. My kids have a similar ability to see things in faces but not to the degree my wife and I do.
It’s not restricted to gender either. I can just as easily see features of Drew Barrymore fused with Joe Mantegna as I can those of Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro. It’s more to do with being able to extract one person’s eyebrows, another’s nose, and yet another’s mouth and chin. Head shapes, hair characteristics, yadda yadda yadda.
I say all this to try to stress that the Linus Roache/Jake Weber fusion is as good as I have been able to do in identifying this man. And unless the person you’re seeing has at least some features in common with these two (and perhaps some others who haven’t been mentioned so far) the other aspects of their appearance and perhaps roles that I may have hinted at are of less likelihood to be a hit.
Please try not to focus too much on the shape-shifting alien thing. I will be surprised to learn he’s done any such thing. And if that’s all you’re zooming in on, your actor is most likely not the guy.
Just trying to be as helpful as I can. I know it’s damn little to go on. I’d hate to be one of those crime artists who has to generate a face from descriptions. Not at all a simple thing, is it?
Kim Coates? The guy from Innocent Blood who said “I’m gonna eat your face like a chicken”?
Love your Username! Coates is a little too hard looking to be the guy. He’s quite convincing as a heavy, I will admit, and I have enjoyed his work. But the guy I’m after has softer features and is much less imposing.
Sam Robards? He’s 45 and done both TV and film without ever becoming really famous… He’s probably too blond-ish to be your guy, but hair can be dyed for a job.
Please advise on the hair. Straight, wavy, curly? How short or long? Gelled or styled, or natural?
I agree with some other posters to this thread – this question is driving me nuts! 
Probably too well known, but could it be Dylan Baker? http://www.hbo.com/films/laramie/img/photo_cast_dylan.jpg
Not Sam Robards. Also, nobody on the list at Wikipedia’s List of character actors for whom images were available.
As for the hair: brownish, straight, perhaps thinning in front but otherwise full.
Roundish or oval face, maybe even squarish, but not thin.
Even if he hasn’t done such a role (and I’m not saying he has or hasn’t) I could see him in drag as a convincing female, but that’s not that big a statement since even Jack Lemmon got passed off as a woman in Some Like It Hot and Gene Hackman passed in The Bird Cage.
I realize this is disturbing as a task. Is there any other link to faces in the movies and on TV? I need a book of mug shots to go through.
Try this: first look at this picture ofLinus Roache then superimpose in your mind this picture of Jake Weber and let those two images merge until you see another actor who looks like that. There may be other similar faces but that’s the best I can come up with now.
Sorry, but no. Baker’s too stiff looking.
That made me think of Henry Ian Cusick: Henry Ian Cusick - IMDb
He was on 24 last year as Theo Stoller, and is Desmond on Lost. You didn’t mention watching Lost, so maybe he’s not so familiar.
Sorry, but no hits. Thanks for the tries.
As much as I am afraid of giving false clues or leading you nice people down further blind alleys let me try to add a bit more to the types of roles I keep seeing snatches of as I try to get more clues for you.
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I’m seeing him in a desperate mood, yelling to somebody off-camera (or maybe into a phone) that he’s about to do something drastic like blow something up or hurt somebody he’s holding hostage
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I see him in a lab coat or some uniform of that sort
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He’s furtively going through some papers on a desk as he’s racing the clock to undo something bad
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There’s some strong woman (maybe a Sigourney Weaver type) involved in his actions, maybe as a hostage or as somebody who’s trying to catch him
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He’s panicking over something
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There’s some young woman, girl even, he’s messing with, maybe as a therapist or advisor, but he’s meaning her harm
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He’s involved in some spying or espionage activity
I’m almost certain that some of these images in my mind may relate to other people – and not to him. But those are the kinds of scenes (or snatches thereof) that I keep seeing when I try to think what I’ve seen him in.
I’m not familiar with Cusick’s work, can’t really remember him from 24, but he’s too dark. I don’t remember my guy with facial hair, either. If he has any it’s not as significant as his eyes.